vision:

animals and people thriving together.

mission:

fresh thinking and bold action for animals, people and the place we call home.

animals and people thriving together

IFAW protects individual animals by rescuing animals in need, rehabilitating them back to health and safely releasing them back into safe and secure wild habitats.

We believe every individual animal counts and there is no better example of an IFAW project that marries animal welfare and conservation than the IFAW-Wild Is Life Elephant Rehabilitation Project. It’s Zimbabwe’s only project that rescues wild elephant calves orphaned due to poaching, human-wildlife conflict and natural disasters like droughts—the frequency and intensity of which are amplified by climate change—and then returns them to the wild.

At the purpose-built Zimbabwe Elephant Nursery (ZEN) in Harare, rescued calves receive intense round-the-clock care from full-time handlers. Sometimes they are just a few days old and sometimes they arrive severely injured—all are traumatized. The work to rehabilitate a rescued elephant calf can take up to 10 years, with great attention given to their behavioral and social needs.

More than 840 kilometers to the northwest, outside Victoria Falls, IFAW is funding the lease of a 345-square- kilometers (85,000-acres) habitat in the Panda Masuie Forest Reserve. The elephants come here when they are ready to learn to lead wild lives and are able to interact with the herds of elephants that move freely in the landscape.

Panda Masuie is in a network of protected areas in Zimbabwe that form part of the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area, which spans five countries. It is one of the world’s largest transfrontier conservation areas and includes Africa’s largest population of wild elephants. Elephants are the central focus of the work at Panda Masuie, but the project integrates activities that crosscut all of IFAW’s programs.

In FY21, four rescued and rehabilitated orphaned elephant calves successfully began living among wild elephant herds in Panda Masuie. Released elephants are tracked with collars to provide insight into their activities and monitor how well they are integrating into the wild. Placed at strategic sites, camera traps are giving us insights into the presence, diversity and distribution of wildlife that thrive and call Panda Masuie home, including two prides of lions, as well as many wild dogs, hyenas, leopards and other threatened species.

A grant from the International Union for Conservation of Nature, Save Our Species (IUCN SOS) has supported 16 forestry rangers and supervisors and trained eight Community Fence Attendants. On the Forest Reserve, four permanent ranger bases have been rehabilitated to enhance anti-poaching efforts for the protection of elephants and other wildlife.

The project also works closely with the neighboring Masuwe community and permanently employs 42 people, including fence attendants responsible for the upkeep of the 15-kilometer fence built in FY21 to protect four villages and crops.

IFAW is here to Re:solve the issues, find solutions and create a lasting impact that ensures animals and people thrive together.