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Conservation Report
Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force (ZCTF)
June 17, 2004

Landmines used to kill hippos
Finding themselves severely understaffed and unable to cope with the high levels of poaching, National Parks enlisted the assistance of the army and airforce in an effort to protect the dwindling wildlife population.

It has now been reported that the army personnel have been illegally netting fish from the Zambezi River in Binga but the hippos in the river have been making life very difficult for them. They have been interfering with their carefully laid nets and thwarting their efforts to net fish.

They have, however found a solution to the problem. They have been laying anti-personnel landmines along the river bank and when the unsuspecting hippos come out of the water to browse, they are blown to smithereens if they are unfortunate enough to step on one of the mines.

In a country where the rule of law no longer applies, there is little point in reporting this disgusting behaviour to the authorities when the perpetrators are the authorities themselves.

Urgent need to cull elephants?
An article recently appeared in a Zimbabwean newspaper stating that there is an urgent need to cull elephants here because the overpopulation of elephants is adversely affecting the numbers of other species. The truth of the matter is that the intense poaching that has been going on for the past three years is responsible for the reduced numbers of smaller game, but it is easy enough to blame the elephants.

People who spend their lives studying elephants keep wondering where all these elephants are hiding. For the past seven months, tourists visiting Hwange National Park have been asking, "Where are all the elephants?" They hardly ever see one.

According to the experts, elephants don't multiply anywhere near as quickly as the pro-cull fanatics claim they do. Cynthia J Moss, author of "The Demography of an African Elephant Population in Amboseli, Kenya" states that in Amboseli National Park, the average population increase over 29 years was 2,2% per annum. Even when disregarding years affected by severe drought, this intimately known elephant population increased only at a rate of 3,75% per annum.

In Amboseli, proper counting was done over a 30 year period. There was no guess work and estimations as there is in Zimbabwe. The same elephants were not counted three or four times as they came repeatedly to drink at the water holes, as they are in Zimbabwe.

Peasants terrorized by wild animals
Peasants are appealing to the authorities to help them because wild animals are apparently destroying their crops, endangering their lives and making them even poorer than they were before.

Now that they have successfully infiltrated land that was previously wildlife habitat and stolen the game fences, there is nothing to keep the animals from roaming wherever they please. They have also extensively destroyed the vegetation leaving the animals no choice but to eat their crops.

Donation received
A kind person sent us a very nice donation by bank draft into our account in South Africa. There is nothing on the bank statement to say who or where it was from. All we know is that we received it on the 13th April. We would like to thank someone but we don't know who. If anyone sent a donation around that time, please let us know who you are.

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