Why relocating wild animals is rife with complications

Moving large animals around is a seductive idea in conservation. If there are plenty of animals in one place and too few in another, moving some between the two seems an obvious solution. Sometimes it is. But with animals as large, mobile and socially complicated as elephants and rhinos, the move itself can turn out to be the straightforward part.

This autumn, 12 rhinos are due to be moved from a well-established reserve in North West Province in South Africa to another protected area, in the Waterberg region, as part of efforts to establish and strengthen secure rhino populations. I am involved with the conservation work around the move, including research that will follow what happens after the rhinos arrive.

But there are lessons from past projects that we have to bear in mind. In 2022, 263 elephants were moved around 350km from Liwonde National Park in Malawi to another park in Malawi, Kasungu National Park. Decades of poaching had severely depleted Kasungu’s elephants, while successful protection in Liwonde had allowed its population to grow. With Malawi’s protected areas increasingly isolated from one another, moving elephants from a relatively dense population to a much larger park with relatively few elephants made good sense.

What happened after release was much messier. Elephants...

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