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ZCTF Report - May 2009
Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force (ZCTF)
June 07, 2009

Karen Trendler

In our last report, we appealed for assistance for funds to bring Karen Trendler to Zimbabwe to inspect the 10 wild elephants captured by Basil Steyn and we are very happy to say that Karen was able to come and do the inspection. We will announce the results of her inspection in due course. We would like to thank the following people who donated money to make her visit possible:

Helen & John Buckle
Lawrence & Sandy King
Charlie Thompson
K G Hundley
Mary Ann Boyd
Steven Zeluck
Linda Mira-Bateman
Donald Miller
Kirsten Mecklenburg
Elizabeth Garber
Dorian Richardson
Balaji Rangasamy
Jennifer Fitch
Vic de Valdorf
Bev Horton
Lorene Jordain
Ani Hart.

Feeding bottles for baby rhinos

A very big thank you to David Francklow and his late wife Rowan Christie for donating 15 heavy duty feeding bottles and a stock pile of teats for baby rhinos. 6 bottles and several teats have already been despatched to the Bubye River Conservancy where there are 3 orphaned rhinos, Sassi, Millie and Blondie. The others will be distributed where needed.

Illegal hunting in Chizarira National Park

It has been reported to us that last month, illegal hunts were carried out in Chizarira National Park. We would like to congratulate the local National Parks staff who tracked down and arrested the hunting party which included a warden from another parks station. The hunters, including the warden were handed over to the local police who confiscated the trophies. Unfortunately, the offenders were released after 2 days and apparently the warden has now disappeared.

It is encouraging to hear that the Chizarira National Parks staff are making such an effort to conserve our natural resources, preserve our national parks and stamp out corruption even in a case like this where a national parks warden was involved in the hunting. We hope that staff in other national parks around the country will follow their example.

Animal populations dwindling drastically in Kariba

We have had several reports from distraught Kariba residents in the past couple of months regarding the alarming decimation of the wildlife there. The crocodile farm near Charara, owned jointly by National Parks and Lake Harvest Fisheries has 23 000 hungry crocodiles that require 9 tons of meat per month. Due to the fact that the number of elephants has subsequently declined to a critical level, they have decided to stop shooting the elephants and target the hippos instead. We are now receiving reports that it is becoming quite rare to see a hippo in the area - in fact, it's quite rare to see any animals at all.

We have heard that the crocodile farm is not quite as lucrative as expected because people are not as keen to buy crocodile products as they once were. It would appear that nobody is benefiting from the senseless slaughter of our wildlife except the crocodiles.

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