Official defends Noah’s Ark gift to North Korea

Officials in Zimbabwe’s National Parks and Wildlife Department have moved to defend President Robert Mugabe from a directive to send a ‘Noah’s Ark’ collection of wild animals to North Korean dictator Kim Jong II as a special gift. Last week it was reported Mugabe ordered that two of every animal species in the Hwange National Park be sent to North Korea.

However Vitalis Chadenga, the Director General for National Parks told the weekly Zimbabwe Standard newspaper that Mugabe was not involved in the controversial export.

“I can tell you that the president or even the minister is not involved in this, there is nothing like a presidential decree here at parks. But I can confirm that we received an application from the Democratic Republic of North Korea and we are still processing the application,” he said on Friday.

Chadenga insisted exports of wild animals to any country were governed by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) regulations.

“Of the animals which were requested only two elephants are endangered, the others like giraffes, zebras, warthogs are not endangered according to Cites,” he said. Chadenga said experts had been sent to the communist country to assess the new home for the animals and a report was being compiled.

Witnesses reported seeing capture and spotting teams, government vehicles towing cages and armed men at key watering holes with radios to call in the capture teams. The animals including two 18 month old baby elephants were being kept in quarantine in holding pens at Umtshibi camp in the park.

Elephant experts do not think the young animals will survive the trip separated from their mothers, and if they do survive they are likely to die in substandard North Korean zoos. Previously, two rhinos, a male known as Zimbo and a female called Zimba, given to the North Korean leader in the 1980s by Mugabe, died only a few months after relocation. Nehanda Radio

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