Reviving this African game reserve meant catching and transporting hundreds of wild animals

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CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Fifty years ago, Banhine National Park in Mozambique was a wildlife haven, teeming with herds of giraffe, buffalo and antelope. Then, it was stripped nearly bare by decades of civil war and unchecked poaching.

But a project is underway to restore Banhine to its former glory. Fences have been rebuilt and roads fixed. Finally, the trickiest part: bringing in the animals.

Private conservationists working with the government of Mozambique have moved nearly 400 animals — zebra, wildebeest and several species of antelope — by truck to Banhine. It's an attempt to restart a game reserve that is part of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, a series of reserves in Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe that form a wildlife corridor and a key conservation area.

The animals that will restock Banhine came from the Maputo National Park, itself a success story after a similar rehabilitation 15 years ago.

The process of getting the animals to Banhine was difficult and delicate. They were herded toward a large funnel-shaped enclosure with a helicopter. From there, they were guided up a ramp and into crates on the back of trucks for an 18-hour drive north. In all, the operation took 12 days.

The 385 animals were introduced into an 8-square-mile "sanctuary" that will be increased in size until they have acclimatized fully and are ready to roam the larger park, said Donald Sutton, head of operations and development at Banhine.

“We are contributing now to the biodiversity, the bigger biodiversity, of Banhine National Park,” he said. “Which hopefully means that slowly but surely as the number of animals here increase and we release them into the greater Banhine National Park system, our tourism will increase as well.”

Banhine is the latest reserve identified for rehabilitation in Mozambique, which once boasted some of the region's richest wildlife resources, only for reserves to be left desolate by poaching, drought and a bloody 15-year civil war between 1977 and 1992.

Peace Parks Foundation works to restore cross-border conservation areas in southern Africa and was involved in the animal relocation to Banhine.

It is also spearheading a project to restock Mozambique's Zinave National Park, another reserve that's part of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park and was stripped of wildlife over the years.

At Zinave, critically endangered black rhinos have been reintroduced after being moved from South Africa and are now the first black rhino population in Mozambique in decades.

Peace Parks says it has moved more than 18,000 animals to previously degraded conservation areas that are being revived.

Sutton said it took 2 1/2 years of “backbreaking work” to get Banhine ready for wildlife again but he now hopes to see herds migrating in and out of the reserve once more.

“I see the future of Banhine being what it was over 50 years ago,” he said.

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