In a project known as Operation Ark — because, as one environmental official put it, “The only person that has come close to doing something like this is Mr. Noah” — 1,000 elephants are being moved from South Africa’s Kruger National Park to a neighboring protected area in Mozambique. The relocation project will ease pressure on the park’s 9,000-plus elephants, as well as create ecotourism-related job opportunities in poverty-stricken Mozambique. The three-year project, which involves tranquilizing the elephants and then lifting them by crane into trucks for transport over the border, is beginning today. It is the first major initiative in the Gaza-Kruger-Gonarezhou Trans-Frontier Park, which straddles South Africa, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe, and is expected to open some time next year.
