Ban Killing Elephants To Feed Prisoners In Zimbabwe

  • by: Ruth McD
  • recipient: Zimbabwe Government, President of the United States, U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives

PRISONERS in the Zimbabwe's overcrowded jails may soon be fed with elephant meat if a proposal by the Justice and Legal Affairs ministry to curb the shortage of protein in prisons is accepted by government. 

The ministry is proposing the culling of the Cover-populated elephants and supply the meat to prisons where inmates have had meals without meat for years. The country's prison dietary requirements are said to be far below international standards and what is required by the law. Inmates alternate sadza with cabbages or beans as their main meal.

Unconfirmed reports were that prisoners had gone for four years without meat.

In an interview last week, Deputy Minister of Justice Obert Gutu said while things have slightly improved in the prisons and prisoners are getting three meals a day, there were still limitations in terms of the dietary requirements.

The meals do not meet the approved dietary standards as stipulated by the law. In one of our meetings it was discussed extensively how the problem could be solved, said Gutu. It was at this meeting that the ministry and the Prison Services Commission considered elephant meat as an option. It was agreed that since experts say that there is an overpopulation of elephants in the country why not get some of the elephants and give them to prisoners as meat, since we don't have the meat neither do we have the money to buy it. It was agreed to say let us get into a deal with relevant authorities and arrange something.

Parks and Wildlife Management Authority spokesperson Caroline Washaya-Moyo told the Zimbabwe Independent this week that they had not received any communication from the Ministry of Justice regarding the supply of elephant meat to prisoners.

However, the move to supply prisons with elephant meat was not welcomed by wildlife activists.

Johnny Rodrigues of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force slammed the proposal, arguing that the move would result in the extinction of elephants and in the long result in the killing of the tourism industry.

He said: This is the most dangerous thing that they will be doing if approved. One of the biggest foreign currency earners in the country is tourism. How then can we steal from our own heritage? Why are we selling our future heritage down the drain? We should be looking after these intelligent animals so that they are not killed. Government should actually be putting in harsh laws to protect these animals.

Rodrigues said despite claims by authorities that there were 100 000 elephants in the country, the number had gone down to less than 35 000.

Elephants are one of the most intelligent, majestic, and beloved animals on the planet, and they may soon be filling the stomachs of convicted criminals. For the last four years, inmates housed in Zimbabwe's overcrowded prisons in have been served a vegetarian diet, but a new government proposal aims to put meat back on the menu; Pachyderm meat, to be exact. 

The Zimbabwean prison system is overcrowded and underfunded, making it difficult to feed its 13,000 incarcerated criminals more than the most basic of dishes. According to reports, it's been several years since the inmates have had any meat in their diets. Instead they've subsisted on meals of mainly beans and cabbage, but that soon may change. 

At a recent meeting to discuss the inmates' dietary deficiency, officials from Zimbabwe's Justice Ministry believe they have found a perfect solution for the prisons' bland cafeteria offerings that doesn't drain the nation's monetary wealth -- just its natural ones. 

It was at this meeting that the ministry and the Prison Services Commission considered elephant meat as an option." Deputy Minister of Justice Obert Gutu told The Zimbabwe Independent. 

"It was agreed that since experts say that there is an overpopulation of elephants in the country why not get some of the elephants and give them to prisoners as meat, since we don't have the meat neither do we have the money to buy it. It was agreed to say let's get into a deal with relevant authorities and arrange something." 

Officials pressing for the slaughter of elephants for food cite claims that there are some 100,000 of the animals in the country, but conservation specialists believe that number is grossly inflated. Johnny Rodrigues, from the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, says there are more likely less than 35,000 elephants there, and that a state-sponsored cull would be misguided from the start. 

"One of the biggest foreign currency earners in the country is tourism. How then can we steal from our own heritage? Why are we selling our future heritage down the drain? We should be looking after these intelligent animals so that they are not killed," Rodrigues told The Independent. 

To some Zimbabweans, elephants are considered pests for grazing on farmers' crops in a land where food supplies are often limited - a fact cited by GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons who faced an outpouring of criticism for gleefully killing one of them on video recently, though it is only recently that the animals have been considered a source of meat. Over the last decade, however, President Robert Mugabe has tried to popularize elephant meat by serving it to soldiers and at government ceremonies. 

Protect elephants from being killed and fed to Zimbabwean prisoners.

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