World's biggest elephant move starts
Copyright 2001 BBC News
October 4, 2001
The world's biggest elephant relocation programme begins on Thursday with the transport of the first of more than 1,000 elephants from South Africa to Mozambique.
Scientists working in South Africa's Kruger National Park say its 9,000 elephants are all it can take.
They are moving elephants over the border into Mozambique, where elephants were poached almost to extinction during the civil war.
The scheme will be overseen by former South African President Nelson Mandela and is part of a wider plan to establish the world's largest nature reserve.
The elephants will be tranquillised before being loaded with cranes into trucks and taken across the border.
The Kruger park borders Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
Border fences are being dismantled to restore traditional seasonal migration routes for wild animals across what will be the Gaza/Kruger/Gonarezhou Transfrontier Conservation Area.