Saw this news item.

How many elephants would Mali have?

Anyone on AR been there?

What game animals did you encounter?

Thanks.


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Zimbabwe: Jumbo Losses for Country

Zimbabwe: Jumbo Losses for Country
Financial Gazette (Harare)

March 21, 2007

Synodia Bhasera And Christella Langton
Harare

ZIMBABWE will lose over US$15 million each year for the next 20 years if a proposed ban on ivory trade succeeds, parks officials say.

Kenya and Mali have proposed a trade ban in raw or manufactured ivory in Zimbabwe, arguing that allowing any further trade in ivory would spur elephant poaching.

According to the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, if the proposal succeeds, the lucrative trophy hunting business would be badly hurt.

"We have opposed the proposal considering how much we are going to lose. Already we have lost much through research and travel. A single (hunted) elephant gives us about US$30 000. Imagine how much the authority is likely to lose if the proposal succeeds," said Morris Mutsambiwa, the authority's director.

Kenya and Mali will present their proposals on the ban at this year's Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) meeting, which is to be held in the Netherlands in June.

Zimbabwe is currently battling an overpopulation of elephant, with the estimated annual population growth rate of 5 percent. Parks fears that the animals would pose a further threat to the environment and human life if hunting is banned. A survey conducted by the World Wide Fund for Nature showed that Zimbabwe's elephant population stands at more than 100 000, against a carrying capacity of 47 000. Hwange National Park alone has an elephant population of 45 000.

The authority has set up a national technical committee comprising experts from the public and private sector to produce a document on elephant management and sustainability, which would be used to counter the ban campaign.

"We are preparing documents that will answer issues raised as justification for the proposal. We will have meetings with Namibia, South Africa and Botswana to discuss strategies. We will then move into SADC (the Southern African Development Community) to form a common position," Mutsambiwa said.

CITES banned international commercial trade in ivory in 1989 but in 1997, after recognising that some southern African elephant populations were healthy and well managed, permitted Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe to make a one-time sale of ivory to Japan.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200703220582.html

I have been to Mali. It was during the Harmatan and every thing was covered with red grit. You could hardly see your hand in front of your face, much less an elephant. A poor country facing desertification.... but elephant seem to thrive and get quite large there?

I know nothing about Mali elephant, except that I prefer them to Femali elephant, even though the trophy fees for Femali elephant are lower.

But who wants to shoot a Femali elephant? I suppose there's no Harmatan in it, although for me, formali speaking, it's Mali or nothing, as far as elephant are concerned.

mrlexma

Long day?

Hell, no!

I'm just getting started.

Laughed out loud on that one!

Didn't ErikD spend some time in Mali in his drive across Africa?

Who's got his website addy to look up what he said?

Thanks for the replies. I wondered about Mali being strong on the ban on ivory exports along with Kenya and is they actually had any elephants there anyway.

It seems they may have some in a couple of parks from this reply I got, following up Mickey's lead:

quote:

From ErikD:

John,

I don't know how many elephants there are in Mali, but it certainly can't be a significant number I'd think.

There is very little wildlife in general in Mali, at least in my experiance. I don't actually recall seeing anything else than a couple of warthogs down in the southwestern part when we entered from Mauritania, and a few on the way up to Timbuktu. We were told there are crocs and hippos in the Niger river (this river is the main route of transport in Mali), but we didn't see any depite crossing,and being along, the Niger river quite a lot.

However, there is as far as I know a national park of some sort in the far southwest of Mali, near the border to Senegal. Supposedly, there are elephant, buff, and even lion(?). There are also supposed to be a small herd of elephant southeast of Timbuktu. And as I know there are giraffe in neighbouring Niger very close to Malis border, I'd wouldn't be suprised if there are some that occationally wander over.

It seems that most wildlife is erradicated in much of western Africa outside the few national parks and protected areas. This goes for much of the rest of Africa too, but perhaps more so for west Africa from what we've seen. Although there is admittedly much more wildlife once you get closer to the ocean (Senegal, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin etc), not to mention in the southern part of Burkina Faso.

Unfortunately, a lot of the wildlife that does actually exist in west Africa ends up like this, as bushmeat, or "voodoo" fetish products:






Erik

From Erik's travels it looks like a lot of Mali's wildlife ends up as "voodoo" trinkets.

ErikD's Mali Elephants reply

Correction. The photo above is from nearby Togo.

Correct me if I am wrong but most of Mali is desertic, that's a place called Sahel.
The South part is almost treeless savannah.
I have some friends who have hunted in Mali but I am not sure they were allowed to.

We need the expertise of an insider.