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ZCTF Report - November 2009
Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force (ZCTF)
November 21, 2009

Appeal for M99

Our heartfelt appreciation to those of you who responded to our appeal for funds to buy M99, the tranquilizer necessary to remove snares from the wildlife. A very special thanks to the RSPCA in London who very kindly paid for the whole consignment and to Meryl Harrison who appealed to them on our behalf.

We also received a substantial donation from the Born Free Foundation (UK) and thanks to them as well as the donors listed below, we will now be able to place an order for another consignment of M99. We can never have too much M99 because the poaching and snaring situation in Zimbabwe is more critical now than ever before.

Thank you very much to the following people:

Ernest and Paula Blomkamp
Lawrence and Sandy King
John and Helen Buckle
Jean and Alistair Christie
Carol Ratcliffe
Bev Horton
Jacqui Clingman
Dorian Richardson
Lu Demmert
Liz Warner
Sue Hemp
Chris Noon
Cathy Sharp
Hugh Atkinson
Christine Lesieur

Hannah and Natalie Armour

Hannah and Natalie Armour are two little girls aged 8 and 5 respectively who live in Hawaii and we would like to make a special mention of them because they have done something outstanding. They are very concerned about the plight of the wildlife in Zimbabwe so they set up collections bins in their home town and at their school to raise money by recycling bottles and cans. They managed to raise $100 which they decided to donate to us for the benefit of the wildlife in Zimbabwe, in particular, mothers and babies.

We are completely overwhelmed by this wonderful gesture from these two special children. If anyone would like to email Hannah and Natalie to thank them, their email addresses are as follows: hannahmariearmour@gmail.com, natalieerinarmour@gmail.com

Snare removals in Kariba

Steve Kok who lives near Charara in Kariba, wakes up at 5 o'clock every morning and scours the bush for snares. He also collects the National Parks rangers and drops them off in the bush to look for snares and supplies them with food whilst they are doing anti poaching patrols. Steve often has to dip into his pocket to pay for fuel and rations and although he has received a couple of small donations, he needs more help. We try to assist him with fuel and money whenever we are in the area and we would like to appeal to anybody visiting Charara to please contribute something towards his efforts. He lives very close to NAUZ Charara Site and the people in the office there should be able to give directions to his house.

We have received the following report from Steve:

The hot, dry season has seen poaching intensify in the area as the animals are forced to drink at the lake. Charara is surrounded by game corridors and the animals have to run the gaunlet of snares. There is a large herd of Buffalo in the area but they will soon leave with the arrival of the rains. Impala have dwindled and it seems so have the few bushbuck.

17 Oct.- Found the remains of one Impala male in snare opposite Wild Heritage

18 Oct. - Found the remains of one Impala male and one Buffalo cow in snares opposite Wild Heritage. The meat had been removed.


25 Oct. - Removed one snare opposite Nzou Lodges.

26 Oct. - Opposite WH found 1 Buffalo snare and one Impala female. (This animal must have taken a few days to die. I cut the carcase loose and the birds consumed it ).


28 Oct. - Dropped five scouts off opposite Wild Heritage to search the area where I had found the dead animals. They collected 8 snares and I took them back to Nyanyana and Peters Point.

7 Nov. - A snare sweep was organised to which I contributed but have not yet received the results. Will keep you posted.

8 Nov. - Removed four large cable snares set for Buffalo close to the NAU. I also found the remains of a Buff they had killed the previous week.

Fish poaching is rife and has never been worse. It seems Charara has become a major trading centre in fish and most people are dealing in it. Conditions will not improve untill we have a permanent presence of Parks in the area. I have had discussions with Parks on formulating a plan to catch the fish poachers but the stumbling block is lack of cell phone comms. - most of the time there is no network.
One of the biggest problems is the ability of the poachers to store their fish ( and meat ) in the freezers in the lodges.

Wild Heritage has very kindly donated $50 per month to the cause and I received $100 from Old Hararians - Allan Banks. Many thanks.

Steve Kok

We have now received the results of the snare sweep on the 7th November that Steve referred to in his report.

The sweep was conducted by the Kariba branch of Wildlife Environment Zimbabwe (WEZ) and there were 42 participants consisting of local guides, youths, National Parks scouts and stakeholders. They managed to remove 38 snares from the Charara area and we would like to compliment WEZ on a job well done. A special thank you to Nyashadzashe Chirengende, Senior Warden Dzodzo and Steve Kok. It is very encouraging to see this type of activity taking place especially in view of the fact that the youths are being involved.

Relocation of 9 Elephants

In April this year, 10 elephants were captured from the wild by Basil Steyn and taken to Sondelani Ranch to be trained for elephant back safaris. As it is a well known fact that it is very difficult, if not impossible to train a wild elephant without inflicting pain and suffering, the matter was reported to Glynis Vaughan, Chief Inspector of the ZNSPCA.

It was decided to call in South African wildlife specialist, Karen Trendler to assess the condition of the elephants. The ZNSPCA were unable to pay for her travel expenses so we sent out an appeal and thanks to those of you who responded, Karen was able to come to Zimbabwe. She confirmed that there had been cruelty involved in the training of these elephants.

One of the elephant trainers at Sondelani explained how an elephant was taught to crouch down to enable a person to climb onto its back. Four ropes were tied to the elephant's feet - one rope on each foot. The ropes on the front feet were pulled forwards and the ones on the back feet were pulled backwards, stretching the elephant until it went down on its stomach. Once the elephant went down, the trainer would shout "sit!" The process was repeated a number of times until the elephant "sat" upon the command without the assistance of the ropes. In the case of an elephant that refused to obey, it was stretched out with the ropes and left in that position for 2 weeks. In June 2009, one of the elephants, a 5 year old named Dumisani died.

Evidence of this cruelty was presented to the Minister of Environment and Tourism, Francis Nhema and he ordered the training to be stopped and the elephants to be released.

In August 2009, Vier Pfoten, Karen Trendler and the ZNSPCA teamed up to care for and rehabilitate the elephants to prepare them for their release into Hwange National Park . The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) agreed to fund the relocation but when Basil Steyn discovered this, he insisted they withdraw from the project. They complied with his wishes, not wanting to risk the possibility of him preventing the elephants from being removed although their donated funds remain in place.

On the 3rd of November 2009, the elephants were successfully relocated to Hwange National Park in two batches. After the first batch of four were removed, Basil Steyn said that the remaining 5 elephants belonged to his partner and he demanded payment for them. It was only after he was assured that he would be paid, that he allowed the remaining elephants to go.

The elephants are apparently now doing well in Hwange National Park and we are very thankful to all concerned. The only cloud on the horizon is the fact that there has been no mention of Basil Steyn being prosecuted for cruelty to animals. In addition to that, we have heard that shortly after the relocation of the 9 elephants, he was in South Africa negotiating another elephant capture.

We don't believe Basil Steyn or his partner should be paid for the elephants when it was wrong for him to capture them in the first place. This will send a message to any other unethical people intending to capture elephants, that they won't be any worse off if they are caught in the act because some charitable organization will pay for the elephants if they are confiscated.

Brigitte Rodrigues joins the ZCTF

It is with great pleasure that we announce that our daughter, Brigitte has come on board as Chief Executive Officer of the ZCTF (European Division).

Brigitte lives in Scotland with David Scobie where they are a successful singing duo called "Brogue" and they have just released their third album. Anybody wishing to hear or purchase some of their music can go into their website

In view of Brigitte's busy lifestyle, we are most grateful to her for joining us. She is now the new administrator of our Facebook site so please go into it and have a chat with her. She will ensure that the site is regularly updated. It is very difficult for us to access our own Facebook site because of the erratic telecommuncation system in Zimbabwe so this is where Brigitte's presence will help us immensely.

We currently have three websites, two of which are very outdated. We have found it difficult, if not impossible to update the sites so Brigitte is now building a brand new website for the ZCTF. This will be the main official ZCTF website and it will contain a complete history of everything we have been involved in from the beginning. Brigitte will also keep it constantly updated. In addition to that, she is opening a YouTube site for us where you will be able to see video footage of the ZCTF's activities. As soon as these sites are ready, we will circulate the addresses.

Johnny Rodrigues
Chairman for Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force

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