Mozambique: Foreign Poachers Arrested in Beira
7 July 2009


Maputo — The Mozambican police have arrested two professional hunters, both European nationals, for killing an elephant belonging to the Gorongosa National Park (PNG), in the central province of Sofala.

According to the PNG Communication Department, the two are Victor Ildefonso Anselmo, of Portuguese nationality, linked to the company "Ideal Safaris", and a Frenchman, Julien Raymond. They were arrested on 25 June, and charged with killing a protected species, hunting during the closed season. the illegal possession of firearms, and theft of an electronic tracking collar belonging to the PNG.

The stolen collar identified the elephant, known to the PNG as "G4". This animal moved frequently between the national park and the Zambezi river, passing through hunting areas on its route. The PNG believes the elephant was killed on 18 or 19 June near Chiramba, in Chemba district.

Elephants are protected in Mozambique. The movements of the PNG's few elephants are monitored by the satellite signals issued by their collars. The PNG says that local officials and communities were perfectly aware of the animal's movements.

It seems that the two poachers did not realize that the collar was still issuing a strong signal. It was this that allowed the police to track them down and arrest them.

The PNG conservation department noted something was wrong on 12 June, when "G4" slowed down. It was suspected that the animal was injured. By 19 June the signal stopped moving at all. But on 20 June, the satellite showed that the collar was moving to a house in Beira, hundreds of kilometres from the last known position of the elephant.

On 25 June, members of the Criminal Investigation Police (PIC), accompanied by PNG staff, were able to use the signal to track the stolen collar, and the poachers, down to a specific house in the Beira neighbourhood of Palmeiras.

In the house, the police found, in addition to the stolen collar, six guns of various types, a large amount of ammunition, five elephant tusks, including those of "G4", elephant feet, and various buffalo trophies, none of which had any documentation indicated that the animals had been legally hunted.

One of the tusks was 3.7 metres long and weighed 55 kilos. Such a large tusk is regarded as national heritage, and cannot be exported.


"G4" is one of a group of six bull elephants imported from South Africa's Kruger National Park last year to restock the PNG, which lost all its elephants during the war of destabilisation. The PNG administration puts the damage done by the two poachers at 50,000 US dollars - the costs of capturing the elephant and transporting it to Mozambique, and of acquiring the satellite tracking equipment.

The Director of the PNG Conservation Department, Carlos Lopes Pereira, declared "this case shows that poaching is going on, involving unscrupulous individuals capable of killing whatever appears in front of them for easy profit".

The PNG has thanked the police for their speedy and effective cooperation in tracking down the poachers. Now the park is waiting to see what attitude the authorities responsible for licensing professional hunters will take.

Pf/ (531)

quote:

One of the tusks was 3.7 metres long

Seloushunter

Another hundred-pounder poached.
I did not think that idiots could become "Professional Hunters."
Standards must be very low somewhere.
"Foreign Poachers" fits their IQ level much better.
This one belongs in the "Stupid Criminals" file:

Poacher A: "Gee, nice collar, let's take this to the warehouse too!"
Poacher B: "Duh, yep-yep-yep."

A hundred pounder for 50K??

It's a heck of a lot cheaper than a safari.

Sign me up!!

Bringing the tracking collar home? Not the sharpest knives in the drawer.

I'm not sure which is worse the reporting or someone being stupid enough to take a radio telemetry divice from an animal they poached and place it in their house with the rest of the evidence. If they would have shot the poachers it would be an automatic Darwin award for sure.

Brett

I wonder about the accuracy of the reporting.

Possibility that the Elephant can be a Kruger National Park (South Africa) Elephant. Those PH's must be exposed, they giving ME the bad name...

According to this report, the police found an elephant-sized radio collar - which the alleged poachers took home with them!

Oh yes, along with a 12 foot long, 120 pound tusk!

I wonder if the G4 elephant was pink?!

From the article, I am not sure if the large tusk (100 plus) was from G4 or a different elephant.The police seized five tusks at the home including G4. I would like to know the ivory weight of G4.

http://features.csmonitor.com/...naway-elephant-bull/

I think this might be one of G4's cohorts.

The video of G5 is excellent.

I wonder if these two have enough money to buy their way out, otherwise I suspect they won't survive a Moz prison. Hard to have any sympathy, but they're in deep you know what.

It's hard to believe the poachers were dumb enough to keep a working radio collar. Almost wonder if there is more to this than meets the eye.

quote:

One of the tusks was 3.7 metres long and weighed 55 kilos. Such a large tusk is regarded as national heritage, and cannot be exported.

Really?

These news reports are worse than listening to Katie Couric. Usually highly inaccurate and misleading.

And the G5 video? Good grief. The do-gooders strike again w/stupidy supreme.

quote:

Originally posted by Will:
These news reports are worse than listening to Katie Couric. Usually highly inaccurate and misleading.

And the G5 video? Good grief. The do-gooders strike again w/stupidy supreme.

I agree. It almost seems that they don't even try to get it right.

I spent three months in Zambia last year and I don't recall their news papers ever being this poor.

It's like listening to the antis spin their BS....

let's see- 3.7 meters is about 12 plus feet. if the ivory "only" weighed about 55 kilos, must have been pretty thin. seems once again that the media SCREWED SOMETHING UP. regardless of that, there are no rocket scientists in this bunch. how stupid must you be be to take a tracking collar home?