Rare Video of Young Wild Elephants Being Captured in Zimbabwe for China

The Guardian newspaper has published rare footage of the secretive – yet legal – world of wild elephant capture in Zimbabwe.

In this footage, reportedly filmed in August in Hwange National Park, a young elephant can be seen being kicked and hit in an effort to get it to back into a truck.

According to the Guardian’s anonymous source the captors shoot tranquilliser guns from a helicopter… and when the young elephants fall, the chopper then dives down to scare away the rest of the herd which is trying to rescue its young. The young are tied up and put into trucks by officials at Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (Zimparks), said the Guardian.

In this incident it is alleged that 14 young elephants were captured… but a total of 20 to 30 were ordered, but because one of the choppers crashed less were captured. Experts say the elephants were aged between two and four years old.

The elephants are apparently headed for China, most probably for a zoo. The order was placed by a Chinese national according to the newspaper report.

The Guardian says more than 1,000 wild elephants from Africa and Asia have been captured and sold to zoos around the world, during the past 20 years.

Watch Young Wild Elephants being Captured in Zimbabwe

Read the full story on the Guardian:
www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/03/exclusive-footage-shows-young-elephants-being-captured-in-zimbabwe-for-chinese-zoos