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Sad day for Bumi elephants
Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force (ZCTF)
April 20, 2005

See previous report

Despite all our efforts to prevent the Bumi elephants from being shot, we could not have predicted that the guardians of the wildlife, National Parks, would go in and shoot them.

We have just received a report that National Parks were instructed to shoot elephants in the Omay hunting area the day before Independence to provide meat for the celebrations. The elephants in the Omay are wild, unlike the Bumi elephants, which means it would have taken some time to track down and shoot them. The National Parks scouts were running out of time so they went to the Bumi foreshore to shoot four of the Bumi elephants which were much easier targets.

The first to be shot was a young cow and immediately, a long tusked female, the matriarch, charged and was also shot. The herd left but returned later to visit their fallen herd members, especially the matriarch as they had been left without a leader. Another cow was then shot at the end of the Bumi airstrip. We have not yet received details about the fourth elephant.

Normally, it is quite common to see up to 50 elephants on a game drive in Bumi and it is possible for a vehicle to get as close as 3 metres to them but the day after the killings, there was not a single elephant in sight. A guide climbed to the top of a high kopje and saw all the elephants heading for the Border River where they will fall prey to the professional hunters in the Omay.

It is a great shame and embarrassment for Zimbabwe that 2 foreign tourists witnessed the killings.

More elephant meat for celebrations
We received another report about elephants being shot to supply meat for the Independence Celebrations.

In Urungwe, 5 elephants were seen close to a farming area so the Urungwe Rural Council instructed a farmer to shoot them. He obliged and the meat was used for the Independence Celebrations.

These are two cases we have heard about - we wonder how many animals were killed in the name of Zimbabwean Independence Day that we haven't heard about.

Visit the ZCTF fact sheet

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