This comes hard on the heels of a recovery of some 29 elephant tusks and two rhino horns at Tambora National Park.
The poachers are suspected to be either Zambians or Zimbabweans but no arrests have been made yet.
Rodrigues said poaching in Zimbabwe had become sophisticated and some big people could be behind the criminal activity, which has seen dangerous chemicals and weapons such as cyanide and AK47 assault rifles being used.
“Some big wigs could be behind the poaching and there is need for thorough investigations to expose and bring the culprits to book. The disaster could have been avoided if projects such as the Community Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources had been in place”, said Rodrigues, who was recently quoted as blaming the first family for being among the main poaching culprits.
President Robert Mugabe’s 91 years birthday bash held in the Victoria Falls last weekend, saw an elephant, buffaloes and several wild animals donated by Tendai Musasa of Woodlands Conservancy, slaughtered for the estimated 20 000 strong gathering.
Over 91 other beasts were slaughtered for the festivities. Among other animals killed for the Mugabe bash “were crocodiles and lions, to be stuffed as trophies” while five impalas would be forced to relocate to Mugabe’s Mazowe Conservancy, where some poor 250 families were evicted.
Dozens of elephants and other game animals face forced relocation to the first family’s game park, while poaching activities are on the rise around national parks.
Mugabe’s birthday bashes are not the only threat to game, as gruesome poaching targeting mainly elephants, rhinos, buffaloes among others, left some 300 elephants and countless other safari animals killed by cyanide at the Hwange National Park in 2013.
National Parks officials and conservanists, described the killing as the single worst massacre of elephants in the Southern Africa for 25 years.
“Other elephants were killed by some Chinese using the cyanide at Mana Pools.”
Zimbabwe wildlife poaching of elephants and rhinoceros whose tusks and horns fetch high prices on the black market continues to escalate.
There is a ready market for the items in Asia, particularly China, Vietnam and Thailand where end products are a symbol of wealth.
Despite a petition signed by over 1.2 million people against the export of baby elephants, government continues to ship the innocent young game mainly to China, under the guise of revenue generation for the country.
A few big people benefit from the exports at the expense of locals.
“Government says the elephant population in the country is over 100 000 against a carrying capacity of 40 000. Conservanists fear the figures could have been inflated to justify the inhumane sell of ivory.”
When Zimbabwe attained its political independence from the British in 1980, it had some 2 000 rhinos, whose population had dropped to 750 by 2013, due to decades of poaching.
Post published in: News