This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: 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.
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 fall, 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 350 km (217 miles) 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 moved beyond the areas intended for them and conflict with people living around Kasungu intensified.
Crops and property were damaged and people were killed, although not all the deaths initially associated with the translocation involved relocated elephants. In 2025, lawyers representing people living around Kasungu in Malawi and neighboring Zambia began preparing legal action against the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), one of the organizations involved in the translocation. They allege that elephants have killed and injured people and damaged crops and property, and that local communities were not adequately protected or consulted.
IFAW strongly disputes the allegations. Whatever the legal outcome, it is clear that getting the elephants through the journey and established in Kasungu is only one measure of success. Whether that can happen without imposing unacceptable costs on the people already living around the park is another.
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