DHAKA: Zimbabwean lawmakers urged the country to find a way of exporting a large number of elephants to avoid having to cull the animals, which they say are threatening communities neighboring the nation’s biggest game park.

Hwange National Park, which covers 14,651 square kilometers, has about 45,000 elephants and that population is growing by 5 percent a year.

That equates to three times the number the park in northwestern Zimbabwe can sustainably hold, the lawmakers said in a parliamentary report obtained by Bloomberg on Tuesday.

The elephants, which can eat 136 kilograms of food each a day, are destroying vegetation in the park and damaging the crops and livelihoods of neighboring communities, they said, reports The Straits Times.

BDST: 2122 HRS, APR 08, 2015
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