Jumbos for sale as parks seek funds

Zimbabwe is considering the sale of as many as 62 live elephants to China, France and the United Arab Emirates because Hwange National Park, the country's biggest game reserve, is not receiving adequate state funding.

Elephants can be sold for between $40,000 and $60,000 each, depending on age, and the revenue could help meet the $2.3 million annual running costs of the park in the northwest of the country, Director for Conservation at the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Authorities, Geoffreys Matipano, said on Thursday at Hwange.

"We are pursuing it aggressively as part of conservation efforts because we have plenty of elephants here," Matipano said. "We don't receive state funding and we rely on selling animals for our day-to-day operations, we are nowhere near what we want."