01 December 2008, 14:46
editor-antI agree. Going to Africa and supporting those operators on the ground makes all the difference. I have seen arguments against supporting “corrupt†governments etc, but feel strongly that supporting those on the ground while abiding by international law is the way to go.
People like Saeed also put an immense amount into African hunting, often behind the scenes. His involvement with, and support of the African Hunter and African Fisherman magazines trickle down and influences a great deal on the ground. We are not a big organisation, but through an ethical, honest and informative magazine, we are able to do a lot, even playing “watch-dog†when required.
In addition, there are a number of NGOs whose work with African wildlife is essential, though they may not be directly related to hunting. The Zambezi Society - or ZAMSOC as it is known - are one such organisation. I have been involved with them for the past 15 years or so, and their founder and past Director - Dick Pitman - writes and consults for the magazine. I am involved with the board that governs the organisation, and while they are low key, I cannot think of another NGO which has done more research, lobbying and on-the-ground work for one of Africa’s most pristine wildlife reservoirs. I would wager that more hunters have enjoyed the Zambezi Valley in all southern African countries than have not. Their continued enjoyment of this truly wild environment is largely due to ZAMSOC’s work and intervention over the last two and a half decades - stopping uncontrolled mining, damming (of the river) and poaching.
Go have a look at
www.zamsoc.org.
While they benefit from small administration fees accrued from donor money, it is seldom enough to meet core running costs of the main offices in Zimbabwe, and these core costs, or the lack thereof, have often threatened the Society. In essence, the costs are not huge, but few donor agencies will fund “core costsâ€, and this is where people like us can become involved. Every little bit helps and international members to the Society make a difference. The Society is a lean mean conservation machine with a small dedicated staff and no bloated salaries or perks. These are devoted people!
I have pasted below, some information on them, and a particularly exciting project they are about to embark on (lifted from a recent newsletter of theirs). Their web site can provide more information, and I believe has a donation system in place now.
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Dear Zambezi Society Members
IF YOU HAVE SEEN A LEOPARD ANYWHERE IN ZIMBABWE
IN THE LAST FIVE YEARS, PLEASE TELL US!
Look at the Leopard Atlas Map on our website at
http://www.zamsoc.org/html/leopard.html and fill in a survey form online
OR:
See the attached Leopard Atlas sighting sheet which you can fill in and return by e-mail to leopard@zamsoc.org
OR:
Fill in a Leopard Atlas sighting sheet at our offices in Harare or Bulawayo.
As members and friends will already know from our Bulletins, The Zambezi Society is undertaking a National Leopard Survey for Zimbabwe, in partnership with the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority.
We want to record all leopard sightings for the past five years, with as much detail as possible.
Please feel free to forward this e-mail to any of your friends or contacts who might be able to help us with leopard sightings for this survey.
The Zambezi Society will be updating its Leopard Atlas Map on the website every month. You are encouraged to regularly check the website at
http://www.zamsoc.org/html/leopard.html Our long term goal is to extend this programme include the whole of the Zambezi Basin area.
Thank you for your help and participation in this very important exercise.
SOME BACKGROUND ABOUT THE ZAMBEZI SOCIETY'S LEOPARD PROJECT
Leopards are the least understood of all our big predators, and it has always been assumed that they are resilient enough to cope with the changes in habitat and human populations that Zimbabwe has experienced over the last 20-30 years. However, there has been increasing concern that this may not be the case and that the species is more vulnerable to change than previously thought.
Leopards are an extremely important species, both from an ecological point of view and an economic point of view. They are top predators and their presence in an ecosystem by default implies a healthy prey base and good habitat. Being one of the “Big Five†they are also important for the photographic tourism industry, and, as a sought-after trophy species are key to the hunting industry as well. However, leopards often kill small and medium-sized livestock and can cause considerable losses to farmers.
All this means that the species has to be managed to ensure that the population at the national level remains viable, but also that the income from both the consumptive and non-consumptive use of leopards is used to offset the costs borne by farmers living in areas with resident leopard.
Effective management is not possible without a good understanding of the ecology and behaviour of the leopard under different conditions. The Zambezi Society will be working with the world-renowned Wildlife Conservation Research Unit of Oxford University to carry out the field work. We will be determining population densities of leopard (Phase 1 – current), demography (Phase 2 – will start as soon as there is funding available) and behaviour in relation to land use and changes in populations (Phase 3 – due to start as funding becomes available). Once data is available the Society will work with all stakeholders to use the data to develop a more effective management strategy for the species at a national level. The Society aims to keep everyone fully informed of the progress of the project.
Although this project is based in Zimbabwe on a national scale, interest has already been expressed to replicate the same project to the whole Zambezi basin and other region states.
SOME BACKGROUND ABOUT THE ZAMBEZI SOCIETY
Formed in 1982, the Zambezi Society is a conservation group focussing is efforts solely on the Zambezi river, (Africa's fourth-longest river) and its basin.
The Zambezi Society’s mission is:
"To promote the conservation and environmentally sound use of the Zambezi basin for the benefit of its biological and human communitiesâ€
We are committed to initiating rapid, well-informed and effective action
ï¡ to maintain the Zambezi river basin’s variety and abundance of species and eco-systems
ï¡ to conserve Zambezi wildernesses and promote the recognition of their values
ï¡ to ensure that conservation is incorporated into planning for the whole Zambezi river basin
ï¡ to encourage people to find ways of using the natural resources of the Zambezi basin without destroying them.
WHAT DOES THE ZAMBEZI SOCIETY DO?
ï¡ We provide financial and practical support for Protected Areas and National Parks in the Zambezi River basin.
ï¡ We manage a range of wildlife and wilderness conservation and community resource management projects in the Zambezi basin region. Special focus is on protecting and monitoring black rhinoceros, elephant and carnivore populations and establishing training in wilderness awareness and management for custodians of Zambezi wild areas.
ï¡ We increase public awareness about issues affecting the Zambezi river and its basin, by disseminating information through research, publications, the media and our membership.
ï¡ We lobby or advocate against development initiatives that are unsuitable or damaging to the biodiversity or wilderness values of the Zambezi environment; and we promote good river basin planning based on sound scientific information.
The Zambezi Society has adopted a theme-based approach to focus and streamline its activities in the Zambezi Basin. By separating out its activities into the following themes, the Society can better coordinate its conservation actions:-
ï¡ wildlife (research, monitoring and protection programmes for black rhino, elephant and important Zambezi carnivore species such as cheetah and leopard)
ï¡ wilderness (creating awareness of wilderness values and helping improve the management of wild areas through carefully-targeted, specialised training)
ï¡ water/wetlands (promoting holistic river basin planning and underlining the importance of conserving wetland biodiversity to protect the Zambezi’s valuable water resource)
ï¡ protected area support (providing logistical and material support for protection of wildlife and other natural resources in National Parks and other important protected areas).
For more information about the Zambezi Society and its activities, visit our website at
http://www.zamsoc.org Dr Gianetta (Netty) Purchase
Project Liaison Officer
Zimbabwe National Leopard Programme
The Zambezi Society
Tel: + 263 9 68910 or 242837
Fax: + 263 9 70367
Cell: + 263 913 016295
Email: leopard@zamsoc.org
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11 December 2008, 13:27
SaeedLadies and Gentlemen,
I have received the following from Ron Thomson, which he has asked me to post.
Response to the letter by Jean B. de Runz
Dear Sir
A respondent to your Hunter’s Forum requested information regarding where he could obtain some sound and factual information about wildlife management in Africa. Several people recommended that he obtain a copy of my book “Managing Our Wildlife Heritage”. We have since been in touch.
Another respondent (Jean B. de Runz), however, commented thus:
“Ron Thomson got a rude bashing from John Orborne in his book “a ranging son” for having practised with the infamous Shadrek who attempted to kill rangers a couple of times when John Osborne were (sic) the game ranger-in-charge of the Gonarezhou NP, before Ron took over his post.”
I would like to set the record straight in this regard:
Up until the time John Osborne left the employ of the old Rhodesian Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management, the Gonarezhou National Park (and all wildlife management matters in the surrounding South East Lowveld area of Rhodesia) was commanded by a senior game warden based at the Gonarezhou’s Mabalauta headquarters. This was located in the south of the Park on the Nuanetsi River. Chipinda Pools, where John Osborne lived throughout his service in the Gonarezhou, was a small satelite field station located 80 miles north of Mabalauta, on the Lundi River. Chipinda pools, throughout John Osborne’s service period, was commanded by the Warden at Mabalauta.
The first Warden at Mabalauta was Tim Braybrooke. He was followed by Tinky Haslam. I replaced Tinky in October 1968. John Osborne was then the senior game ranger based at Chipinda Pools. In 1968 I inherited John from Tinky. John Osborne, therefore, came directly under my command in 1968 and he remained under my command until he resigned from the department circa. 1972.
John Osborne persistently referred to himself as the Game Ranger-in-charge of the South East Lowveld. Where he developed this illusion I have no idea because there was no such post.
John Osborne was a charismatic and likeable man who oozed charm and bonhomie. I know of nobody who disliked him. I considered him to be a competent field officer and I felt privileged to have him as my 2 i/c (in the north of the park). In fact I relied on him completely and gave him a great deal of free rein in the execution of his duties – because I, myself, could not be in two places at the same time.
Throughout his reign at Chipinda Pools John Osborne tried in vain to catch the infamous elephant poacher Shadrek - who operated out of adjacent Mozambique. Over a hundred prime elephant bulls were allegedly killed by Shadrek over a period of about a five years.
The elusive Shadrek, became something of a bete noire for John. He became obsessed by the poacher and John went to extraordinary lengths to catch him. Many of John’s exploits in this regard were illegal and I now know that a great deal of important information in this regard was withheld from me as a consequence. Instead of us all being in on the act, therefore, John’s pursuit of Shadrek became a personal vendetta.
Long after both John and I had left the Gonarezhou, at the height of the Rhodesian Bush War, I managed to lure Shadrek into my confidence. He and I formed a team (and a friendship) and we operated in Mozambique together, militarily. As a direct result of our activities ten ZANLA terrorist bases were exposed – and wiped out by the collective Rhodesian military machine.
I was able to put my personal disapproval of Shadrek’s elephant poaching exploits behind me, in the interests of Rhodesia’s greater military cause. John Osborne, apparently did not see it that way.
John Osborne has, apparently, seen fit to give me a “rude bashing” in one of his books because I befriended and worked with Shadrek, a black man
that he hated and resented in the extreme. I have no regrets. I liked Shadrek, we worked well together and we produced super results. John Osborne’s opinion of me, therefore, is of no consequence.
From his writings – which I must admit I have perused only superficially – I note that he has always harboured a natural disdain for those who held dominion over him. In retrospect, therefore, I am not surprised that he
developed disapproval regarding my military work with Shadrek. That fact that I did so, and the fact that he could never lay a hand on his elusive enemy, must have been a bitter pill for John to swallow. Perhaps there is a shadow of envy in his attitude towards me today, too. Who knows? Who cares?
I trust that those people who read John Osborne’s books will read mine also. If they do they will very quickly determine which of life’s many pigeon holes John Osborne and I, respectively, live in. They are poles apart!
Ron Thomson
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Tel/Fax : (012) 253 0521 MAGRON PUBLISHERS
Email : magron @ ripplesoft.co.za P.O. Box 733
HARTBEESPOORT 0216
SOUTH AFRICA
RON THOMSON’S BIG GAME HUNTING MEMOIR BOOK PROGRAMME.
Ron Thomson is at last writing his African big game hunting memoirs. The planned programme comprises six volumes, the first of which is nearing completion. Altogether these books record the history of the author’s remarkable life in a colonial Africa that is long gone and will never return. This is probably the best, and it may be the last, verbatim record of a white colonial game ranger’s life in Africa and what are probably the greatest ever free-range African big game hunting stories ever told. Many of the stories are as incredible and they may seem impossible.
The books are set, primarily, in colonial Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) where, for 24 years (1959 - 1983), the author was employed as a game ranger in the country’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management. During those years he was embroiled in the most incredible big game hunting and black rhino capture work programmes imaginable. The numbers boggle the mind. Animals he has hunted, by conventional means, on foot, and with the aid of his faithful Bushman trackers, include some 5000 elephant; 800 buffalo; 50-60 lion (including six man-eaters); 30-40 leopards; and over 200 hippos. In addition, Ron led the culling team that killed 2 500 elephants, over a two year period, in the Gonarezhou National Park in the early 1970s.
He led the country’s black rhino capture team during the 1960s and early 1970s. Over a seven-year period he pioneered and perfected the capture and translocation of black rhinos. In that time he and his team captured and translocated some 140 black rhinos. These captures were effected with a capture gun that fired darts (flying syringes) which delivered a dose of immobilizing drugs into the target animal.
The work entailed tracking the animals down on foot, following the spoor with African trackers, finding the rhino in the Zambesi Valley’s dense jesse bush, and moving in on the target animal on foot. Ron conducted the final approaches ALONE with just a dart gun in his hands, a gun that fired a single dart that took between 15 and 20 minutes to immobilize the rhino! Absolute silence was the key to success. And he had always to maintain a position that was down wind of his quarry.
Most days, although several rhinos were tracked down every day for months on end, produced no results. The rhinos detected the approaching hunter, by sound, movement or scent, and they either charged him down or they turned and ran away. Ron believes that over the seven-year period of this black rhino capture work he had, perhaps, 3 000 close encounters with these very dangerous animals. He was always alone and armed only with a dart gun. The requirement for absolute silence on the final stalk made it impossible for a back-up game ranger to accompany him. So there was never a man with a heavy caliber weapon nearby to help him should he be attacked and mauled by the rhino.
Some final stalks, over the last 100 yards or so, took upwards of 4 hours to complete. Firing the dart was only possible when the hunter was able to maneouvre himself into a position where he had a completely clear shot at the target. This fact accounts for the very close darting ranges recorded. In the early days, before he himself improved the equipment, Ron’s average darting range was between 6 and 13 yards.
To successfully execute these capture operations required the most incredible hunting skills. Few people had what it took to carry out this work and be successful let alone survive. Few people had enough control of their nerves. Three of Ron’s colleagues were gored by black rhinos. He himself was tossed twice, knocked aside once, and spent some harrowing moments being kicked around under the belly of an irate black rhino bull that he had just darted.
The chronicle of Ron Thomson’s black rhino hunting/capture experiences will surely rank amongst the greatest of conventional hunting stories that will ever be told.
Finally, Ron was involved in a part-time capacity, as a tracker-combat-unit leader, throughout the 16 years of the Rhodesian Bush War. In the 1960s this was an informal arrangement. He was, in those days, called upon, on an ad hoc basis, to use his hunting and tracking skills to track down and engage Joshua Nkomo’s insurgent forces of Ndebele (ZIPRA) terrorists who were then invading the country. In these pursuits he used his Bushman trackers to great effect.
In the 1970s this arrangement was formalized by the establishment of the National Parks Volunteer Tracker Combat Unit (NP-VTCU). During this latter period he was more deeply involved in hunting down the Mashona (ZANLA) terrorists of Robert Mugabe.
Over the years hunters have always speculated about ‘the most dangerous quarry’. Ron will tell you it is a group of terrorists, armed with machineguns, who are prepared to fight back and take the battle to their enemy.
Ron’s war service brought into his life some of his most exhilarating, yet harrowing, ‘hunting’ experiences. One of his hunting memoir books will be devoted entirely to telling this story: Game Rangers At War! He intends that it should serve as a tribute to all those of his colleagues who were part of the NP-VTCU; and in memory of those who lost their lives serving in it. The NP-VTCU was a small but elite group of young Rhodesian men, black and white, who had very special hunting and tracking skills. In the 1970s they were trained (in military disciplines), armed and uniformed by the Rhodesian army under whose command they operated.
The tiny NP-VTCU, pro-rata, is said to have suffered more casualties in the Rhodesian Bush War than any other military unit. This was because the men of the unit were constantly in hot pursuit of the enemy. They were the first to be placed on the terrorists’ tracks. They were persistent in tracking them down. They were the first to enter the killing fields when the enemy laid ambushes for those who were following them! And they were the first to engage the enemy when they came under fire. Ron still does not understand how he came through 16 years of war unscathed. He was lucky. His was saved on many occasions, he believes, by the exquisite bush-craft skills of his Bushman trackers; and, undoubtedly, also because of his own bush-craft skills which he absorbed, over many years, from his Bushmen friends. In many ways Ron’s war experiences represented high points in his life and peaks in his hunting career.
The sheer numbers of animals involved in Ron’s big game hunting adventures explains the many extraordinary hunting stories that he tells. The law of averages dictate that a certain proportion of the hunts he conducted would result in exceptional stories. Most of his hunts were mundane and have been forgotten. Those that he remembers are memorable and unforgettable. Never before has there been a series of big game hunting books like these. There will never be a series like them in the future. These, therefore, are African big game hunting books that no self-respecting hunter will want to miss.
Each book will be part of the series but it will also stand on its own. The first editions will be limited to ONLY 1 000 collector’s copies. Each book will be numbered and signed by the author. Those who purchase these books will have their names inscribed in calligraphy on the collector’s copy page. Those who purchase the first volume/volumes will be given preference in the purchase of all subsequent copies, so as to enable them to obtain every volume in the 6-part series.
Volume 1. The saga begins with the author’s first encounters with Africa’s big game animals and his first ventures into big game hunting. It begins when the author was just 16 years old (1955). The book takes the reader through the author’s early hunting years, with leopards and crocodiles and elephants, and his attestation into the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management (1959), aged 20. It explains the big game hunting training he was given by experienced game wardens up to the day he was entrusted with hunting elephant and buffalo on his own (early 1961). It tells the story, therefore, about how he “earned his stripes” as a big game hunter-game ranger.
This book relates several fine and exciting leopard hunts, early buffalo and elephant hunts, and the author’s first lion. It includes one of Ron’s most dangerous buffalo hunts ever. It also, incidentally, introduces the reader to a range of ordinary yet remarkable national park duties that young Rhodesian game rangers were required to perform at the height of Africa’s colonial era.
Although each book stands on its own, this first volume does set the scene for the other five that will follow.
Volume 11. This second book of the series covers the period 1961 to 1964 when the game rangers of Rhodesia’s Hwange National Park undertook the first serious attempt to reduce the park’s excessive elephant population. The park remained a sanctuary for all wild animals but every elephant that left the park boundaries was tracked down and killed by one or another of Hwange’s (at that stage) TWO ‘available’ young game rangers. Ron Thomson was one of them. The hunting was carried out in the conventional manner, tracking the animals down with Bushman trackers, finding them in the dense teak forests of the area, and shooting as many of them that the game rangers could find.
Every buffalo that was found outside the park boundaries was similarly treated.
The stories tell of the killing of many crop-raiding elephant bulls, too, and the first ever elimination of entire elephant breeding herds in Rhodesia. It also relates the hunting of stock killing lions, leopards and hyenas. Some of the buffalo hunts will stand, forever, as some of the most exhilarating hunting stories ever told.
This book tells the story of a young game ranger, with a huge passion for big game hunting, who falls with his ‘bum in the butter’. Every month of this three year period saw the author hunting elephants and/or buffaloes anywhere and everywhere outside the park boundaries; and/or he was killing stock-killing lions and leopards on the commercial ranches throughout the Hwange district; or in the district’s tribal reservations. He also shot two buffalo bulls every week for labour rations. Half way through this period, when his senior ranger colleague, and one-time mentor, was transferred to Victoria Falls National Park, Ron took on the duties of senior hunter-mentor at Hwange National Park’s Main Camp. It then became his responsibility to train the new young game ranger recruits who came to Hwange. His age-range during this period was 21–24 years old.
All Ron’s dreams of becoming a big game hunter were realized during this period. The hunting experiences he enjoyed were beyond his wildest dreams. He grasped every opportunity with both hands until, at the ripe young age of 25, he became one of the most competent and experienced elephant hunters in Hwange National Park’s history.
Life, Ron believed, could not get better than this. He was mistaken!
Volume 111. This book covers the period 1964 to 1968.
The winds of change blew over Africa in the early 1960s. In October 1963 the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was dissolved. The two less-developed partners in the coalition, the British colonies of Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) and Nyasaland (now Malawi) were given their independence. Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), the most developed and senior partner, was not given its independence despite the fact that Southern Rhodesia had been self-governing since 1923. The politics of the period was to change the author’s life forever but he did not know it then. Nor did it interest him very much either. His attention was focused entirely on his big game hunting career which, at that time, was cruising on the crest of a very high wave.
Although the federation had been a partnership between three African countries only Southern Rhodesia had surrendered game reserves to the Federal Department of National Parks. When the federation broke up, therefore, Southern Rhodesia simply absorbed the Federal National Parks Department and amalgamated it with the country’s territorial Game Department. It was meaningless to have two wildlife departments in the one small country: one administering the national parks; one being responsible for all wildlife matters outside the protected areas. The Rhodesian Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management then came into being (October 1963).
For years there had existed a sometimes unhealthy rivalry between the rangers of the old Game Department and those of the much more sophisticated national parks organization.
To make the combined group into a cohesive whole, therefore, at the break up of the federation staff transfers were effected that saw old game department staff being posted to national parks stations, and vice versa. Ron Thomson was caught up in the turmoil thus created.
At the beginning of 1964 Ron was promoted to the rank of senior game ranger and transferred out of Main Camp, out of his beloved Hwange, to a small government station on the shores of the newly formed Lake Kariba. He was reluctant to move but he had no choice. He was placed in charge of the 5000 square mile Binga district in the middle Zambesi Valley which he was required to administer all on his own.
Binga district was a piece of real estate the size of Hwange National Park. It contained two 500 sq. mile game reserves, Chete and Chizarira, which had been set aside to accommodate ALL the wild animals of the district. This was a forlorn hope conjured up by government administration in the capital. The rest of the district was, at the time of Ron’s arrival, being occupied by the Ba-Tonga people who had vacated the recently inundated Zambesi valley floor.
Lake Kariba, 280 miles long and 25 miles across at its widest point, filled to capacity for the first time in 1963. Prior to this event some 57 000 primitive Ba-Tonga tribes-people were forcibly evicted from their ancestral homes in the lake basin and they settled on vacant land above the high water mark all around the lake shore. This himterland had been wild and pristine African bush before the advent of Kariba. It had been populated by a whole range of wild animal species ONLY. Before Kariba, an undisturbed ecological balance between the animals and their habitats had been in force here since time began.
When the Kariba dam was constructed all this changed. All the wild animals that had once lived in the lake basin walked out in front of the rising waters. They, too, occupied the hinterland country above the lake shore, being forced to join the old and resident animal populations. The whole district, therefore, became unnaturally and very heavily overstocked with wild animals.
The masses of displaced Ba-Tonga were simply told to “find land” on which to build their new villages and on which to grow their crops. This had to be done in the hinterland of the district away from the lake. No organised resettlement programme existed. The people individually selected locations where there were natural springs, and/or places where there were perennial pools in the seasonally dry riverbeds. Their primary need was to live near a permanent source of water. These springs and river pools, of course, were the ancestral waterholes of the wild animals of the district, too. This brought the people and the wild animals into direct conflict.
In February of 1964 Ron’s new responsibilities comprised administering all wildlife matters in the whole Binga District. Binga was, at that time, still a huge piece of pristine Africa in which there was a salmagundi of massive numbers of wild animals and huge numbers of resettling and very primitive people. Whilst the people were busy hacking out new croplands from the animal’s wild habitats, their crop lands were being plundered by the huge numbers of elephant and buffaloes which then ranged the district. There were elephants and black rhinos and buffaloes, and people, and goats, and sheep, and chickens, and scrawny village pariahs, all mixed up in one big boiling pot of disorganization.
During his first year at Binga 17 Ba-Tonga people were killed by elephants when they tried drive the big bulls out of their croplands. During that year Ron killed 600 elephants in protection of Ba-Tonga crops alone. He was also kept busy shooting crop-raiding buffaloes and hippos, and stock killing lions, leopards and hyenas. Every day of the week he was out on one kind of game control mission or another, or trying to stop the Ba-Tonga from laying wire and steel-cable snares to kill wild animals for food.
Throughout 1964 elephants and buffaloes trekked away from the turmoil in the valley. They moved onto the commercial highveld cattle ranches and they took with them the dreaded tsetse fly. Soon the fatal disease, nagana, which was transmitted to the domestic stock of the commercial farming areas by tsetse flies, became a new problem resultant from the formation of Lake Kariba.
Hurriedly two ‘parallel’ high-tension steel-wire game-proof fences were erected around the Zambesi valley. They stretched from the upper reaches of Lake Kariba, for hundreds of miles, to the Mozambique border in the far north east of the country. The corridor varied between five and sixty miles wide. It became government policy to remove ALL animals, both domesticated and wild, between the two fences. This eventually stopped the spread of the tsetse fly.
Ron was placed in charge of the Sebungwe (Binga) section of the tsetse corridor and, in November 1964, he was given two elderly, white, ex-farmers to help him eradicate all the buffaloes and all the elephants inside his part of the corridor. Ron’s new helpers were nice enough guys but they were not competent to handle the serious killing that had to be done. Most of the heavy work, therefore, fell on his shoulders. In the first three days of this operation Ron, on his own, killed 67 elephants. His middle-aged helpers simply could not keep up with his athletic running capabilities which is an absolute necessity when hunting elephants under these conditions.
The anti-tsetse operations lasted four years. And crop-protection was a continuing exercise throughout this period.
Early in 1964 the Ba-Tonga complained that they could not occupy a large area of heavy bush in the Sengwa River Mouth area of the Lake Kariba shore because it was heavily occupied by belligerent black rhinos. It was mooted that the rhinos be shot out. The Department of National Parks refused to consider this.
Instead they launched a black rhino capture operation in the winter of 1964 (between May and September). It was headed by Warden Rupert Fothergill of Operation Noah fame. Ron was tasked to assist him.
VOLUME IV. Between the two of them, Ron & Rupert captured 18 black rhinos over a six-month period in 1964. They were all translocated and released into Hwange National Park from where the species had been extirpated in the 1930s.
The anti-tsetse operations began in November 1964. They were destined to last the next four years. By the time the following winter came round, and the second phase of the rhino capture operations were due to commence, Ron was deeply immersed in the elimination of elephants and buffaloes in the Sebungwe Tsetse corridor. It was deemed, therefore, that Rupert should carry on with the rhino capture operation without Ron’s assistance. It so happened, however, that shortly after the operation began Rupert was badly gored by a rhino. He had his stomach ripped open, his right shoulder joint was smashed, and his upper right arm was shattered. He was casevacked out by helicopter. He survived but he never hunted again.
Ron was then the only person in the whole country who had any experience in black rhino capture. Consequently, he was (to his delight) temporarily withdrawn from his elephant and buffalo control programme in the Sebungwe Tsetse Corridor and, at age 25, he was placed in charge of the country’s black rhino capture operations. This was to last for the next seven years during every dry season, when Ron and his team captured and translocated 140 black rhinos. The rhinos were captured in tribal areas all over the country, where they were being killed by the local native peoples, and they were released into the country’s ‘safe’ game reserves.
During this period Hwange National Park, the Chizarira National Park and the Gonarezhou National Park were all restocked with black rhinos. Others were released into the Chirisa tribal game reserve in the Gokwe district. Volume IV tells the story of this remarkable exercise.
Volume V. Game Rangers at War. This volume tells the story of the formation and the work carried out by the National Park Volunteer Tracker Combat Unit (the NP-VTCU), and Ron’s participation in it. This is an incredible story of man-hunting and war skirmishes between the game ranger-tracker-hunters and the terrorist forces (otherwise known as ‘freedom-fighters’). The terrorists belonged to the black-nationalist leaders of the day, Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe. The war period lasted sixteen years of part-time (ultimately three week duty stints every two months) and very specialized soldiering. It ended with the take-over of power in the country by Robert Mugabe in 1980. Rhodesia was then renamed Zimbabwe.
Volume VI. This book covers the last fifteen years of Ron’s service in the Rhodesian/ Zimbabwe Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management, the most intense period of the liberation war. It tells of his promotion to Provincial Game Warden (of Mashonaland South) and his eventual appointment to the post of Provincial Game Warden-in-charge of Hwange National Park. Falconry substitutes, during some of this period, for Ron’s Big Game Hunting passions, until his return to Hwange.
This is the period of his maturity from a wild and woolly young game ranger to a deep-thinking and serious wildlife manager. In this period he qualified as a Member of the British Institute of Biology and he became registered as a Chartered Biologist with the European Union.
It covers the period of Robert Mugabe’s first three years as President of Zimbabwe and the evolution of a political machine that allowed him to hold onto power into the late first decade of the new millennium. He achieved this by instilling fear in his own people by way of intimidation, torture and murder. It affected everybody’s lives. Ron, being in a particularly high profile government position in the early 1980s, became a prime target. This book tells of the political pressures put on him to resign. Mugabe wanted a black man in his place! He refused.
Several ambushes by Mugabe’s military machine were then laid for Ron inside Hwange National Park. He managed to avoid them all as a consequence of information fed to him by his black staff in the game reserve. In one of these ambushes 13 government soldiers, armed with machineguns, lay in wait for him to pass by on the main tourist road in the national park . It was their intention to kill him and to blame his death on the action of Joshua Nkomo’s Matabele ‘dissidents’. These were Robert Mugabe’s political enemies.
It was a harrowing time.
Finally Ron saw the writing on the wall is six-foot high neon lettering. He succumbed to the pressure knowing that if he didn’t resign he would be killed; and with him, maybe, his family also. Even then he was not out of the woods. Ron knew far too much about Mugabe’s killing sprees in early 1983 when more than 20 000 Ndebele people were killed. The government refused to sign release papers that would allow him to emigrate quietly to South Africa. The break-through that saw his papers signed was a drama that one only expects in a Hollywood film.
This book tells of Ron’s ‘escape’ to South Africa, one step ahead of Robert Mugabe’s notorious Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), the Zimbabwe Intelligence Police (ZIP) and Mugabe’s presidential guard, the infamous North-Korean-trained 5 Brigade. ,
The evil forces of Robert Mugabe’s ZANLA regime were responsible for over 20 000 Ndebele murders in the first three months of 1983. Many of the victims were the families of Ron’s African staff at Main Camp, Hwange National Park. He thereby gained much knowledge about what was going on.
The Mashona and Ndebele peoples were arch-enemies long before the white man arrived in the country, in the 1890s. The Ndebeles then had the upper hand. After Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980, however, voting in the first ever fully democratic elections, saw the Mashona-leader, Robert Mugabe, come to power instead of the veteran Ndebele-leader, Joshua Nkomo. In 1980, 77 per cent of the electorate were Shona-speaking people; 20 percent were Sindebele-speaking people; and just three percent were ‘other races’. The latter group included the ‘whites’, the former rulers of the country for the previous 87 years. The voting, therefore, was split exactly according to tribal affiliations.
Ron’s last twenty-odd years in South Africa saw him develop a major philosophy on wildlife management and, particularly, a national park wildlife management philosophy that is totally contrary to everything that is happening in Africa today. Those who read the first five books in this series will be left in no doubt that Ron has been “through the mill” and that he knows what he is talking about.
Since he left Zimbabwe in 1983, of course, the commercial poaching pandemic (for elephant ivory and rhino horn) has flourished in Africa. It caused Ron to rethink everything that he ever learnt whilst he was “in” the profession. He is now a man who is quite happy looking for reality “outside the box” rather than confining his thinking to the doctrinaire and peer-pressure norms and values of our modern society.
Ron now scorns the CITES international trade bans for elephant ivory and rhino horn. He is adamant that their perpetuation is counter-productive. He states that the purported sole causes of the poaching, the existence of a black market and the festering sore of Africa, corruption, are of no consequence. He is equally adamant that the real driving force behind the poaching is poverty. Today he promotes the idea that the only solution to the commercial poaching problem is to relieve poverty in those rural communities that surround Africa’s remote national parks, the communities from which the poachers come. The poacher communities! He claims that hunting the huntable animals in the annual culling quotas WITHIN the Africa’s national parks is the best way to generate enough funds to relieve the local people’s poverty and thus to stop the poaching.
Ron says the commercial poaching of elephants and rhinos (particularly) is a uniquely African problem. But, he says, hunting for meat will eventually overtake elephant and rhino poaching as the most destructive force threatening Africa’s wildlife. He claims that the CITES solution to stop commercial poaching, the trade bans, will not work. He says they will not work because they offer only a First World recipe. He says solutions that will work in Africa will only work if they come out of Africa. They must address the real and African causes of the problem - principally poverty. Finally, he says, the solution must be a self-sustaining solution, a solution that is maintainable solely by Africa.
No more ignominious begging bowls. No more hand-out solutions.
Ron wants Africa to resolve this problem in an African manner - because none of the First World solutions so far offered have any chance of long-term success.
Ron’s philosophies are compelling. They are based on his belief that hunting inside the national parks is the only way we can produce enough money to sustainably solve the poverty factor in the poacher communities. It is the only way to stop the poaching.
“We must always remember,” he says, “that the poacher communities are doubling their numbers every twenty years. So the poverty problem is going to get worse over time, not better.”
“By using the wild animals of the national parks as the means to solve poverty in the poacher communities,” he says, “is also the only way we will ever be able to generate an ‘emotional ownership’ of the national parks within the hearts and minds of these poacher communities. When this happens,” he says, “they will become the greatest-ever custodians of Africa’s wildlife.”
“Hunting inside Africa’s national parks, within a specific framework (which he outlines)”, he says, “is the ONLY thing that can save Africa’s wildlife, Africa’s national parks, and Africa’s tourism industries, for posterity.”
This is the pro-hunting conclusion of a 69 year old man who has spent his whole life in the service of Africa’s wildlife and Africa’s national parks. Society should take heed of his views.
AWARDS
1. In recognition of his contribution to public awareness - about the principles
and practices of wildlife management - and for projecting hunting in a positive light, Ron Thomson has received the following awards from hunting associations in Africa and across the globe:
(i). The Conservation Trophy (The International Conservationist of the Year Award) 1992.
- Safari Club International –
- (based in Tucson, Arizona, United States of America) -
(ii). The Conservation Medal (The International Conservationist of the Year Award) 1993.
- International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation (C.I.C.) –
- (then based in Brussels, Belgium, Europe) –
(iii). Associate Life Membership of the International Professional
Hunters Association. 1992.
- (then based in South Africa) –
(iv). Golden Award. 2007
- The Confederation of Hunters’ Associations of South Africa. (CHASA).
- (based in South Africa)
(v). Namibian Conservation Medal 2003.
- The Namibian Professional Hunters Association (NAPHA) -
- (based in Windhoek, Namibia)
(vi). Natal Conservationist of the Year Award 1992
- Natal Hunters and Game Conservation Association. South Africa.
- (based in Kwa-Zulu, Natal, South Africa.)
(vii). Natal Conservationist of the Year Award 1993
- Natal Hunters and Game Conservation Association, South Africa..
- (based in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa.)
(viii). Honorary Membership of the S.A. Hunters Association (2007)
- South African Hunters and Game Conservation Association.
- (based in Pretoria, South Africa.)
CONCLUSION: Those who read this series of six books are in for a pro-hunting roller-coaster adventure that they never ever thought was possible. And they will be left with a new pro-hunting social perspective that they never expected.
M.C. De Jager.
Editor-in-Chief. Magron Publishers.
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