Kathi,
No hard feelings, I understand perfectly your point about using the force with organized gangs, I just think that your Topic title was too much "global" and that is not the best solution, some poachers once "converted" have been of great help to park officers.

Also I think that some of the best guides on the safari companies have been in some moment poachers.

"And what was that comment "if you are a real hunter"?"

That if you "feel" the hunt you must agree with me that some of the best hunters are poachers and their knowledge of the bush and the animals is incredible, talking with them and hunting together is a pleasure.

Any one that have hunted enough will know it, at least in this part of the world. I don't know how it works in Africa but from what I saw there, it's similar to South America.

From where you think most hunting guides comes from? not the outfitters but the guides. Do you think that the gaucho walking with you after a red stag or a wild boar don't poach or have poached??

As Lorenzo well points out, most of the time our best guides are also poachers. This is most unfortunate, because game populations diminish to the point of no return. It seems that teaching the economical value of hunting to our peasants is a very difficult task. Of course, the landowners are the main culprits: the presente enormous benefits of sport hunting never reach these people, who look at the game animals like another form of beef.
Nevertheless, Ray�s speaks with the truth: an animal�s life never equals an human one.

If the answer to this problem is reduction in poverty in Africa, then how to reduce poverty? A good first step would be a reduction in population.

If you read the old (circa 1900) hunting books, the locals were always in a state of poverty, as defined today, where the practice was (and is?) to have one more kid (and wife?) then one could support.

If poaching is a result of poverty, self-induced or otherwise, you can kiss those elephants goodbye.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/fig1b.jpg

Source:

Well, as you can see, I agree 100% with Ganyana and I do not have any answers as to how to deal with the problem and it would not matter if I did, no one would listen, the world is getting too small I suspect...

If you think AIDS is going to be the magic bullet, think again, it will not make a dent... Many are thinking that is their last hope, but a cure will be found, and the die off will be less than some are hoping I fear...

Our hope lies in the building of schools, the education of the African black people, the ability to live if not in harmony then in some kind of mutual agreement for each other.

I have seen that the black man and the white man can and do work together, Tanzania is a pretty good example, and it has not always been that way..

However I do have a solution, but remember I said no one would listen, and this is it...
Turn over the managment of the black populations of Africa to the Idaho Game and Fish Dept. and in two years they would all be on the endangered species list! OR option 2 would be to tell the Cajuns that Zulu and Yhosi are good to eat..

I'm outta here, just thought a little humor would brighten up this diatribe of something none of us have any control over as far as I can see....

Ray, I am not trying to give you a hard time on this, but personally I have no moral objection to a country having a shoot on sight rule for poachers. Isn't that why the game scout carries an AK47 anyway?

Please dont shoot the messenger ...



I tend to agree with Ganyana .... the money men are the problem, just like with drugs, dont we all wish we could get the BIG FISH but unfortunately when money and corruption are involved it is a perpetual cycle and the small fishes get eliminated, the BIG FISHES swim along with the current to greener pastures ...



There have been some heartfelt solutions offered to the problem in this thread, I dont want to sound like the typical HEADMASTER but a reality check for all of us might be in order ..



1) You wont keep the population under control, especially in Africa



2) You wont eliminate poverty, not in my, or my childrens life time, if ever



The only way to make inroads into Africas [ MAJOR PROBLEMS ] are to intall ( by force if necessary ) more reasonable governments whom care a little more about their people ... BUT the free world world has not the will or the compulsion to intefere, they prefer to leave the [ one party dictators ] in power and pour your hard earned taxes down a never ending black hole called AID and they bull..it you and I all the way to the bank that they are fixing the problems, dont believe a wink of it, all it achieves is to keep the tyrants in power and inflate their bank accounts with our money ..



Poaching is in reality wildlife terrorism, and you and I both know that with kid gloves solutions we wont defeat poaching OR terrorism, believe me we are only toying with the problem and using a rule book to fight it ... We wont succeed with a book of rules, maybe even without a rule book it will be tough, unfortunately that is a fact of life in our free democratic society, we try to be the goody 2 shoes ..



What a dilemna we all face, liberal and conservatives, whom is right !!! The liberals say talk talk talk and make concessions, the conservatives say hit first and talk later, always talk from a postion of strength ...



Have a wonderful day in paradise and think of those whom dont have a say in the big scheme of things, is there more that can be done, YES, but we will never all agree on the right path unfortunately ....



Peter

as anybody on here poached a deer or shoot over the limit on a bird hunt, just curious.

Actually, no.

I think some of us are missing the point. In the 90's, I worked in training poacher control units in another central African country bordering the Sudan. Our problems were not the meat poacher trying to feed their family, but the gangs coming in from Sudan and Somalia. These guys shot everything on sight, including tourists. Simply put, I taught these units to shoot them from very long distances. These were not gangs of two or three guys, but 30 or 40 with automatic weapons and rpg's. I got no truck with putting a bullet in these guys. They are raping the land and destoying everything we as legal hunters have worked to achieve over the last century with game management and licensing programs. Life is cheap. If you don't believe that, see how much your life is worth when you try to arrest 40 guys with AK's intent on taking 20 elephant a day. I've been there, done that, got the t-shirt with a few ragged holes thru it for my effort. As was said, if you have not been in that situation, then your comments are merely talk and speculation. For those of us who have recieved lead for our efforts to stop wanton poaching, it is an entirely different matter. Ganyana is absolutely correct and the only person here who has spoken the exact words that are relevant here. I would much rather put a bullet in the middlemen's heads than the poachers, but you must start somewhere.