I picked up a special issue of National Geographic dedicated to elephants. Some very interesting reading including current, 1989 and 1979 population estimates by country. I list below the current population estimates for countries that allow elephant hunting and for countries that would seem to have good elephant populations but that don’t allow elephant hunting.

It is interesting that Gabon, DRC and Congo have lots of elephant (probably forest ele.) but no hunting. I believe the political situation in Congo is bad but what of DRC and Gabon? Any Africa hands like to comment?

Also it is interesting that there has been talk of elephant hunting in Burkina Faso and Zambia both of which have very few elephants.

Elephant Hunting Countries
1. Botswana 122K
2. Tanzania 112K
3. Zimbabwe 89K
4. Mozambique 21K
5. Cameroon 14K
6. South Africa 15K
7. Namibia 10K

Non Elephant Hunting Countries
1. Gabon 77K
2. DRC 50K
3. Kenya 28K
4. Congo 20K
5. Burkina Faso 3K
6. Zambia (FYI) 20K

Best regards;
Brett

I think that at least some of those poulation estimates are very very conservative. I suspect Zim has somewhere between 100K and 130 eles.

465H&H

21K Elephant in Mozambique? ... um, I dont think so. That is a bit conservative, to say the least.

Even with the (possibly) conservative estimates are you not taken aback by the populations in West Africa??

Brett

I would not have guessed that Zambia was so low. I spent 1 week in the South Luangwa National Park and probably saw 10% of the population based upon those numbers. Maybe the elephants are just concentrated where we were. They were by no means scarce.

Tim

Shumba,

That was a typo, sorry. It now reads 20K.

Brett

And there may be some forest elephant in the rebel controlled areas in the north of the DRC, but there is sweet B A in the southern Half.

I did a helicopter survey nearly 5 years ago now when Zim troops controlled most of the DRC and our government was trying to recoup the cost by looting minerals, timber etc, and wanted to consider opening up hunting. 4 Aircraft and three helicopters flew a survey of an area the size of Zim- Didn't see much!When you stop in the bazars you have a choice of croc, fish or human meat in the south. Up in the north the main bush meat seems to still be money and duiker, but with so many 12.7 Dshk MG's arround, I am sure I woukld have seen ele meat for sale if one could have been found. Also, our army had permission to make up their pay with anything they could- diamonds were in- they could have legally shot every ele they found and bought the ivory home. Seen none.

Suspect that almost all the elephats except a few along the CAR border area were wiped out by Mobuto.

Ganyana

What is your best estimate of ele pops in Zim. And are these estimates corrected for visibility bias?

465H&H

Ganyana,

Good to know the National Geographic is accurate...

How about Gabon??

Brett

Brett-Never been up there. Sent an email to my old classmate - Peter Hartley- late of Natal Parks bord who is setting up a new game reserve up there- If I get a sensible answer I will post it

465- We have arround 80,000 elephants in the Whange/Matetsi complex. ie the North western corner of Zim that comprises of Hwange NP. Panda Masuie NP, Zambezi NP, Matetsi and Deka Safari Areas, And the various Forestry reserves.

The Sebungwe- Chete SA, Chirisa SA, Chizarira NP, Matusadona NP, A couple of forestry reserves and the two CAMPFIRE concessions- Omay and Binga has about 14,000 ele. The Zambezi Valley has about 20,000 on our side, and then about 6000 in Gonarezhou pluss a few thousand others scatted in the save conservancy, arround Tuli, along the sanyati up to Hartely A safari area etc.

The problem for sustained trophy hunting is not numbers but quality.

Heavy poaching in 1993-'94 and again in 1999 -2000 has left most of the Zim populations with a skewed age grouping. We have alot of young animals. If you take it as fact (I am not sold on it) that a good trophy bull is over 50 years old... Then the trophy quota should be based on the 1956 population - 1.5% of that population could reasonably be expected to be "trophy's" now. Based on that- 400 is the correct figure for sport hunting- but it doesn't take into account the poaching.

Hwange has been relatively spared of heavy poaching so that area delivers consistently the best trophy quality...but- here genetics comes into play. Hwange elephants have short, thick tusks that grow forwards. They are worked and frequently the tips are broken off. It is rare to find a hwange elephant over 65 lbs a side- even in the old days.

The valley elephants have long thin ivory, that grows downwards. The tusks are not worked so hard, so you get longer tusks. But they are generally thin so again weight seldom exceeded 100lbs - even back in the day.

Sebungwe- a blend of Hwange and valley genes.

Gonarezhou. Downward pointing thick ivory. This is where our best ivory always used to come from-but the area has suffered from heavy poaching. To be sure there are cunning old bulls in both the valley and Gonarezhou who have managed to avoid all hunters- which is why, each year there is at least one outstanding elephant taken.

Ganyana,
Who is doing the poaching in Zim?
Ozhunter.

I know that you asked Ganyana, but....

When I was there in the Kariba area in 2003 the game scouts blamed all the poaching going on in the north on the Zambians. With the unemployment in Zambia, and the number of businessmenlooking to score, and the large population centers near the border it seemes to make sense.

Jason

Who was doing the poaching??? One of the ugly bits of history.

The Rhino poaching in the zambezi valley, and the subsiquent elephant poaching ending in (1993/4) was blamed - with good evidence - on being co-ordinated by the Indian community in Lusaka. The poaching in the South east was also blamed on them...But - recent evidence has emerged that South African Military intelligence was the main force in the South and west, and, - recent evidence has come to light that our chief investigations officer at the time was a captain in SA MI and drawing a sallary from both them and us ... Which explains why all our effective anti poaching activities were confined to the Zambezi Valley.

It is still unclear exactly who did the shooting of all the rhino's arround Hwange main camp- but the Deputy Director of parks (Wilas Makombe) and the chief investigations officer halted all patrols for the three weeks whilst every rhino in the area was slaughtered. A parks ecologist took a photo of a South African Helicopter loading horn and ivory the day before the ban on patrols was lifted- he had a nasty accident and moved to WWF - Zambia shortly thereafter. The warden - who was placed under virtual house arrest whilst the poaching went on moved to botswana...

Basically, alot of people died for nothing.

The more recent poaching? Blamed on two American Nationals who operate both sides of the river. However, there isn't the evidence - or the will to collect it. I was accused of the one neatly done cull in Chewore. 17 ele's droped in a pile. Fortunately I could prove I was in Harare on the day it took place- but it had to be one of our own officers.

Brett,

Did they not mention Ethiopia at all? A 1990 survey estimated the population at 2,460. I can remember when it was considerably more but then the gov't stopped the hunting and the Poachers (both Sudanese and Ethiopian) moved in.
Rich Elliott

Interesting Rich,

They quote;

Year_____________Population
1979________________900
1989________________6650
current (2002)______1361

Brett

Ganyana,

Thanks for the great information as always.

BTW I saw your pitcure in the current issue of African Hunter that arrived yesterday. I must say you are one handsom dude!

Best regards;
Brett

Ganyana,

I too would like to thank you for all your posts, I spend a fair bit of time in Zim and have close friends there who talk to me about lots of things in Zim its not the ordinary PH/client relationship. Your information is very consistant with what I have seen and been told by my friends, Your knowlege and honesty is honorable thanks again for your time to post, BTW whats the black market exchange rate now?


kindest regards

eric

quote:

Originally posted by Brett:
I picked up a special issue of National Geographic dedicated to elephants. Brett

Which issue? What month?
Thanks.
S.

Seq,

Africa Geographic, April 2006, Vol 14 no. 3

see www.africageographic.com

FYI, I picked it up at the airport in Amsterdam. It was packaged with a National Geographic.

Best regards;
Brett

Thanks again Gayana for all the helpful information.