Young, old and sick elephants who cannot travel long distances to find water are particularly affected by drought. An average-sized elephant needs about 200 liters of water a day, Tinashe Farawu, spokeswoman for the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, told ABC News.
Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe’s largest national park, is home to approximately 45,000 elephants. In 2019, more than 200 elephants died due to drought. The authorities now fear a repeat of this scenario. Park rangers remove the tusks of dead elephants to prevent poachers.
Climate change and the El Niño weather phenomenon are now being studied to determine the cause of extreme droughts. “El Niño makes an already bad situation worse,” Farao told ABC News.
During the El Niño climate phenomenon, cold seawater warms rapidly. This happens off the coast of South America. This warming of seawater has a major impact on the weather and causes a chain reaction around the world. We explain this in the video below:
The rainy season in Zimbabwe lasts from October to March. But this has changed in recent years and drought periods have become longer. As part of the fight against drought, one and a half million liters of water are pumped into the water holes in the national park every day. However, at certain periods, this seems to be nothing more than a drop in the ocean.
