The pandemic hit a number of industries in 2020, for Zimbabwe it’s tourism is looking to fix this. Their solution is to start selling rights to shoot 500 elephants this year.
Environmental and human rights groups are already in a tizzy about this, calling this solution, “appalling.” Surely that doesn’t shock anyone.
This type of tourism doesn’t come cheap, expect to pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $50k for this hunt. With a higher price tag, means less people are traveling, but bringing more revenue, less flights for those caring about the environment.
Tinashe Farawo, a spokesman for the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Authority had this to say to CNN:
We eat what we kill. We have a budget of about $25 million for our operations which is raised — partly — through sports hunting, but you know tourism is as good as dead at the moment due to the coronavirus pandemic
This isn’t the first African nation in the region to start publicizing these options. Namibia has started offering 170 “high value” elephant hunts as a result they revenue loss last year.
Watch the first episode from Season 7 of Giving Back TV for some beautiful footage from Africa.
