Parks Authority to produce biltong from elephant meat

The Herald-January 4, 2008

New Ziana.

THE Parks and Wildlife Management Authority of Zimbabwe says it plans to produce biltong from elephant meat for sale in retail outlets throughout the country as part of sustainable utilisation of the animals.

Parks director-general Dr Morris Mtsambiwa said the project begun last year after the Ministry of Environment and Tourism permitted the authority to experiment with the said resource.

"It is in our plans. We plan to start this year. We tried it last year and we found that we did not have the proper infrastructure for the purpose," he said.

Dr Mtsambiwa said the authority would apply to the Ministry of Environment and Tourism for a quota of elephants to slaughter every year, after which it would build some abattoirs.

He said slaughtering the animals for biltong would, however, not contribute in reducing the size of the elephant herd in the country, which has far surpassed the carrying capacity of the National Parks.

The country would need to slaughter at least 6 000 animals every year to have an impact on the population of the elephants.

It is estimated that there are more than 100 000 elephants in Zimbabwe, a figure three times more than the carrying capacity of the protected areas.

Currently, the country slaughters at least 500 elephants every year with the meat distributed to communities living adjacent to the game parks.

The size of the elephant herd is posing serious environmental challenges in Zimbabwe and other Southern African countries including Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, South Africa and Zambia.

It is estimated that the regional elephant population has now surpassed 400 000 and is growing at between 4 to 7 percent every year.

The affected countries have since formulated an African Elephant Management Strategy that seeks to address the problem of the ballooning population.

"We have agreed on a work plan which we will start implementing this year," said Dr Mtsambiwa.

He said the work plan was agreed on at a meeting of director-generals of national parks in the region held in the town of Pemba in Mozambique in November last year.

The meeting agreed that an aerial survey be conducted simultaneously in the respective countries to establish the population of the elephants in order to avoid double counting, he said.

Zimbabwe currently heads the regional task force on finding strategies to control the population of elephants in the region.

At least some options have since been identified to control the elephant population, including contraception, culling and translocation.

It was agreed that individual countries would take options depending on resources at their disposal, capacity and situation.

Contraception was a preferred option in view of pressure from animal rights groups against culling although it is expensive and sometimes does not work. — New Ziana.

quote:

Originally posted by Kathi:

Contraception was a preferred option in view of pressure from animal rights groups against culling although it is expensive and sometimes does not work. — New Ziana.

Amazing - all those elephants in need of population control, all that meat to help out the population, all these hunters (myself included) who would love to hunt an elephant at a reasonable price, and yet they allow idiot sentimentalists to dictate a policy that will end up doing everyone harm, including the elephants.

Insanity.

and i want to know who is going to show a bull elephant how to use a condom or a cow ele how to take " the pill"?? will a " morning after" pill be available and who will dispense it? seems like a lot of ideal tasks for PETA volunteers but i predict a worldwide latex shortage once the bulls get the " hang" of it.

What good African Politician could turn down a nice Bribe from PETA? And they're still getting their cut from the hunters, but that's piecemeal, and they have to pay someone to do some paperwork. Now they will get their cut from elephant biltong sales. Even Hillary could learn some tricks from some of those guys.

quote:

Now they will get their cut from elephant biltong sales. Even Hillary could learn some tricks from some of those guys.

Do not forget the cut from the sale of the ivory? Or will the African Politicians and scientific advisors actually decide that only tuskless should be shot for biltong?

Then one can consider the statement that "....We tried it last year and we found that we did not have the proper infrastructure for the purpose," On what basis can anyone think that now, one year later and with a million fold inflation, no fuel and no money the infrastructure would be sufficient?

I pity the poor elephants. I feel for the poor people who will still go hungry, as they do not have money to pay for food. My heart bleeds for the poor hunters [I'm one!] done out of affordable hunting. But mostly I feel for the former dedicated Parks officials and conservationists who helped conserve these elephants only to see the potential income from sport hunting wasted by an inexperienced and ill-equipped bunch of idiots who want to make biltong from elephants.

If the numbers quoted in the Herald are even near correct there is a potential to make millions of US $ by allowing as far as practical and possible sport hunters to do the culling.

I must stop writing about this, it is sickening to even think about it!

In good hunting.

Andrew McLaren