Nat Parks confirms poaching orgy

HARARE – In an effort to combat rampant poaching by top government officials, Zimbabwean authorities have deployed a massive hunt for poachers and are moving to relocate more than 200 endangered black rhinos from near the Botswana border. A front page expose in last week’s edition of The Zimbabwean has set alarm bells ringing for the safety of the countrys elephant and rhino population. The article revealed that professional South African hunters were working in cahoots with Zimbabwean government ministers to plunder wildlife in the Hwange game reserve, from bases in Botswana. On Tuesday, Zimbabwe’s National Parks and Wildlife Authority reported the slaughter of 65 elephants and 30 rhinos this year, but officials insist these figures are too conservative. Sources described “well organized gangs of ivory poachers” plundering wildlife and warned that the killings going on now were the worst since the early 1980s.

“From January to October this year we have lost 65 elephants through poaching,” Vitalis Chadenga, operations director of National Parks and Wildlife told a news conference. “In the same period we have lost 24 black and six white rhinos. It is true that we have a group of international gangsters, who are funding poachers around this part of the world. We have arrested 2,500 poachers and 10 have been shot dead since the beginning of this year,” Chadenga said. He also said Zimbabwe currently had 26 tonnes of ivory in its stocks and four tonnes of rhino horns. This is after the auction of four tonnes of ivory to buyers from Japan and China which generated US$487,162 dollars. Sources say the cash bought 25 Land Cruisers. We could not independently verify this information at the time of going to print. Conservationists warn that the Hwange wildlife park, which used to attract tourists and was a sanctuary for the endangered black rhino, had become the latest victim of senior Zanu (PF) fatcats. An international investigating team reported that tons of ivory is being exported to Asia and lions to Nigeria. A ZCTF spokesperson said “it is an organised business and government officials and the police are involved.”

There are fears that if poaching is not contained to acceptable levels in accordance with the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species, CITES, the country could be kicked out of the next CITES summit in Doha in March. The full-scale slaughter of game at farms and reserves is now so severe that endangered species, such as the wild dog and cheetah, have become extinct. The national parks, which used to be a source of great pride, are being destroyed while pleas for help go unheeded. What we are seeing is unprecedented: rampant poaching, illegal hunting and downright slaughter on a daily basis, said our source. Describing the plunder as “national suicide” he warned that Zimbabwe was descending into lawlessness and savagery.

“Vast herds of elephant and the endangered black rhino, cheetah, leopard and antelope have been snared, speared, shot or blown up,” he said. In the Kariba area, game rangers have found 33 elephant that had been shot, and 65 land mines have been lifted from game paths, our source said, adding that law enforcement officers and Parks rangers were too terrified to rattle the cage or defy orders from senior officials, who continued to plunder the wildlife with impunity.