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ZCTF Report - June 2011
Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force (ZCTF)
June 18, 2011

Food for starving animals

Thanks to donations received from various people, and especially Barbara Bowman, we were able to respond to the appeal circulated by Bumi Hills Anti Poaching Unit for food and fuel to help feed the animals stranded on various islands in Kariba. We approached National Foods in Harare with the intention of purchasing 5 or 6 tons of stock feed and we were absolutely delighted when Willard Mukondiwa and Owen Nyoni of National Foods offered to donate 30 tons! The stockfeed contains all the necessary nutrients for the survival of the animals.

A big thank you to Redan Petroleum who sold us 2 000 litres of fuel at cost price. This will be used to deliver the stock feed to the islands.

We then had the problem of transporting the stockfeed to Kariba but Rob Follett-Smith and Adrian Chant of Alro Transport came to our rescue and donated the use of a 30-ton truck. A very big thank you to Alro who are always willing to assist with conservation problems. The load was very bulky so we also needed an additional smaller truck. Thank you very much to Jenni Ferguson and Tony Smith of Move - It Transport who supplied us with a 2 tonner.

I accompanied Tony in the Move-It truck to Kariba. We left ahead of the Alro truck to make sure everything was ready for offloading the stockfeed at Andora Harbour in Kariba. Kariba Ferries very kindly donated the use of their ferry, the Sea Horse to take the stockfeed across the lake to Bumi Hills. A big thank you to Kariba Ferries who are also always very willing to assist where the wildlife is concerned.

Fortunately we were able to drive the Move-It truck onto the ferry to offload but when we arrived, we realized that the Alro truck would be too big to drive down into the harbour.

The Alro truck arrived the following day, loaded to the hilt. It couldn't go any further than the entrance of the harbour which meant we had to hire several local people to carry the bags from the truck, 200 metres down the hill to the ferry. This was real back-breaking work and it took 22 people 3 hours to complete the job.

We were told that there were several buffalo starving on Antelope Island which is not in the vicinity of the Bumi Hills rescue operation so we donated 2 tons of the stockfeed for the buffalo and the balance was loaded onto the Sea Horse.

We would like to thank Nicholas Milne and the Bumi Hills Anti Poaching Unit for the fantastic job they are doing in feeding the starving animals. If it wasn't for people like them, those animals would definitely perish.

Kylie's donation to the ZNSPCA

I was extremely touched and proud to learn that my 13 year old granddaughter, Kylie used her pocket money to make a donation to the ZNSPCA. She saw an appeal at her school, Chisipite Girls' High, for blankets, food and leashes for the dogs in the kennels at the SPCA and she decided to use the $100 which she has been saving for the past 6 months, towards this cause. She bought 6 leashes, 2 x 20kg dog meal, 4 packets of hooves for the dogs to chew on and a length of fleece material from which she made 15 warm blankets. Well done Kylie! I'm sure the dogs are going to be very happy when they receive their gifts.

The Matendere rhino

In April, we reported the horrific case of a rhino in Save Conservancy that was found wandering around in agony after poachers had shot it and hacked off most of its face in order to steal the horn. Wildlife vets treated it as best they could and hoped it would survive.

We have had several enquiries as to what has happened to the rhino since then and we are very sad to announce that it eventually had to be put down.

Thank you

We would like to extend our heartfelt appreciation to the following people who have assisted us with funds recently:

• Barbara Bowman
• Liz Grainger
• John and Helen Buckle
• Chris Noon
• Trish Kok
• Graham Speedy
• Trudy Cashel
• Gerry Jackson
• Carolyn Howie
• Janice Kilian
• Paula Stone
• Rosemarie Pile
• Hugh Atkinson

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