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Ivan Carter's response to slaughter of baby elephant
Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force (ZCTF)
March 06, 2007

After circulating our last report about the slaughter of the baby elephant, we have received the following response from Ivan Carter:

Dear Kathi ,

Thanks for emailing me the story that has appeared in the Zimbabwe press. Sadly, once again it is a case of very poor reporting .

I was in fact hunting in the Omay in October last year, that is true and we came across Mr Dave Lemon .. Father of Graeme Lemon, a close friend of mine who used to guide in Matusadona. Who was, in fact walking from Kariba to Binga, we spent some time with him and in fact he was looking pretty tired and we gave him some of our supplies,
(we had come to the lake in search of elephant just to "spike camp " for a day as we had been hunting Omay south , some 80 miles south of where he was) to my knowledge he did not speak to my staff, but in fact spoke to me personally and having nothing at all to hide, we told him exactly what we were doing, hunting elephant . . . .we didn't in fact shoot an elephant bull on that safari as we didn't find one that could be considered to be of the trophy quality we were after.

As far as being threatened by hunters, Dave Lemon is a great guy, with a lot of bush experience and a real pleasure to be with in the bush, we had a very amicable chat and while I don't believe he is a hunter, he understands the economics of hunting and the reality of it. I simply don't believe that he was threatened by hunters and removed by parks . . . weather or not he had permits to be walking through Parks Estate or not may have been more to the point.

It must be remembered that the Omay is a communal area with several thousand residents, many of whom have firearms. It is an area where there is always has been and always will be a degree of poaching . . .

You will note from the photo that the baby elephant in question is not actually thin looking, however had possibly been photographed some distance from the herd as they spread out to feed on the foreshore . . . the second baby that was "speared to death" and butchered ..again there is no proof of what happened here, had that been killed by hunters it would most certainly not have been speared.

I had been hunting with a good friend and client from the states , I would like to point out that in Zimbabwe, in an area like Omay there is no hunting season per se , and seasons are governed by useability of roads, hence the Zambezi valley closing at certain times as the roads are impassable . Elephants have no breeding season and breed throughout the year and thus there is no fixed "season" per se.

We were it is true hunting elephant bulls and we had shot one cow at that time, in omay south, as the crow flies some 90 miles south and east of where we had met Dave Lemon . . . a long way for an orphaned elephant calf to travel. In addition, we had a videographer with us at all times, I would be more than happy to share video of the kill shot and scenario with anyone who would be interested to prove that we did not at any time shoot any cows that were with calf ,I was wearing a wireless mic and it is very clear how carefull we are to avoid shooting the "wrong" cow. We later shot a second cow ( also on film) . . . also in Omay South some 50 miles from where we met Dave Lemon. Of the two cows one cow was actually alone and the other was an old cow that had no calf though there were calves in the group . . . I actually have several occasions on film where we avoid certain elephants who are with calf . . .

In both cases the cows were shot with one shot at close range in the brain and so the disturbance factor to the remaining elephants was limited.

As professional hunter I believe we will always be dealing with this kind of reporting . . . when a trajedy is discovered in the bush such as this, often in a desperate attempt to understand who, why and when people jump to conclusions . . .

We need to stand together and ensure that our reputation remains at the high level it is , this kind of reporting can be damaging to the whole industry. I believe hunting elephant is a priveledge and something not to be taken lightly, in order that a high degree of integrity is maintained we need to stay together and strive to make sure the truth gets out . . . .there are, without question, people who are less than ethical, and sadly we all at some stage or another get tarred with that brush.

I will be more than happy to answer any questions or share further information with anyone who is interested.

Please feel free to contact me on ivan@ivancarter.com

Johnny Rodrigues
Chairman for Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force

Visit the ZCTF fact sheet

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