Over the course of three months, a devastating heat wave in Harare, Zimbabwe has taken the lives of seventy-seven elephants held in nature reserves. Extreme temperatures evaporated all three watering holes within the reserves, which as a result, took the lives of eighteen elephant calves and twenty-one adolescent elephants. Since September of 2011, temperatures in Zimbabwe have sky rocketed past their usual ninety degree weather to temperatures reaching over one hundred and five degrees.  The Hwange National Park has no year-round rivers and little natural surface water, making it dependent on wells supplying artificial watering holes called pans. An adult elephant needs nearly 50 gallons of water a day, but some watering holes have broken down because of scarce funding, leaving less water for the elephants to drink and to bathe in. Animal welfare groups have been trying to provide more resources for these animals, but poor funding has resulted in failing to maintain the proper supplies to keep these watering holes operating. Private conservation groups have even installed solar pumps and windmills to collect water from the wells. An estimated number of thirty thousand elephants live in the nature preserves of Zimbabwe along with lions, giraffes and other African wild life. The combined loss of antelopes, wild cats and elephants has caused a large problem in Zimbabwe as the heat makes the smell of the surrounding air unbearable from the carcasses. It is estimated that the seventy-seven elephants alone cost 1.5 million dollars in compensation value, which is the term used to describe money made off poaching or hunting an animal. Elephants are an endangered species as it is and the loss of these animals, big and small, is a tremendous loss to the world.