This is a report I put together to try show the anti hunters what hunters dollars actually do!


ANOTHER FINE EXAMPLE OF CONSERVATION THROUGH SUSTAINABLE AND ETHICAL HUNTING.

Prior to 2002, Coutada 9, like all other wilderness areas in Mozambique, had been through over 25 years of civil war and rampant poaching. This massive area (4333 square kilometres) was left virtually devoid of wildlife. Furthermore, the area suffered serious habitat destruction, being subjected to annual late season bushfires and the indiscriminate cutting of trees through “slash and burn” agricultural practices. In 2002, Rio Save Safaris (made up of Mokore Safaris, Western Safaris and Gajogo Safaris), took over the concession and set out to re-habilitate the area to its former glory. Firstly, they needed to take control of the massive poaching epidemic and provide surface water for the very limited remaining wildlife.

Over the past 13 years RSS has drilled 22 boreholes and constructed 12 large dams, these provide permanent surface water for the wildlife in Coutada 9. This water is essential for life and all species benefit, including birds, smaller mammals as well as insects. The construction of these dams has been a lengthy and expensive exercise.








Some of the completed dams on Coutada 9 creating permanent surface water for the wildlife.

Since 2003 RSS anti-poaching teams have consistently removed over 1000 gin traps per year, caught on average 150 poacher per year and confiscated numerous homemade muzzle loader rifles as well as a few modern assault weapons like AK 47’s from poachers. For EVERY weapon confiscated, poacher apprehended or trap removed RSS have paid an incentive bonus to the anti-poaching units. Due to these continuous efforts, the wildlife has thrived and flourished, to the stage where most populations have reached sustainable population densities.




A year’s haul of traps and guns with some of RSS anti-poaching game scouts.







Elephants are poisoned by villagers where nothing from the animal was utilised. Most poaching is done for commercial use and totally unsustainable.

Some species populations, however were so low that RSS set out to re-introduce these species. Not a small feat in itself considering no importation of wildlife or inter-area game transfers had ever taken place in Mozambique.
After 18 months of tireless negotiations, RSS imported 10 lions in September 2009 from Phinda Game Reserve in South Africa. They were transported and successfully released them into Coutada 9 over 1600 km away. They have settled and are breeding well in the Coutada.









Waterbuck numbers, a species that once thrived in Coutada 9, were down to a mere handful after the civil war. RSS made a deal with Gorongosa National Park to swop 20 Zebra and 40 eland for 146 waterbuck. GNP got to increase their eland and zebra populations and C9 received 146 waterbuck in September 2013. Waterbuck are now seen daily and breeding well.






Eland from Coutada 9 being released into Gorongosa National Park and the replacement of 146 Waterbuck into C9.




The capture team at work.

A key priority from the outset, was to boost the local remnant buffalo population and after more than 10 years of trying to source buffalo from surrounding countries as well as within Mozambique. RSS was FINALLY granted permission from the Mozambique government to capture 50 buffalo as a trial from the Zambesi Delta reserve. This was finally achieved in 2015. The 50 buffalo are safe and sound in Coutada 9 with plans now to capture a further 250 next year.






The first 50 buffalo in their quarantine bomas, November 2015.

These projects and all other developments such as building of road networks, Safari Camps and staff accommodation to date have been funded through trophy hunting. RSS operates on a strict sustainable off take quota where a small percentage, normally 2-5% of a population, is harvested. These animals are usually males past their prime and their removal has little impact on the overall species population.
All funds raised through trophy hunting to date, have gone back into the conservation and development of this magnificent area as well as to support the local communities. Unfortunately due to the remoteness of the concession and thick bush, photographic tourism is very limited and not a feasible option for this area.




RSS employ 50 game scouts for anti-poaching alone as well as another 60 plus people for all other development work required. This in turn provides over 100 families with a reliable source of income and food annually.
Of the animals harvested 25 % of the trophy fee received from foreign hunters goes directly to the local communities. RSS also supplies most meat to the community either directly through delivering it to the local villages or indirectly through issuing it to the staff working within the Coutada. The meat from ALL animals harvested is FULLY utilised, including lions, baboons and especially elephant.




RSS has also built a school, clinic and drilled boreholes for the surrounding communities. Many of our hunting clients have made donations to the school personally or in the form of delivering SCI Blue Bags.

Poaching, as opposed to legal trophy hunting, is indiscriminate, without regard to age, sex or species of animals killed. There is no respect for boundaries or numbers of animals harvested and if not constantly policed there WILL be no wildlife left. The general modus operandi of the poachers in this region is hunting with homemade gin traps or snares which is very cruel. When RSS initially arrived in Coutada 9 almost every animal harvested by hunters was missing a foot from these traps.
Basically, the animal once trapped will drag the trap around for 3 -4 days until the poachers catch up to it and kill it with an axe or spear. Some species such as lion, buffalo, leopard and elephant that they cannot kill due to the danger aspect with their axes are left to drag these traps around for weeks until the animal dies either from starvation or from infection. Sometimes the animal’s foot rots, breaks or is bitten off. These survivors are then crippled for life, or slowly lose condition and die.






One male lion had three of its four limbs injured from traps. Thanks to hunter supported anti-poaching efforts there are far fewer cases of injured animals but still a massive and continual problem.










An eland with a trap on that escaped the poachers with two axes embedded in it and a baby elephant that had to be put down after dragging this trap for over a week and another that eventually died from infection and starvation.










A buffalo cow that was caught in a trap that was put down after a week,as was the kudu, one of several elephant poached annually for their ivory and a buffalo bull shot with a trap on it.






A mature lioness and a sub adult lioness that both died from these traps.






A young male lion that was caught with a trap, after a week it’s foot rotted off and is now walking around with only 3 feet.






The illegal cutting of hardwoods for planking is another massive problem and the RSS anti-poaching team is heavily involved in trying to protect all the beautiful hardwoods on Coutada 9.

The only donations received to date have been from the hunting organisations, Dallas Safari Club and Safari Club International. RSS would like to thank them both for helping us save the animals and habitat on Coutada 9.
A massive THANK YOU to all the hunters who in following their passion for adventure in wild Africa. Have saved thousands of animals in Coutada 9, provided employment and income for many families as well as fed thousands of local villagers over the past 13 years. None of the animals pictured here have names but hunters are the ONLY ones fighting to save these remote and wonderful areas and their wildlife. Your continued support of sustainable hunting is greatly appreciated.




Pictured above is 1306 gin traps, 68 cable snares, 9 can rat traps and 25 homemade muzzle loaders that were collected by our RSS anti-poaching team in 2015 alone. This anti-poaching effort alone costs RSS over US$100 000 annually, all of this comes from sustainable hunting.
After 13 years of hard work Coutada 9 boasts one of the best game population densities in wild unfenced Africa today and will only improve since the addition of more waterbuck ,lion and buffalo to the Coutada.

Fantastic. Thank you for your work

Good Hunting
Carl Frederik

You Duckworths are a class act and you would do well to get all this to the attention of the international and social media and indeed USF&W.

The rejuvenation of wild Africa is a personal sacrifice and I applaud the efforts of you and your family.

With your permission I would like to be able to copy and use some of your photographs to illustrate the horrors of poaching?

Fantastic operation! Will give you a call when I go to Moz!

This is great work.

I suggest, however that if you plan to disseminate the report that you delete the word "unfortunately" from this sentence "Unfortunately due to the remoteness of the concession and thick bush, photographic tourism is very limited and not a feasible option for this area" as it suggests that photo tourism would be the preferred option if feasible.

It might also be wise to caption the lion release photo to highlight that the fence is a temporary structure to facilitate safe release into the wild.

This type of report from these large wilderness areas is just what is needed.

congratulations on doing a fantastic job rehabilitating such a large area. i do agree with JabaliHunter about removing unfortunately from this information, as there is nothing unfortunate about it at all. i hate to think what just the animal relocation has cost, as been there on a much much smaller scale and it was painful.good luck in keeping up the brilliant work you are doing. cheers mike

Is there a way to turn this into a stand-alone article that can be shared on social media easily?

Excellent write up Neil, some day soon I hope to make it over to Coutada 9 and make my donation to conservation by hunting!!

Wow, thank you RSS and Mokore

Thank you Neil for all the fine work you are doing. The word needs to get out as to what is REALLY being done to conserve African Wildlife and its habitat.

I enjoyed hunting plains game in Coutada 9.I liked the camp-very comfortable with a great view.Overall nice atmosphere and full of game.

Great work that many of us are thankfully familiar with.
Could Ant or someone convert this into an article that we could pass and share all around?
We could do lik we did with Larrys article that we got Worldwide attention from.
This is exactly the kind of thing that needs broadcasting

Well wrtten and well done!

I have reached out to Ivan Carter via FB regarding the success on C9. I know he is documenting the success in C11 with ZDS on Carters War. I suggested he include C9 in a future episode that way he could document one area restored by hunters dollars (C11) helping to restore another area (C9) also being restored by hunters dollars.

Great presentation. I'm really happy to see that the buff have finally started arriving!
I hunted C9 last year, and it is a fabulous destination. It is hard to believe that so much could have been accomplished in only 13 years.
The commitment of the Duckworths to wild Africa is astounding.

Wow! Incredible success story. Well done ladies and gentlemen.

Fantastic job and a wonderful write-up on what sustainable hunting can provide for an area.

Don

Neil,

One Heck of a job. I've put it up on my FB in its entirety and boosted it. The pix are graphic but I think necessary to put the point forward.

Mark

That is a powerful message. Thanks for posting it.

WOW. What a great story of rejuvenating a part of wild Africa. My hat is off to you for all of the hard work involved. Well done. Bruce

Great job. Amazing dedication & vision. God bless you and your team!

Outstanding!

Neil,

That is a great write up.

Thanks for all Mokore does for conservation on Coutada Nine, Sengwa Research, and the Save. I feel very fortunate to have hunted all three areas.

Neil,

I have copied your narrative, uploaded and positioned the photos, and drafted the material for posting on our blog with a stand-alone article link. None of this has been published so it can't be viewed publicly at this time.

With your permission, I would be glad to post this up on our blog and then share the stand-alone link for anyone that wishes to disseminate the information.

**** Updated this post with an active link below to the posted material*** (I inserted the additional information Neil mentioned).

Another Fine Example of Conservation through Sustainable and Ethical Hunting

Shawn

What a great success story. And to think there are some here on AR like Beretta Mike that tell us conservation through hunting doesn't work. Stories like this as well as those from Buzz's DAPU operations prove that the model does in fact work very well when managed properly.

Great job!

Absolutely fantastic example of what conservation is.

Thank you very much for what you are doing.

Neil and Gary ! Congrats what an awesome result and I certainly know that it comes with unimaginable hard work , fair share of tears and frustrations . You guys certainly deserve the rewards you will recieve from your efforts and dreams ! Well done !

Thanks to everyone for the comments. The main reason I wrote this report to raise awareness to the anti hunting groups so please feel free to repost where ever possible. The more people who see the graphic photos of damage done by poachers and the fact that it is hunters dollars only that are fighting this the better it will be in our fight against the ignorant ,uninformed anti hunters.
Please also tweak the photos and add in the info that the lions were only put in quarantine boma for 3 weeks to settle before being released into Coutada 9, as were the buffalo. My comment that it is unfortunate that it can only be sustainable through hunting is a bit misworded . My point I was trying to get across is that due to it's location and topography many areas are totally unsuitable to photographic type tourism and thus would not generate the necessary funds to rejuvenate and protect these wild areas.

There was a comment on the cost of these captures. The 50 buffalo we introduced last year cost RSS over US$ 75 000 not to mention the many frustrating years trying to get permits etc to do this. This again ALL came from hunters dollars.
Ivan is welcome to come film what we are doing there to help raise awareness.

A Job well done and an excelent report.

The graphic photos is exactly what the world must see, it shows the heartlessness of poachers and the damage they do to conservation efforts.

This is what you call passion

Kudos to them. Fantastic work. True conservation in its purest form. This needs to be shared , not only with other hunters and like minded people , but with the broad public out there. Well done gentlemen.

Fantastic! Very well done guys. I must also add that C9 is not the only success story that Mokore are involved with. What they have done in the SVC and Sengwa Research area is also truly awesome. Makorokoto!!!

I think that showing this place and these images to the antis will only make them more determined to stop hunting and shut places like this down.All this is to them is another hunting operation that needs to be closed down.

Nice and important report !

However; AR is not reaching the people that should read this report. Any plans of making this more public on Facebook etc ? Sending it to journalist that you trust will make a serious and neutral article based on this ?

One thought that came up - just some loud thinking; would it be a good idea to make a web page and facebook page ( like DAPU ), but in general where several outfitters from different African countries participate with reports like this ?

www.antipoaching.com .... ?

Just asking ...


Morten

I posted this up for any that wish to use the link:
Another Fine Example of Conservation through Sustainable and Ethical Hunting

I inserted the additional information Neil mentioned. I will try to read through the material again later today to catch any typos, etc.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by The Norwegian:
Nice and important report !

However; AR is not reaching the people that should read this report. Any plans of making this more public on Facebook etc ? Sending it to journalist that you trust will make a serious and neutral article based on this ?

One thought that came up - just some loud thinking; would it be a good idea to make a web page and facebook page ( like DAPU ), but in general where several outfitters from different African countries participate with reports like this ?

Just asking ...


Since DSC and SCI are financially supporting many successful wildlife conservation initiatives (including Rio Save Safari Coutada 9, DAPU, etc.), perhaps they should expand their respective websites to include a section where these success stories can be shared with both the hunting and non-hunting communities. I suspect that many non-hunters access the DSC and SCI websites in an effort to obtain a better understanding of sustainable hunting and it's role in wildlife conservation. In addition to showcasing successful anti-poaching initiatives, they could also include relevant documentation such as NAPHA's recently released Position Paper entitled "The Importance of Hunting towards Conservation".

Well done Neil! Hear hear to the Duckworth Family!

quote:

Originally posted by ExpressYourself:
I posted this up for any that wish to use the link:
Another Fine Example of Conservation through Sustainable and Ethical Hunting

I inserted the additional information Neil mentioned. I will try to read through the material again later today to catch any typos, etc.

Shawn,

I have shared your blog on Facebook.


Morten