NEWZIMBABWE.COM

By Staff Reporter
Last updated: 04/03/2006 06:38:30


THE extent of the wildlife slaughter that has made millions for the family of Chelsy Davy, girlfriend of Britain's Prince Harry, has been exposed by The Mail on Sunday.
The probe laid bare claims of racism and bribery at the heart of Charles Davy's business empire.

With his daughter being spoken of as a potential royal bride, multi-millionaire Davy has tried to distance himself from the brutal safaris in Zimbabwe where big game are routinely killed for pleasure.

Undercover investigator Caroline Graham joined a safari run by the firm that Davy built up.

She found hunters were charged less than £400 (R4 400) to shoot animals and were even given the option to try to kill them with a bow and arrow, causing a slow, agonising death.

Black workers were referred to as "k****rs", "disgusting" and "HIV positive", and were forced to drink dirty river water.

Ade Langley, 49, who works for Davy's HHK Safaris company told the undercover reporter: "The niggers are like dogs for us. We call them African short-haired pointers. Most of them are HIV positive. I lose trackers every year to Aids. Every male of breeding age is infected."

In more sickening comments, Langley added: "Their sexual practices are disgusting. Most have at least two wives and many mistresses. When they get sick, you can smell it on their skin along with their normal stale smell. When one dies, there is always another to take his place."

There was also staff gossip about Chelsy smoking dagga and being a "problem child" who ran with a "wild crowd".

Graham found that huge profits made by the company were mostly channelled to the US and only a fraction ever entered Zimbabwe.

Langley told the reporter: "Less than 20 percent of your dollars will ever enter Zimbabwe. All the money is kept offshore. I was in Reno recently for a safari convention and we took $300 000 (£175 000) in payments from American hunters. I sat in a hotel roomn and counted the dollars into bundles and then we went to Dallas and put it in the bank."

The Mail on Sunday revealed that thanks to close links with senior officials in President Robert Mugabe's government -- including cabinet minister Webster Shamu -- Davy had built a £20 million fortune by offering hunters, mostly Americans, the chance to kill endangered animals such as lions, giraffes, leopards and elephants on more than four million acres of land where hunting concessions are controlled by HHK.

quote:

endangered animals such as lions, giraffes, leopards and elephants

Edited: Kathi -- I always appreciate your posting the stories -- I just wish the press were more accurate.

Let's not let the truth come between a reporter and a sensational story.

Every single report I have ever seen in a British daily on hunting has been fabricated.

Forgetting about that drivel above, did the "Mail" make use of a superfluous but very entertaining photo of Chelsy in a small singlet.

Yellow dog journalism at its worst (best?).

Still, England is a lost cause regarding hunting and firearms.

I don't bother reading articles on either subject from Britain.

Garrett

This one is from: http://www.newzimbabwe.com/ (what appears to be a Zim-based on-line "news site")

Take this website with a grain of salt (EDIT - Note Terry found the original articles below). Other current "top stories" include:

Man caught 'sexually violating' donkey

By Staff Reporter
Last updated: 04/03/2006 08:56:45
A 20-YEAR-OLD man in the Zimbabwean south-western rural outpost of Insuza tried to bribe an elderly villager with a bucket of maize after being caught sexually violating a donkey, reports said.

Derec Ncube, 20, appeared before a Tsholotsho magistrate on bestiality charges, according to the vernacular Umthunywa (see website) newspaper.

Prosecuting, Frizt Madida told the court that an elderly villager, Abel Tshuma, had spotted Ncube herding the lone donkey in the Hlanganani area of Insuza.

"He (Ncube) appeared pensive and Tshuma's initial thoughts were that he was trying to steal the donkey, and he followed him for some distance into the thick bushes," Madida told the court.

The court heard that once he reached the secluded place, Ncube dropped his trousers and mounted the donkey from the back and started performing a sex act.

Tshuma told investigators that he nearly fainted with shock at seeing Ncube violating the donkey.

"After gaining enough courage," the court heard, "Tshuma proceeded to greet Ncube who was still busily performing his act on the donkey. Instead of dismounting, he just ignored Tshuma and continued."

The court heard that a day later, Ncube took a bucket of the scarce staple maize to Tshuma's homestead and asked him not to tell anyone about events of the previous day while handing over the bucket of maize. Prosecutors say the maize was a bribe "to shut him (Tshuma) up".

Ncube denies the charge.

Magistrate, Abednico Ndebele, remanded him in custody.

Dear N. Garrett,

There are a great many people who hunt and a huge number of animals shot by hunters every year in England. Five thousand game keepers raise 20,000 pheasants each. I think that is 100 million birds per year. I doubt that they shoot that many pheasants in the whole USA. And then there are stags, roe buck, red grouse and introduced deer.

The Brits have the same problem as the Aussies, New Zealanders and Canucks. They think there is a benevolent paternal government looking after them. Unlike Americans they don't yet realize they are the government.

I think things are changing in Canada but I am not sure about the rest of the British Commonwealth. I haven't lived in Canada for 20 years but I was perusing some pro hunting information for the newly formed Canadian Institute for Legislative Action and I see one of the directors is Tanya "AK-47" Metaska. She is an NRA rep from Washington so the Canadians are now getting some good advice. It really seemed to work out in the last election. The Liberals got sacked.

I really think the Brits and Aussies ought to do the same thing. Go see the NRA people. The NRA is not a right wing band of nutters representing the gun indsutry as it is depicted in the press. When Smith and Wesson stepped out of line in the USA the NRA torpedoed them. They are just a grass roots organization with alot of members who vote on their own behalf.

I hear there was a rally of 650,000 country sports people in Britain. If you use those people to vote strategically like the NRA does you will soon have Tony Blair applying for membership at your local handgun club.

VBR,


Ted Gorsline

The Mail really has a vendetta against Charles Davy. This is probably the third article in the last year where they have attacked Davy.

Regards,

Terry

Yes some of the statements appear to be clearly libelous and intended to be made with malice. He needs to sue their asses.

Yess Especially as Charlie Davey sold all of his hunting intrests in Zim last year (to a friend of mine)- He therefore has no connections with Shamu.

HHK- Hingeston, Hallamore and Koch was hardly a firm "built up" by Charlie Davey. He was a significant shareholder in some of HHK's concessions for a while, but no longer. I wonder what Ade did to piss the reporter off? Expose her? Those comments are not from the mouth of the man I know- a man who actually cares about his trackers- as do all good PH's. Many of us would be a tad in the dwang without them! In fact- even the current abusive terminology is wrong. Trackers are "velcro crested retrievers" if you are being crass and drinking too much.

Biased reporting at it's best or worst at your discreation.

465H&H

The ANSWER folks, is that financially capable PRO HUNTING individuals should BUY major newspapers and TV stations around the world,

then present truthful information about our sport to ALL. How about if SAEED owned this Britsh rag and THE NEW YORK TIMES and

maybe CBS television here in the U.S.A.

Me thinks it's time that the fine citizens of the fine and just country of Great Britian throw their own version of the Boston tea party!

What a bunch of unadulterated crap! Surely this isn't taken to heart by the good citizens of England?

Right?

More crap from The Daily Mail


Barbaric hunters who shame our civilisation
by WILL TRAVERS, Chief executive Born Free Foundation

12:54pm 2nd April 2006

It is a difficult thing to describe the African savannah as the day cools, evening falls and the lions, leopards and elephants - some of the most magnificent creatures in the world - break cover.

There is poise, grace, power, deadly speed...but the normal adjectives are not enough, as anyone privileged enough to witness such a sight will testify.

There are no words either to describe the sort of carnage exposed today by The Mail on Sunday. It is not just the wilful destruction at the hands of the big game 'hunters' that leaves me feeling hollow; there is also the pain and suffering they inflict; and the fact that so many species are threatened. All in the name of 'sport'.


The Born Free Foundation is an international wildlife charity created to prevent animal suffering and protect these animals in their natural habitat. I can see that wildlife tourism, especially phototourism, has an important part to play in earning the hard currency that pays for the much-needed game reserves and wardens. But the trophy business, which sees these animals blasted to death by wealthy Western tourists, is for me truly the dark heart of the African wildlife industry.

I have no personal knowledge of Charles Davy or HHK Safaris, the business he runs. But I am saddened by the bloody photographic evidence produced by this newspaper. It is all too typical.

If big game hunting seems anachronistic, a pursuit from another age, the numbers taking part are still huge and may be on the increase - so much so that conservationists and animal protection groups fear trophy-hunting is pushing some species close to extinction. Bankers, dentists and account-managers-turned huntsmen will pay thousands of pounds for the chance to kill exotic wildlife. Leopards, elephants, lions and zebra are all on their macabre shopping list - and I use the word 'shopping' deliberately: the more money they have, the greater their 'bag'.

MERE $250 (£145) will buy them a porcupine, for example. A lion or elephant will cost, on average, $25,000 (£14,500). An endangered black rhino $100,000 (£57,500). European hunters alone have imported the trophies of 3,813 African elephants, 2,623 leopards, 1,676 lions and 539 cheetahs in the past ten years. During the same period, the African lion population has dropped to 23,000 - a fifth of its original size.

Records of import permits obtained from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) show that British trophy-hunters accounted for 40 African elephants, 32 leopards, six lions and six hippopotamuses in a decade.

After posing with their trophies, the gunmen, mainly from the United States, Canada and Western Europe, will ship back the heads of their prey to mount on their sitting-room walls.

Their hunting grounds are South Africa, Namibia, Zambia and Tanzania but Zimbabwe is a particular favourite. Not only do its lands still provide an abundance of game but many observers feel the lawlessness of Mugabe's brutal regime allows for a greater degree of ' flexibility' on the type and number of animals that tourists can hunt.

There are those who argue in favour, of course. Supporters assert that the money made from the killing is ploughed back into community development, environmental protection and even wildlife conservation.

It provides employment, generates income and, if scientifically and sustainably managed, has little or no impact on the species being hunted. Or so they say.

But this reasoning is, at the very least, open to question. Trophyhunting certainly does not benefit the individual animals and, in some countries at least, there is little evidence the money gained benefits the local population. Our understanding is that in Zimbabwe the benefit to rural communities amounts to about 80p per individual, per year.

In any case, I refuse to accept the idea that just because an activity makes money it is justified, an argument which in previous eras has excused child labour or the virtual extermination of entire species.

It is particularly risible that these tourists should attempt to 'get close to nature' by shooting lions or zebras with a bow and arrow. If hunting with a gun is both cruel and unnecessary, this is utterly barbaric. One of the reasons that hunters use a highpowered weapon is so that the animal can be despatched with a single shot as humanely as possible. By using a longbow or crossbow they are frequently serving a lingering death sentence on the animal, which may well suffer the agony of an infected wound or become easy prey.

It is a return to the Dark Ages that is both unacceptable and wholly indefensible. We in the wealthy, possession-obsessed West are no longer compelled to be hunter-gatherers.

If trophy-hunting is harmful for wildlife, I believe it also damages our own humanity, which is already dangerously divorced from nature. And sometimes even hunters seem to realise the pointlessness of their momentary triumph over nature. I have spoken to hunters and seen them contemplate the brutal realisation that they are killing off some of the world's most noble creatures, all for the sake of overinflated egos.

We have not yet, it seems, reached a point where we can truly recognise the value of protecting the natural world without wanting to possess it. We are unable to place a high enough priority on the compassionate conservation of wildlife and wild areas for their own sake. While it is deemed acceptable to spend tens of millions on a cage in a zoo, billions on a war or tens of billions on exploring the little patch of lifeless space around our planet, we ignore and, worse still, wantonly destroy the living treasures right before our eyes.

Effective conservation of the Earth's wild creatures is only possible if we unequivocally accept that they have a right to exist, not as a 'resource' nor because they can 'pay their way' but because of their intrinsic worth as fellow inhabitants of the world that we share.

Anyone who has seen even ten minutes of the BBC's excellent Planet Earth series would need a heart of stone to remain unmoved by the plight of our beleaguered planet.

The trophy-hunter's highvelocity bullet that cuts short the heartbeat of a wild creature for 'fun' is just a tiny example of how far we as a species have yet to travel.

Go here for the original article (the one referenced in Kathi's first post):

Daily Mail

and read some of the reader's comments.

Regards,

Terry

P.S.

Photos from the Safari Click on Davy Safari

the Internatiopnal Fund for Animal Welfare was run out of Canada decades ago. Its founder, Brain Davies, was caught pocketing the proceeds of the foundation and putting its property such as a helicopter in his own name. I have the clipping somewhere and will post it once I learn how to use this thing.

VBR,


Ted Gorsline

quote:

Originally posted by T.Carr:
Go here for the original article:

Daily Mail

and read some of the reader's comments.

Regards,

Terry

Perhaps it is just my innate bias, but it appears that the more intelligent comments are from the hunters and the supporters of hunting -- a good job by those who commented.

I wonder if The Daily Mail would even cover this issue, but for the fact that one of the Royal Family is dating Charles Davy's daughter?


Regards,

Terry

The Daily Mail has zero journalistic integrity. What a bunch of hacks.

The hunters' commentary on this story is the only rational thing in this rag.

They are running a readers' poll on the page that Terry linked (I am not making this up):

Have your say:
Should burglars be let off with a caution?

No - they should go to court.
Yes - a caution is sufficient.

You need to bare in mind that the English Daily Mail / Mail on Sunday is one of the worst examples of populist, cheap sensation gutter rags ever printed. It appeals to the baser instincts of the half educated (at best) English urbanites. For they to accuse anyone else of racism is pretty rich.

No thinking person would use it for bog paper.

I am no fan of Zimbabwe, but I think this is b.s.

They got themselves on a roll. They got to bash hunting (everyones' favorite scapegoat in the Liberal world -- and given the broughaha about fox hunting, particularly England); they got to bash Charles, they got to bash Americans (money going into a Texas bank)... its a dream story.

Having had a few experiences getting quoted in the press, I have learned to be reluctant to speak to reporters. Your words might make it through. Any association between your comment and any relationship to what you were talking about can be entirely coincidental.

Too much more off track, and this post would have to go to the politics page... so back to hunting.

One thing about the hunting bashing is that it is starting to affect my friends. We teach hunter safety. When our phone #'s get published as contacts to register for the course, we start to get nasty phone calls at all hours of the day or night. There's lots of people all ready to hate us for teaching children how to use guns to victimize animals. At a school tax assessment meeting, my neighbor was thanked by the parent of one of his students for offering the course. A woman who overheard the compliments interrupted and said my friends should be killed for teaching kids how to do that kind of thing.

Dan

quote:

The Daily Mail has zero journalistic integrity. What a bunch of hacks.

Exactly what I was thinking while reading this garbage. This is far from journalism, but in actuality, is editorializing, we could get the same crap from the PETA or HSUS websites. I didn't even know of The Daily Mail prior to this, do they get much credibility? Seems like they aren't very objective.

Ted,

My sister used to live in Oxford until recently, so I would visit not infrequently.

I agree with you that there are quite a number of hunters in England, but I assert again that Britain is a lost cause for firearms and hunting.

I realize too that there regional differences in Britain (just as there are between California and Tennessee here in the States).

Still, I heard universally (while visiting) how cruel hunting was, and even amoung conservatives little support for self-defense.

While staying in London I saw a newspaper report about an American tourist arrested after wrestling a knife from a mugger and stabbing him with it (nonfatally). A police spokesman helpfully pointed out that violence was against the law, even in self-defense.

I found England beautiful. It's a country America should continue to defend, since it soon won't be able to defend itself.

Garrett

This is the most outrageous, vindictive pack of absolute lies that I have ever read. I spent 17 days hunting and just hanging out with Ade Langley last June and into July and found him to be a top notch PH. he is an absolute gentleman, and I admired the way he worked with the black members of our camp. His chief tracker, Richard, has worked for him a number of years and they have an excellent working relationship. Ade never failed to respect the staff and as any good manager would do, ensured that things ran smoothly. We would frequently go to the skinning shed and the skinners. trackers and game scout all conversed and joked with us daily. When something wasn't quite right, Ade made it known what the expectations were and the situation was immediately taken care of. If you've spend any time at all amounst the PHs' and their staff you know pretty quickly how things are going. Ade and his well trained staff were instrumental in helping me bag a nice sable, gorgeous leopard, and some good plains game and we had a blast. I also spent time with Ade's family in Bulawayo and they are wonderful people. Ade is very proud of his African heritige and while he may have served on the other side of the Rhodesian war he deals with it as any responsible citizen would. At no time did I hear or see him demean anyone. Did we talk about the challenges throughout Zimbabwe; absolutely. But we also talked about the challenges facing the United States. We weren't always on the same side of every issue either but I none the less respected his well thought out views. I will hunt again with Ade Langely and his staff and look forward to doing so soon. I also know and have met Graham Hingeston. He runs an excellent safari business, everything was on track as he said it would be and he always promtly answered all my questions, sometimes several times. I was met at the Bulawayo airport with all the proper paper work in tact and I moved quickly through customs. From my experience with Ade Langley, Graham Hingeston, and HHK safaris I would say that they are everything that we seek and pay dearly for...the right outfit and PH to get us the best value for our hard earned US dollars. I whole heartedly endorse these gentlemen as people who deliver what they promise. Bob Meier (Pathfinder)

Take a look at the photo link Terry posted. A trophy photo of a hunter holding a dead impala had the following caption:

quote:

Picture 3 of 8:
Hunter Charlie Biddle and a tracker pose with an impala before going on to killing it.

BEYOND WORDS!!!!!!!!!!

Idiots!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dear Garrett,

The same kind of attitude, that is 100 % anti-hunting and anti-gun, was evident in Canada, about 20 years ago. But it has made a 180 degree turn in the last few years mostly because the boys from Alberta said enough is enough.

The answer is simply to constantly attack the antis. Never defend. Always attack. They don't like it. They are not used to it and they are not brave. The heart and soul of modern Liberal philosophy is cowardice.

Twenty years ago Lord and Lady McFartny would have generated great support for their plans to stop the seal hunt in Canada. Now they are just considered to be a pair of dull witted lounge lizards.

VBR,


Ted Gorsline

The British media takes two forms - the BBC, and the screwballs.

I recall being in Juba (Sudan) years ago, before things got especially nasty down there. There was a Brit "newsman" there, waiting for the flight back to Khartoum. Sudanair was running an HS 748, and they overbooked it. Two locals got in a scrap over the last seat - no big deal, but the Brit "newsman" was scribbling furiously on his notepad. A few days later I was in London, and completely by accident, read this dummies column. By that time he was an expert on Sudan, and wrote of "narrowly escaping in the midst of a pitched battle at the Juba airport"...

Since then, as far as I'm concerned if it's not the BBC it's bullshit.

As far as I'm concerned they're all vermin of the very worst kind..... BBC or not. Personally, I think they should all be tied to a tree for Leopard bait. I rate the media on the same level as antis.

quote:

Originally posted by Kathi:


She found hunters were charged less than £400 (R4 400) to shoot animals

I think one of the points missed, is, how can an outfit get millions off of roughly 600 american per animal!?!? They would have to kill thousands of animals yearly!!!
And if that is Charles going rate, hey, I will go hunting there!!! Damn good deal!
Anything for a buck tabloids are incredible!