http://www.zimbabwesituation.c...ald/#comment-1019834

Hands up whoever thinks turning 20,000 underpaid soldiers loose in Zimbabwe's two flagship national parks is a great idea.

ha ha ha - we get that here sometimes with students from the game scout college doing field trips. Field groups of 40 - 70 pax need to be fed protein

Let the slaughter begin!

Napoleon said that an army marches on its stomach . . .

“We are also working with the University of Zimbabwe to have a tracking equipment so that we can see elephants from Harare. Once we see a suspicious movement, we immediately advise the Air Force to deploy a helicopter right away. We are very sophisticated now.”

Had an interesting interaction with the Zim army in the late 90's. I was hunting elephant in southeast Zim near the border with Mozambique. A Zim army unit was clearing a mine field laid by the Rhodesian army during the bush war. Several times during the course of the hunt we stopped to visit with them. They were friendly and seemed to be professional and well organized. The PH, who longed for his old Rhodesia, was impressed. Obviously, Zim has digressed since that time and I have little doubt that their AK's will be turned on anything edible.

I noticed that in Zambia in 2000. The game scout camps shot more game than the paying hunters.

Yes and no. The military here is still pretty well-trained and most of them don't have chips on their shoulders, so you can chat with them. My club shares a shooting range with them and they're friendly and often offer to help. It's just that they get paid as and when. I personally don't think this will happen anyway - just a PR exercise. There is already a Sino-Zimbabwe unit in country which is supposedly a subsidiary of Blue Sky Rescue. People were worried about them too, but they won't be doing any poaching. They also wouldn't be here at all unless they had command structure and were the tip of a bigger iceberg, which I find raises some questions.

quote:

Originally posted by 7kongoni:
Had an interesting interaction with the Zim army in the late 90's. I was hunting elephant in southeast Zim near the border with Mozambique. A Zim army unit was clearing a mine field laid by the Rhodesian army during the bush war. Several times during the course of the hunt we stopped to visit with them. They were friendly and seemed to be professional and well organized. The PH, who longed for his old Rhodesia, was impressed. Obviously, Zim has digressed since that time and I have little doubt that their AK's will be turned on anything edible.