© AP
The carcass of an Elephant lies on the edges of a sun baked pool that used to be a perennial water supply in Mana Pools National Park, Zimbabwe
The carcass of an Elephant lies on the edges of a sun baked pool that used to be a perennial water supply in Mana Pools National Park, Zimbabwe
Eventually park staff freed the trapped elephant, but it collapsed and died. Just yards (meters) away lay the carcass of a Cape buffalo that had also been pulled from the mud, but was attacked by hungry lions.
Elephants, zebras, hippos, impalas, buffaloes and many other wildlife are stressed by lack of food and water in Zimbabwe's Mana Pools National Park, whose very name comes from the four pools of water normally filled by the flooding Zambezi River each rainy season and where wildlife traditionally drink. The word "mana" means four in the Shona language.
At least 105 elephants have died in Zimbabwe's wildlife reserves, most of them in Mana and the larger Hwange National Park in the past two months, according to the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority. Many desperate animals are straying from Zimbabwe's parks into nearby communities in search of food and water.
Comment: Further south on the same day: Late spring snow blankets parts of Tasmania a week after bushfires raged