I was watching Boddington on Elephant tonight and he talked about ration hunts for elephants in Zimbabwe.

I'm not familiar with the ration hunting he describes. As I understand it as far as non-exportable elephant hunting goes there is
tuskless and PAC (which I understand is not legal for foreign hunters). Could someone please elaborate on ration hunts?

Thanks

rxgremlin

I was offered a ration ele while on a double tuskless hunt in Zim last year. To my understanding National Parks issue ration eles to operators which clients can hunt but every part of the ele goes to National Parks for meat etc.

Someone correct me if i am wrong.

Mike

Forgot to say that i think it is normally a tusked cow that would be hunted.

It is my understanding that the various National Parks staffs receive a yearly quota of elephant in the Safari Areas that they can use to supplement their food supply. The NP Ranger is allowed to sell the right to shoot them to the Safari operator who has the concession in that Safari Area. A couple of years ago I took a bull and a tusked cow on this program at Chete. The warden used the money I payed for trophy fees to buy petrol for road maintenance work that was badly needed. All of the meat, skin and tusks went to NP.

465H&H

There are a few ration buffalo at times as well. In the past, ration eles could be bull or cows but for the most part, at least with CMS, they don't take bulls as ration any longer ... only tusked cows when made available as they want to give the bulls a chance to grow into trophies.

All National Parks areas are allocated a ration quota, normally consisting of elephant, buffalo and impala. These used to be shot by parks scouts but there are several problems with this. Firstly many scouts are too scared to get close to elephant cows so often end up shooting solitary young bulls which is not ideal. Secondly due to intimidation reasons and limited abilities with a firearm they often wound elephant and buffalo,often lost to suffer and waste or worse become dangerous to hunters, other scouts or villagers.
Thirdly they often don't have the means with functional vehicle ect or they take a long time to do the job thus creating uneccessary disturbances of wildlife and on going hunts.
Because of this many operators have taken on this responsibility. It offers their clients a very reasonably priced DG hunt which is conducted properly minimising wastage and disruption and also offers operators and Parks a bit of extra income. It also allows operators to select animals with poor genetics ,broken horns / tusks etc and preferably older animals. When Parks do the ration hunts any animal is shot, often young bulls which are potential trophies and good breeding stock. All meat ,hides ,tusks etc belong to the parks authority. Buffalo skulls from ration hunts etc are auctioned every year by Parks so i beleive one can try and buy this back should he or she wish to do so.