RON THOMSON'S LETTER TO THE US FISH & WILDLIFE SERVICE
P.O. Box 452
Kenton-on-Sea 6191
South Africa
DATE: 12 APRIL 2014
Email: magron@ripplesoft.co.za.
Website: www.ronthomsonshuntingbooks.co.za.
To Mr. Gavin Shire,
US Fish & Wildlife Service.
Dear Mr. Shire,
I wish to respond to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s recent suspension of the importation (to the U.S.A.) of sport-hunted African elephant trophies taken in Tanzania and Zimbabwe during the calendar year 2014. I trust that the following report will give you a genuine insight into the REAL circumstances of Zimbabwe’s (and south central Africa’s) elephant populations.
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REPORT
A GENERAL OVERVIEW ON ZIMBABWE’S ELEPHANT POPULATIONS AND THE CONDITIONS OF THE HABITATS THAT SUPPORT THEM
First of all, I must introduce myself.
My name in Ron Thomson. I am a 75 year old ex-game Warden from Rhodesia & Zimbabwe. I served in the Rhodesian and then Zimbabwean, Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management for 24 years (1959 to 1983). Not only was I an active field officer in the department, I was also a Member of the British Institute of Biology (London) & Chartered Biologist for European Union (for c.20 years). If you investigate my history, you will discover that I have had a very distinguished career – and that I have extensive big game hunting, management and capture experience in Africa. For the last 25 years I have been - and continue to be - a wildlife journalist in South Africa specialising in writing books and magazine articles about many wildlife subjects -including and particularly ‘the principles and practices of wildlife management’. You might say, therefore, that I have been ‘in the job’ for 55 years.
I know the 5000 sq mile Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe very well. I served three years in the park as a young game ranger (1960 to 1964). At that time (1960) there were only 3500 elephants in the national park (physically counted). They were then already demolishing their habitat & in the process they were eliminating various tree species - notably the Mukwa (Pterocarpus angolensis); and others. Many of those tree species are now locally extinct.
At that time it was determined the park should carry no more than 2500 elephants (one elephant per two square miles); and I was one of two young game rangers who were tasked with making the necessary population reductions. In those days there was no hunting (or culling) allowed inside the national park, so we were required to find and to destroy all elephants that left the park and that were living (seasonally and temporarily) in the Ndebele Tribal Trust Lands outside the park boundaries. The meat then went to the local people. I carried out this elephant population reduction – in addition to my normal game ranging duties – for three years (1961, 62 & 63).
Proper elephant culling commenced inside the national park in 1965 – whereafter (until 1987) 300 to 500 elephants were taken off every year. It was not enough.
Hwange (called ‘Wankie’ in those days) was the love of my life and throughout my career in national Parks I paid close attention to what was going on in Hwange vis-a-vis the elephant management situation. From the beginning of 1964, I was absent from Hwange – except for occasional visits – for 18 years.
During my period of absence from Hwange, I hunted and killed several thousand elephants (over a period of 5 years) in the Binga district of the Middle Zambesi Valley: (1) In protection of the Batonka people’s crops (The Batonka were refugees from the Lake Kariba basin); (2) to feed the Batonka people (after Lake Kariba filled to capacity for the first time in 1963); and (3) to eliminate elephants (and buffalo) in the Sebungwe Tsetse Fly Corridors (This to stop the spread of tsetse flies into the country’s commercial highveld farming areas).
In 1971/72, I was lead hunter, and commander of the operation, when we reduced the elephant population in the Gonarezhou National Park by 2 500 animals.
So although I was ‘away’ from Hwange for 18 years, therefore, I was still very actively involved in elephant management work within Zimbabwe.
I returned to Hwange in 1981 as the Provincial Game Warden-in-charge of the national park.
There were 23 000 elephants in the Hwange in 1981. This was because - for many years during the 1970s - the department’s expert ‘culling team’ was unable to keep up with the numbers that had to be removed. The last elephant culling exercise in Hwange took place in 1987. The reason for the culling team not being able to keep up with the culling task in Hwange, was because it was also responsible of culling elephants in every other major national park in the country. And, in the late 1980s the unit became totally occupied in catching, and translocating, the surviving black rhinos in the lower Zambesi Valley where they were being heavily poached by Zambian poachers.
So, a new and very arbitrary elephant management target was determined for Hwange – one that was thought might be attainable. The new idea was to reduce the elephant numbers in Hwange from 23 000 to 14 600 (one elephant be square kilometre). (c.5 000 square miles = c.14 600 square kilometres). Even this reduced number, however, was never achieved.
I was incensed by this (what I considered to be) dereliction of our duty – believing that a major facet of our management responsibilities was being neglected. I was very aware that our principle wildlife management objective at Hwange was to maintain the park’s biological diversity – and we were NOT achieving that desideratum (because there were too many elephants)!
But, at that time, the new Zimbabwe government had just taken office and money was short. So was the necessary elephant hunting/culling expertise ‘short’ - because many experienced white game rangers had left the country after Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980.
In 1981 the habitat that I took responsibility for in Hwange National Park was nothing like the one I remembered from the early 1960s. All the Mukwa trees had gone. Very few large Mlala palm trees were left standing. Several Acacia and Combretum tree species - entire species - appeared to be locally extinct; and the once heavy undergrowth in the ecotones of the teak forests - on the edge of the forests where they joined the grasslands - was now sparse and straggly.
The grasslands were a mess. The thick cynodon grass swards that once grew on all the major grassland/drainage lines had been eaten into extinction. In many places, where there had once been thick grass, there was nothing but wind-blown and rippling Kalahari desert sand. This was all caused by too many elephants and too many other grazers. But the elephants caused the most damage. They eat practically nothing but grass during the six-month’s long rainy season – when the grass is green and palatable – and, at that time of the year, they eat grass in very large quantities.
So the Hwange National Park I inherited in 1981, needed an awful lot of very careful habitat management; and the elephant population needed to be reduced (then) by 20 000 animals. And I could visibly see that the national park was already (then) well advanced towards becoming a desert.
Little has changed since the early 1980s. I have not been back since 1983 – but the habitat degradation trends (towards the park becoming a desert) that were very obvious to me in 1983, can only have progressed in the same direction over the last 30 years. The elephant population was not ‘managed’ in any way in the interim - and it has (at least) doubled in number since 1983 - so how could the habitat conditions possibly have got better?
Since 1987 NO elephant population reduction has taken place at all in Zimbabwe (or Hwange). Since the (Illogical and universal) CITES international ivory trade ban came into force in 1989, Zimbabwe could not afford to cull its elephants – because, prior to 1989, the sale of ivory paid the huge costs of the culling exercises.
The elephant population in Hwange now stands at between 30 000 and 50 000. I believe it must be nearer the 50 000 mark (or more) - because at a 7.2 percent incremental rate, the population was doubling its numbers every 10 years at the beginning of the 1980s. Dispersal has undoubtedly taken place also, however – out of the national park - induced by population pressure, and lack of food and water inside the national park. And calf mortality must have been horrific over the last 30 years.
When nutrition levels drop, lactating mother elephants are subjected to tremendous energy stress – to keep themselves alive AND to produce milk for their babies. And when there is no food available during the last several months of every dry season, the mother cow’s milk dries up. In nature - when food is short - it is more important that the mother survives and that the baby dies! In 1982/83 I shot a great many baby elephants that had separated from their mothers. Without milk, they did not have the strength to keep up with their mothers on the daily journeys they had to make, to and from the waterholes, in their search for non-existent food.
When baby elephants are thus abandoned, they fall easy prey to lions and hyenas that rip them to pieces in the night and devour them alive – because it is: (1) difficult to kill a baby elephant by way of the lion’s normal manner of killing (strangulation); and (2) it is not easy to rip open even a baby elephant’s thick skin to get at the meat.
I hesitate to make even the wildest guesstimate as to how many baby elephants died this terrible death, every dry season, between the time I left Hwange in 1983 and now (2014) – because for all that time (and more) Hwange has been carrying grossly far too many elephants; and food, every dry season, is in very short supply. THAT is a ‘given’.
I find it difficult, therefore, to accept the US Fish & Wildlife Service’s reasons for suspending the importation, into the USA, of elephant trophies from Zimbabwe; bearing in mind all the foregoing; and bearing in mind that several tens-of-thousands of elephants SHOULD be removed from the Hwange population for good and defendable wildlife management reasons – mainly to rescue what limited biological diversity still remains in the national park.
So now let’s take your decision apart point by point:
STATEMENT (1): You say: “There has been a significant decline in the elephant population” (although you DO say that “available data” is limited).
My first observation in this regard is: WHY did you make such an important decision if your information was so deficient and could NOT POSSIBLY stand up to any degree of responsible scrutiny? The fact that you base your decision ENTIRELY upon – “Anecdotal evidence, such as the widely publicized poisoning last year of 300 elephants in Hwange National Park, suggests that Zimbabwe’s elephants are (also) under siege” - is simply NOT good enough!
But let us examine this statement in its broadest sense.
(a). It would appear that you have based your opinion (inter alia) on press statements which allude to 300 elephants being poisoned by poachers in Hwange National Park last year (2013). Elephants WERE poisoned in Hwange last year but I have information from a more reliable source (from the horse’s mouth) that tells me the actual figure was less than half that number. You cannot rely on the veracity of the press! However, let’s accept the figure of 300; and let’s test its value as a valid determinant for your decision. So, note, from the very beginning I am giving YOUR argument all the positive advantages.
(b). I have stated that I believe there are between 30 000 and 50 000 elephants in Hwange today. Let’s take the lower figure – 30 000 – which will give YOUR suppositions YET greater strength.
(c). The incremental rate of Hwange’s elephant population (in the 1960s & 70s) was estimated to be 7.2 percent – which gives a population doubling time of 10 years. Let’s half that figure and say the incremental rate is 3.6 percent – to add EVEN MORE strength to YOUR bow. This gives us a population doubling time of 20 years.
(d). Now we get down to the nitty-gritty. 3.6 percent of 30 000 elephants gives us an actual annual increase of 1080 elephants per year. This figure (in general terms) equates to the number of calves which survive their first three years of life.
(e). When we take 300 (the number of elephants poisoned in 2013) from 1080 this leaves us STILL with an annual increase of 780 elephants that year.
(f). In a natural elephant population 50 percent are bulls and 50 percent are cows. The ratio, however, is greatly skewed in favour of cows when every year bulls are selectively shot by hunters. But let’s ignore that obvious fact. Nevertheless, ignoring that fact is yet ANOTHER bent that is in favour of YOUR argument. So I suggest we accept that of the 30 000 elephants, 15 000 are cows.
(g). Of those 15 000 cows – with ages ranging from 1 to 60 – at least three quarters are of a breeding age (Puberty at 10 years; Senility at 50). So 11 250 cows are breeding animals.
(h). The normal interval between elephant calves is 4 years. So the number of calves born every year, on average, is one quarter of 11 250; that equals 2 812. A number of these will die during their first dry season (because of elephant over-population).
(i). The fact that we have now calculated that 2 812 new elephants are born to the Hwange elephant population every year - even if the population remained static at 30 000 (which it doesn’t; it is constantly increasing) - this fact is now definitely NOT in favour of YOUR arguments. So the once-off poisoning of 300 elephants in 2013 - representing one percent of the population - had NO IMPACT whatsoever on the Hwange elephants.
(j). Furthermore, the fact that the poisoning happened during one short period of one year; that the responsible poachers were quickly apprehended and received heavy gaol sentences; and that there has never been a recurrence of such an event, suggests that the Zimbabwe authorities were “on the ball’. It cannot be said of them, therefore – as you accuse Tanzania – that there is a lack of effective wildlife law enforced in Zimbabwe.
(k) You have absolutely no right, therefore, to make untrue statements that Zimbabwe’s elephants are in decline or under siege – because they are clearly NOT; AND the basis for your decision to ban Zimbabwean elephant hunting trophies from being imported to the United States is TOTALLY invalid.
STATEMENT (2.): Further referring to your belief that “there is a significant decline in the elephant population” in Zimbabwe; and that “the elephants are under siege”.
(a). Nowhere in your dissertation is there any reference to the numbers of elephants that are being carried by Zimbabwe’s game reserves relative to the sustainable elephant carrying capacities of their habitats. This indicates to me that you have no interest, or concern - whatsoever - about the related and vitally important ecological considerations that SHOULD determine elephant management decisions. You are concerned with NUMBERS and that is all! You are DEFINITELY not AWARE of the fact, and seemingly not interested, that every single big game national park in Zimbabwe is GROSSLY OVERSTOCKED with elephants or that ALL these game reserves are ALL being converted into deserts; that the national parks’ other wildlife is consequently in decline; and that they are ALL losing their once very rich biological diversities – ALL because there are TOO MANY ELEPHANTS.
(b). If only you were right – that there is a significant decline in Zimbabwe’s elephants! If that were true there would be a chance that Zimbabwe’s once rich biological diversity could be rescued from the abyss. Unfortunately you are wrong. There are NO serious declines in Zimbabwe’s elephant numbers. And when ZIMBABWE might be desirous of legitimately ‘culling’ several tens of thousands of elephants’ – because it definitely has far too many elephants - what does a mere 300 (lost to poison) matter (and here I am talking about statistics not ethics or emotions)?
(c). Now I would like to ask YOU, Sir, a number of related questions. It is MY contention that ALL of Zimbabwe’s wildlife sanctuaries require massive elephant population reductions; followed by consistent annual culling programmes. IF Zimbabwe were to institute such a programme would YOU - the USF&WS - support Zimbabwe at CITES in a bid to be able to sell the ivory and elephant hide that was forthcoming therefore? Or would you ‘black list’ Zimbabwe for NOT adhering to the US Fish & Wildlife Service dictates? I am sure the Zimbabweans would want to hear your answer to THAT question!
What is abundantly clear is that WHAT YOU BELIEVE AFRICA’s wildlife authorities should do – with regard to wildlife management practices and the marketing of their game products – is NOT what Africa’s wildlife authorities would like to do. And there is a very good reason for this.
America’s ‘wildlife culture’ is based upon an ‘anti-market hunting’ philosophy. Americans – generally - believe it is immoral to ‘make money’ out of indigenous wildlife (and, in America, it is illegal to do so). The wildlife cultures of the countries of southern Africa, on the other hand, are all based upon ‘the commercialisation of wildlife’. America’s wildlife culture and the wildlife cultures of Africa’s southern states are, therefore, TOTALLY antithetical. They are diametrically opposed. Having said that, however, we need to understand that ALL, and every, national sub-culture - within each and every nation – are very strong psychological forces in their national psyches.
In a context other than wildlife - but a parallel one to explain this fact - try forcing an Arab nation (whose citizens are radically Islamic) to adopt the Jewish (or Christian; or Buddist) religion!!!!
Most people believe in the righteousness of their own (various and many) national sub-cultures – which include political; language; legal; dress; religion, education; business; agriculture...et cetera - and wildlife sub-cultures. It is right and proper that each and every nation should uphold, with high esteem, their cultural fabrics because they evolved over a very long period of time as a consequence of their historical experiences. Each sub-culture is an inherent part of a national cultural whole. The combination and the interrelationships of their various sub-cultures are, in fact, vitally important because it is from this complicated matrix that each country’s national character is moulded.
What responsible nations should be prepared to do, therefore, is to recognise their differences in this regard, and NOT try to force their cultural opinions and beliefs on other people. What works for the Americans will not necessarily work for other people – and most probably will not!
The ‘commercial basis’ of the wildlife cultures of southern Africa is just as important an issue to the citizens of the southern African states, as is the ‘anti-market hunting’ cultural issue important to the citizens of America. Neither country, therefore, should try to FORCE its opposing cultural beliefs on the other – but rather they should give each other the freedom to exercise their cultural beliefs in whatever way they like within their respective areas of jurisdiction. You cannot take a piece from one jigsaw puzzle and force it into the picture of another jigsaw puzzle - because it just doesn’t ‘fit’ - so you can NOT force one nation’s wildlife sub-culture onto another (because national wildlife sub-cultures are NOT interchangeable).
In making this statement I am NOT ‘pointing fingers’. I am merely stating facts and, by so doing, I hope to make it easier for both of us to ‘see’ our respective differences. This raises all sorts of psychological obstacles between us – and it will take extra special attention (from both of us) if we are to objectively see each other’s points of view.
I would like to point out that by imposing its ‘will’ on Tanzania and Zimbabwe – by banning the importation of their elephant hunting trophies into the United States – the USF&WS has been blatantly imposing its own wildlife cultural interpretations onto these two foreign countries. No matter how much the USF&WS may protest this fact, this is exactly what the USF&WS has done with respect to its draconian ruling. So don’t be surprised America, when AFRICA rejects this ‘bullying’ tactic – when it starts to kick back – when AFRICA begins looking towards other countries for its future partners – other countries that respect Africa for ‘what it is’ rather than ‘what they want to make of Africa; and how they can change our cultural character’.
Just bear in mind that for many of us in Africa, our wildlife culture (interpreted in the context of what is BEST for Africa) is just as powerfully upheld by us, as is the religion of Islam by the Arabs.
America, therefore, would be serving its own best interests if it stops meddling in our wildlife affairs, and if it stops trying to impose its will on Africa. It would behove America, in every way, to start working WITH Africa - genuinely - with the purpose of helping us to realise OUR dreams. Denying Tanzania and Zimbabwe access to the benefits that American hunters bring to this continent is a HUGE impediment to us realising our wildlife management objectives; and it is one (unnecessary and unjustified) obstacle that we could well do without.
(d). Fulfilling OUR wildlife management ‘needs’ are much more important to US, than are YOUR opinions about what YOU believe we should be doing – especially when you have now so thoroughly demonstrated that you have so little knowledge about what is REALLY going on in Africa, on the ground. It is, after all, AFRICA’s wildlife resources we are talking about NOT YOURS! In this regard - with respect - you treat us like children (as if we are ignorant of wildlife and its management) and I resent that – as do an awful lot of other people in Africa. WE, in fact, know MUCH MORE about Africa’s wildlife and its management needs, than does the USF&WS – MUCH, MUCH, MUCH, MORE!
This exemplifies the differences that can arise between people who have different wildlife cultural viewpoints; and who also have a great deal of tunnel vision.
(e). Who would you consider to be “RIGHT”, for example, when decisions have to made, and enacted, about the wildlife management practices in a sovereign African state? Would you favour the wishes of the African state (because the wildlife, after all, belongs to THEM), or would you insist that the USF&WS is correct? This is a VERY pertinent question the answer to which the WHOLE OF AFRICA would dearly like to know the answer.
If we take the current case in point – the question about Americans hunting elephants in Tanzania and Zimbabwe and not being allowed to take their trophies home – the UFS&WS has clearly FORCED THE ISSUE. They have, with one stroke of the pen, unilaterally decreed (by connivance) that they are going to stop Americans from hunting elephants in both these countries. So maybe my question is unnecessary? Maybe I already have the answer? But this has given me a good opportunity to make my point: WHAT RIGHT HAS AMERICA to interfere so blatantly (and so bombastically) in the wildlife management affairs of an African country (ESPECIALLY on such dubious grounds)? This reality has huge implications with regards to the successes and/or the failures that African states can expect when they try to implement their own home-grown wildlife management programmes. In effect - because HUNTING plays such a dominant role in the finances of Africa’s wildlife management programmes - African states CANNOT devise or implement their own-designed wildlife programmes without first ‘getting permission’ from the USF&WS in America. And how bizarre is that? And how ignominious is that for a sovereign African state?
(f). Africa is very conscious of the impending massive explosion of its human population this century. Today there are 650 million people in Africa south of the Sahara. By the year 2100 there will be 2.5 billion (United Nations statistics). As a consequence, there are many people in Africa looking towards creating a new paradigm for our wildlife management programmes – one that will WORK in the dense human population scenario that we know is coming. Many people (like me) realise that the ONLY solution to the very heavy pressures that our future human populations will be exerting on our wildlife sanctuaries – during the latter part of this century - is to fully integrate the ‘needs’ of our national parks’ with the ‘needs’ of the rural people who will be surrounding them. And we cannot achieve THAT if we are NOT FREE to act as circumstances evolve and dictate; and especially if we have America’s USF&WS breathing down our necks telling us what we can and cannot do. So Africa – especially southern Africa – would appreciate the USF&WS (and America) ‘backing off’ so that we can ‘paddle our own canoe’. We would like it better, however, if America changed its tune and gave us help when we are struggling to achieve ‘our own’ wildlife management goals. Africa WANTS to make a success of whatever it does this century and it does not need unnecessary impediments to be put in place by the USF&WS.
STATEMENT (3.): “Additional killing of elephants in Zimbabwe (& Tanzania), even if legal, is not sustainable and it is not currently supporting the conservation efforts that contribute towards the recovery of the species”
(a). General: Once again I have to re-state that I have no idea where you get the idea that Zimbabwe’s elephants need to “RECOVER”? And again I have to ask: Recover from WHAT?
(b). Re Hwange National Park (and Zimbabwe generally): With regards to the ‘non-sustainable’ (use) aspect of your statement, I have indicated (above) that the elephant herds in Hwange are breeding in a more than a satisfactory manner. They are, in fact, breeding far too well. They are breeding themselves out of house and home. And they are increasing at an alarming rate.
The REAL threat to the elephants of Hwange National Park (AND to other elephant populations in Zimbabwe) is lack of food at the height of the dry season – which can and does cause huge die-offs when droughts are bad. Die-offs would not happen at all, however, if the elephants in Hwange (and elsewhere) were ‘living within their means’ – in other words, if their numbers were of a size that their habitats could sustainably carry (even in a drought year). The biggest danger to Zimbabwe’s elephants, therefore, actually comes from the elephants themselves – from their HUGE population numbers; and from the constant non-sustainable ‘mining’ of their limited food supplies.
So the perception that the USF&WS has got, about the elephant situation in Hwange National Park (and elsewhere in Zimbabwe) could not be further from the truth.
(c). Re. The elephants in Zimbabwe’s 2000 square mile Gonarezhou National Park: I (and my supporting team) was directly responsible for reducing the elephant population in the Gonarezhou by 2500 animals in 1971/72 – from 5000 to 2500. Yes! We cut the population right in half! 10 years later the population had increased to 5000; and a colleague of mine (and his team) again reduced that population by half (in 1982/83). Since then the elephant population in the Gonarezhou has increased without constraint and it now numbers in excess of 10 000; and the habitats in the game reserve have been TOTALLY ruined.
The habitats will also now NEVER recover because the soil that once supported them has been washed down river into the Indian Ocean. This soil loss happened because the vegetative cover that once protected the soil from erosion is now gone. What caused the erosion (of the bare ground)? Every drop of rain that has fallen during the last 40 years; desiccation of the naked soil by the hot sun; the wind that blew the loose soil particles away; and trampling by a myriad of elephant feet and other animal hooves over the years! The root cause? Too many elephants!
So the protection of ALL elephants, at any cost, is causing the TOTAL destruction of Zimbabwe’s game reserves!
Furthermore, the elephants have eaten into oblivion practically every baobab tree in the game reserve – and, in 1960, there were HUNDREDS of giant baobabs in the park. LITERALLY HUNDREDS! Now, only those growing in remote positions amongst the rocks on the high hillsides (and so protected from elephants) survive. And the enormous baobab tree, Sir, lives to 5000 years old. That means they were 1 700 years old (in the Gonarezhou) when Tutankhamen was Pharoah of Ancient Egypt. To me, the baobabs are far more important than the elephants that kill them; elephants, after all, live for only 60 years – and elephants readily and quickly replace themselves. Baobabs do not!
The riverine forests on the Nuanetsi River and on the Lundi River (inside the Gonarezhou), that I knew in 1968, have now all gone - completely. And the mopani woodlands, and the deciduous sandveld woodlands, are now just piles of broken tree trunks (where anything of them is left at all).
In 1970, my estimate of the sustainable elephant carrying capacity for the Gonarezhou was 1000 animals (One elephant per two square miles). And if we want to help the game reserve’s habitats to RECOVER, we should halve that number and start the habitat reconstruction process at a level that WILL ALLOW the habitats to recover. And once the habitats have been restored, we could THEN allow the elephants to return to 1000 - which would be achieved after only 10 years! Tragically, the giant baobabs – those beautiful icons of Africa – are gone forever.
The Gonarezhou story exemplifies what our ‘conservation’ priorities should be. It tells us that our wildlife management ‘concerns’, in order of priority, should be:
(1). Our First Priority Concern: should be for the well-being of ‘The Soil’ – because without soil
no plants can grow;
(2). Our Second Priority Concern: should be for the well being of ‘The Plants’ (habitats & food)
– because without plants there would be no animals; and
(3). Our Third (& Last) Priority Concern: should be for the well being of the animals.
People who put their concern for animals FIRST are putting the cart before the horse. And, with regard to the issue we are addressing at this time, the USF&WS’s priority concern is clearly ‘for the Elephants’. The USF&WS, therefore – when it comes to their concerns for the wildlife resources of Africa - is clearly guilty of putting the ‘conservation’ cart before the horse!
(d) Re: The game reserves of the middle and lower Zambesi valleys: The elephants in all these game reserves are in exactly the same kind of fix as those in Hwange and the Gonarezhou. Their elephant population numbers are all grossly excessive - because they have not been culled during the last 25 years; and because their habitats have been shredded.
In the Chizarira and Matusadona National Parks, the once healthy miombo woodlands (1960 era) have all completely disappeared; only scrubby woody vegetation remains.
In the Mana Pools and lower Zambesi Valley game reserves the mopani woodlands are seriously degraded; many baobabs have been eliminated, others ruined; and the riverine forests (what is left of them) are degrading fast. At Mana Pools only the giant Acacia albida trees remain on the flood plain – and they are still there ONLY because they are too big for the elephants to push over. But there are no replacements. And, within walking distance of water during the dry season, there is NO understory beneath the surviving big trees.
(e). Management Goals: All in all, if we want to manage Zimbabwe’s elephant populations for posterity (which SHOULD be our goal; and it SHOULD be YOUR goal, too, Sir), we should be thinking about (collectively) removing at least 100 000 elephants from Zimbabwe’s game reserves. This is a thumb-suck guesstimate because I don’t know the REAL figures - game reserve by game reserve. But I make this bald statement with a purpose. I want you, Sir, ‘to get the picture’ that I am trying to paint for you - about the REAL status of elephants in Zimbabwe today. There are far too many for the available habitats to sustainably maintain; and, rather than Zimbabwe applying “RECOVERY” management strategies for its elephants, it needs to be applying DRASTIC “POPULATION REDUCTION” measures. We don’t have to help elephants to ‘recover’ (from anything) – they are quite adept at doing that without any help from us.
(f) So.... when you talk about ‘the recovery’ of the elephant population in Zimbabwe, I remain astounded! Again I ask - perplexed - what ‘recovery’ are you talking about? In living memory there has been no slump in the numbers of elephant s in Zimbabwe. Over the past 55 years - the period that I can personally talk about authoritatively, because during that period I was personally involved (and/or familiar) with all aspects of elephant management in Zimbabwe – there has ONLY been a persistent (and frightening) very fast rate of increase in elephant numbers. If Zimbabwe’s elephant mega-population was to ‘RECOVER’ any more, it would implode upon itself.
The wildlife management truth of the matter is that elephants in Zimbabwe will not prosper (that is, become vibrantly healthy) until the individual population numbers are reduced to a level that their respective habitats can sustainably support. And Zimbabwe is very far from achieving that state of affairs at this time.
Currently, the Elephants of Zimbabwe - ALL populations - are living “ON” (or below) the nutritional poverty line during every six-month’s long dry season. In every population their nutrition levels at that time of the year are so low (per capita) that there is a regular and very high mortality of calves up to one year of age (because their mother’s milk dries up). And in bad drought years, young elephants up to the age of three and four years (and sometimes older) also die of starvation.
When good year cycles return the survival of calves and juveniles improves - but many dry season deaths (due to starvation) still occur.
CONCLUSION.
With respect, Sir, the information you have been fed – and which has led you to believe that Zimbabwe’s elephants are in decline; and that they are threatened by Zimbabwe’s current sustainable-use management programmes (which includes hunting) - is grossly inaccurate. I further contend, Sir, that your argument - that intervention by the USF&WS is necessary to save Africa’s elephants from extinction - is not just full of holes, it is one big hole.
I cannot speak with the same kind of authority for Tanzania, but the ecological circumstances surrounding elephants and their management throughout savannah Africa are much the same. So I would recommend that your moratorium on the importation of elephant hunting trophies from both countries (Tanzania AND Zimbabwe) should be lifted – and lifted immediately. If you have another problem with the Tanzanian government (which you seem to have), then deal with it at government level. Don’t take out your chagrin (or whatever) on the country’s elephants, its wildlife or its people.
All your precipitate dictum has produced is one year of misery for a whole lot of Africa’s people – both within Zimbabwe and in Tanzania - and that statement will ONLY remain valid IF you rescind your illogical decision at the end of 2104. You must also be told - UNEQUIVOCALLY - that your action has opened wide the gates for the commercial poachers to enter all those wildlife areas where the hunters once operated. When professional hunters are in the field, they represent the biggest obstacle to poaching of all kinds! So, if your ‘purpose’ - by imposing the ban on elephant trophies into America - is genuine (that is, that it is truly intended ‘to save the African elephant’) your plan has been very badly conceived and it will go very badly awry.
Furthermore, whilst your moratorium on elephant trophy exports to America remains in force, the professional hunters and their teams of ‘local-people’ staff will have to find something else to do for a whole year – and if they can’t find new (temporary) employment, they (and their families) will, quite literally starve. And all the many benefits that flow to the local rural people, and to the wildlife sanctuaries where the elephant hunting takes place - most of which comes from America hunters - will come to a sudden dead stop.
The sustainable and ethical hunting of Africa’s trophy animals is the BEST way to ‘take wealth from the rich people of the First World’ and ‘give it to the poor people of Africa’. Nothing else matches it.
So why are you doing this? Why are you imposing this importation ban on elephant trophies to the U.S. from Tanzania and Zimbabwe? Your rationale is so flawed I could fly a Boeing 747 through the holes in your argument (because you have NO argument). The imposition of your dictum, Sir, will have NO positive effects; it will NOT stop the poaching – it will help the poachers; it will not help the elephants (and Africa’s other wildlife) - it will hurt the elephants (and Africa’s other wildlife); and it will hurt a whole lot of African people into the bargain as well, UNNECESSARILY.
I am angry about your draconian decision. So are a whole lot of other people here in Africa. We are angry at the USF&WS for basing such a huge decision on such flimsy ‘evidence’ – ‘evidence’ that is, in fact, not ‘evidence’ at all, but YOUR ‘whim’. Unthinkingly, you have set in motion a series of events that will very badly affect a great many people (AND our precious wildlife resources)! And we are particularly angry because your decision is based on a completely erroneous perception that, TRULY, has absolutely no basis in reality. The USF&WS is WRONG, Sir. It is wrong in everything that it has done, in every respect, with regard to this terrible blunder.
I believe, in view of the above, the USF&WS doesn’t even have to re-think the validity of (and to reverse) its decision to stop elephant trophy importations to the U.S. from BOTH countries. It was a wrong decision in the first place, all round! This conclusion is a no-brainer! The USF&WS, therefore, should reinstate the previous status quo as quickly as possible. Your imperious dictum needs to be rescinded with immediate effect!
On behalf of the whole of Africa, Sir, I trust that the information contained in this letter/report will help you to recognise, and to understand, the errors that are inherent in your information and in your judgements in this matter; and that you will find it in your heart (and in your protocols) to withdraw this unfortunate ruling right away.
I have no axe to grind in this matter. I am too old to be a hunter and I have no vested interest in
this whole salmagundi – except that I love Africa and its wildlife (especially black rhinos and
elephants). I just happen to know the subject matter very well, and I am aggrieved by the fact
that the USF&WS could have been so insensitive, so ill-advised, and so stupid as to have even
considered this action at all. It adversely impacts so very seriously on everything in Africa that I
love and cherish; and I cannot sit back and say nothing about it.
In all sincerity,
Ron Thomson
cc. President Barack Obama,
The White House,
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington D.C. 20500. USA.



Ron Thomson’s Big Game Hunting Books
In Rhodesia, his big game hunting experience grew out of government�s need to employ him, and others like him, to carry out problem animal control work � on leopards, lions, hippo, buffalo and elephant � wherever these animals were in...
ronthomsonshuntingbooks.co.za|By Brenda Cadle

Nothing better than facts from someone who should be very aware of the situation.
Well written.

Outstanding response from an expert with a legacy of driving in a factual, positive direction.
One can only hope that USFWS listens to real expertise, and not that being served up by politically correct 25yr old new bio grads doing their research on the Internet.

quote:

Originally posted by Buzz Charlton:
RON THOMSON'S LETTER TO THE US FISH & WILDLIFE SERVICE
P.O. Box 452
Kenton-on-Sea 6191
South Africa
DATE: 12 APRIL 2014
Email: magron@ripplesoft.co.za.
Website: www.ronthomsonshuntingbooks.co.za.
To Mr. Gavin Shire,
US Fish & Wildlife Service.
Dear Mr. Shire,
I wish to respond to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s recent suspension of the importation (to the U.S.A.) of sport-hunted African elephant trophies taken in Tanzania and Zimbabwe during the calendar year 2014. I trust that the following report will give you a genuine insight into the REAL circumstances of Zimbabwe’s (and south central Africa’s) elephant populations.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
REPORT
A GENERAL OVERVIEW ON ZIMBABWE’S ELEPHANT POPULATIONS AND THE CONDITIONS OF THE HABITATS THAT SUPPORT THEM
First of all, I must introduce myself.
My name in Ron Thomson. I am a 75 year old ex-game Warden from Rhodesia & Zimbabwe. I served in the Rhodesian and then Zimbabwean, Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management for 24 years (1959 to 1983). Not only was I an active field officer in the department, I was also a Member of the British Institute of Biology (London) & Chartered Biologist for European Union (for c.20 years). If you investigate my history, you will discover that I have had a very distinguished career – and that I have extensive big game hunting, management and capture experience in Africa. For the last 25 years I have been - and continue to be - a wildlife journalist in South Africa specialising in writing books and magazine articles about many wildlife subjects -including and particularly ‘the principles and practices of wildlife management’. You might say, therefore, that I have been ‘in the job’ for 55 years.
I know the 5000 sq mile Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe very well. I served three years in the park as a young game ranger (1960 to 1964). At that time (1960) there were only 3500 elephants in the national park (physically counted). They were then already demolishing their habitat & in the process they were eliminating various tree species - notably the Mukwa (Pterocarpus angolensis); and others. Many of those tree species are now locally extinct.
At that time it was determined the park should carry no more than 2500 elephants (one elephant per two square miles); and I was one of two young game rangers who were tasked with making the necessary population reductions. In those days there was no hunting (or culling) allowed inside the national park, so we were required to find and to destroy all elephants that left the park and that were living (seasonally and temporarily) in the Ndebele Tribal Trust Lands outside the park boundaries. The meat then went to the local people. I carried out this elephant population reduction – in addition to my normal game ranging duties – for three years (1961, 62 & 63).
Proper elephant culling commenced inside the national park in 1965 – whereafter (until 1987) 300 to 500 elephants were taken off every year. It was not enough.
Hwange (called ‘Wankie’ in those days) was the love of my life and throughout my career in national Parks I paid close attention to what was going on in Hwange vis-a-vis the elephant management situation. From the beginning of 1964, I was absent from Hwange – except for occasional visits – for 18 years.
During my period of absence from Hwange, I hunted and killed several thousand elephants (over a period of 5 years) in the Binga district of the Middle Zambesi Valley: (1) In protection of the Batonka people’s crops (The Batonka were refugees from the Lake Kariba basin); (2) to feed the Batonka people (after Lake Kariba filled to capacity for the first time in 1963); and (3) to eliminate elephants (and buffalo) in the Sebungwe Tsetse Fly Corridors (This to stop the spread of tsetse flies into the country’s commercial highveld farming areas).
In 1971/72, I was lead hunter, and commander of the operation, when we reduced the elephant population in the Gonarezhou National Park by 2 500 animals.
So although I was ‘away’ from Hwange for 18 years, therefore, I was still very actively involved in elephant management work within Zimbabwe.
I returned to Hwange in 1981 as the Provincial Game Warden-in-charge of the national park.
There were 23 000 elephants in the Hwange in 1981. This was because - for many years during the 1970s - the department’s expert ‘culling team’ was unable to keep up with the numbers that had to be removed. The last elephant culling exercise in Hwange took place in 1987. The reason for the culling team not being able to keep up with the culling task in Hwange, was because it was also responsible of culling elephants in every other major national park in the country. And, in the late 1980s the unit became totally occupied in catching, and translocating, the surviving black rhinos in the lower Zambesi Valley where they were being heavily poached by Zambian poachers.
So, a new and very arbitrary elephant management target was determined for Hwange – one that was thought might be attainable. The new idea was to reduce the elephant numbers in Hwange from 23 000 to 14 600 (one elephant be square kilometre). (c.5 000 square miles = c.14 600 square kilometres). Even this reduced number, however, was never achieved.
I was incensed by this (what I considered to be) dereliction of our duty – believing that a major facet of our management responsibilities was being neglected. I was very aware that our principle wildlife management objective at Hwange was to maintain the park’s biological diversity – and we were NOT achieving that desideratum (because there were too many elephants)!
But, at that time, the new Zimbabwe government had just taken office and money was short. So was the necessary elephant hunting/culling expertise ‘short’ - because many experienced white game rangers had left the country after Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980.
In 1981 the habitat that I took responsibility for in Hwange National Park was nothing like the one I remembered from the early 1960s. All the Mukwa trees had gone. Very few large Mlala palm trees were left standing. Several Acacia and Combretum tree species - entire species - appeared to be locally extinct; and the once heavy undergrowth in the ecotones of the teak forests - on the edge of the forests where they joined the grasslands - was now sparse and straggly.
The grasslands were a mess. The thick cynodon grass swards that once grew on all the major grassland/drainage lines had been eaten into extinction. In many places, where there had once been thick grass, there was nothing but wind-blown and rippling Kalahari desert sand. This was all caused by too many elephants and too many other grazers. But the elephants caused the most damage. They eat practically nothing but grass during the six-month’s long rainy season – when the grass is green and palatable – and, at that time of the year, they eat grass in very large quantities.
So the Hwange National Park I inherited in 1981, needed an awful lot of very careful habitat management; and the elephant population needed to be reduced (then) by 20 000 animals. And I could visibly see that the national park was already (then) well advanced towards becoming a desert.
Little has changed since the early 1980s. I have not been back since 1983 – but the habitat degradation trends (towards the park becoming a desert) that were very obvious to me in 1983, can only have progressed in the same direction over the last 30 years. The elephant population was not ‘managed’ in any way in the interim - and it has (at least) doubled in number since 1983 - so how could the habitat conditions possibly have got better?
Since 1987 NO elephant population reduction has taken place at all in Zimbabwe (or Hwange). Since the (Illogical and universal) CITES international ivory trade ban came into force in 1989, Zimbabwe could not afford to cull its elephants – because, prior to 1989, the sale of ivory paid the huge costs of the culling exercises.
The elephant population in Hwange now stands at between 30 000 and 50 000. I believe it must be nearer the 50 000 mark (or more) - because at a 7.2 percent incremental rate, the population was doubling its numbers every 10 years at the beginning of the 1980s. Dispersal has undoubtedly taken place also, however – out of the national park - induced by population pressure, and lack of food and water inside the national park. And calf mortality must have been horrific over the last 30 years.
When nutrition levels drop, lactating mother elephants are subjected to tremendous energy stress – to keep themselves alive AND to produce milk for their babies. And when there is no food available during the last several months of every dry season, the mother cow’s milk dries up. In nature - when food is short - it is more important that the mother survives and that the baby dies! In 1982/83 I shot a great many baby elephants that had separated from their mothers. Without milk, they did not have the strength to keep up with their mothers on the daily journeys they had to make, to and from the waterholes, in their search for non-existent food.
When baby elephants are thus abandoned, they fall easy prey to lions and hyenas that rip them to pieces in the night and devour them alive – because it is: (1) difficult to kill a baby elephant by way of the lion’s normal manner of killing (strangulation); and (2) it is not easy to rip open even a baby elephant’s thick skin to get at the meat.
I hesitate to make even the wildest guesstimate as to how many baby elephants died this terrible death, every dry season, between the time I left Hwange in 1983 and now (2014) – because for all that time (and more) Hwange has been carrying grossly far too many elephants; and food, every dry season, is in very short supply. THAT is a ‘given’.
I find it difficult, therefore, to accept the US Fish & Wildlife Service’s reasons for suspending the importation, into the USA, of elephant trophies from Zimbabwe; bearing in mind all the foregoing; and bearing in mind that several tens-of-thousands of elephants SHOULD be removed from the Hwange population for good and defendable wildlife management reasons – mainly to rescue what limited biological diversity still remains in the national park.
So now let’s take your decision apart point by point:
STATEMENT (1): You say: “There has been a significant decline in the elephant population” (although you DO say that “available data” is limited).
My first observation in this regard is: WHY did you make such an important decision if your information was so deficient and could NOT POSSIBLY stand up to any degree of responsible scrutiny? The fact that you base your decision ENTIRELY upon – “Anecdotal evidence, such as the widely publicized poisoning last year of 300 elephants in Hwange National Park, suggests that Zimbabwe’s elephants are (also) under siege” - is simply NOT good enough!
But let us examine this statement in its broadest sense.
(a). It would appear that you have based your opinion (inter alia) on press statements which allude to 300 elephants being poisoned by poachers in Hwange National Park last year (2013). Elephants WERE poisoned in Hwange last year but I have information from a more reliable source (from the horse’s mouth) that tells me the actual figure was less than half that number. You cannot rely on the veracity of the press! However, let’s accept the figure of 300; and let’s test its value as a valid determinant for your decision. So, note, from the very beginning I am giving YOUR argument all the positive advantages.
(b). I have stated that I believe there are between 30 000 and 50 000 elephants in Hwange today. Let’s take the lower figure – 30 000 – which will give YOUR suppositions YET greater strength.
(c). The incremental rate of Hwange’s elephant population (in the 1960s & 70s) was estimated to be 7.2 percent – which gives a population doubling time of 10 years. Let’s half that figure and say the incremental rate is 3.6 percent – to add EVEN MORE strength to YOUR bow. This gives us a population doubling time of 20 years.
(d). Now we get down to the nitty-gritty. 3.6 percent of 30 000 elephants gives us an actual annual increase of 1080 elephants per year. This figure (in general terms) equates to the number of calves which survive their first three years of life.
(e). When we take 300 (the number of elephants poisoned in 2013) from 1080 this leaves us STILL with an annual increase of 780 elephants that year.
(f). In a natural elephant population 50 percent are bulls and 50 percent are cows. The ratio, however, is greatly skewed in favour of cows when every year bulls are selectively shot by hunters. But let’s ignore that obvious fact. Nevertheless, ignoring that fact is yet ANOTHER bent that is in favour of YOUR argument. So I suggest we accept that of the 30 000 elephants, 15 000 are cows.
(g). Of those 15 000 cows – with ages ranging from 1 to 60 – at least three quarters are of a breeding age (Puberty at 10 years; Senility at 50). So 11 250 cows are breeding animals.
(h). The normal interval between elephant calves is 4 years. So the number of calves born every year, on average, is one quarter of 11 250; that equals 2 812. A number of these will die during their first dry season (because of elephant over-population).
(i). The fact that we have now calculated that 2 812 new elephants are born to the Hwange elephant population every year - even if the population remained static at 30 000 (which it doesn’t; it is constantly increasing) - this fact is now definitely NOT in favour of YOUR arguments. So the once-off poisoning of 300 elephants in 2013 - representing one percent of the population - had NO IMPACT whatsoever on the Hwange elephants.
(j). Furthermore, the fact that the poisoning happened during one short period of one year; that the responsible poachers were quickly apprehended and received heavy gaol sentences; and that there has never been a recurrence of such an event, suggests that the Zimbabwe authorities were “on the ball’. It cannot be said of them, therefore – as you accuse Tanzania – that there is a lack of effective wildlife law enforced in Zimbabwe.
(k) You have absolutely no right, therefore, to make untrue statements that Zimbabwe’s elephants are in decline or under siege – because they are clearly NOT; AND the basis for your decision to ban Zimbabwean elephant hunting trophies from being imported to the United States is TOTALLY invalid.
STATEMENT (2.): Further referring to your belief that “there is a significant decline in the elephant population” in Zimbabwe; and that “the elephants are under siege”.
(a). Nowhere in your dissertation is there any reference to the numbers of elephants that are being carried by Zimbabwe’s game reserves relative to the sustainable elephant carrying capacities of their habitats. This indicates to me that you have no interest, or concern - whatsoever - about the related and vitally important ecological considerations that SHOULD determine elephant management decisions. You are concerned with NUMBERS and that is all! You are DEFINITELY not AWARE of the fact, and seemingly not interested, that every single big game national park in Zimbabwe is GROSSLY OVERSTOCKED with elephants or that ALL these game reserves are ALL being converted into deserts; that the national parks’ other wildlife is consequently in decline; and that they are ALL losing their once very rich biological diversities – ALL because there are TOO MANY ELEPHANTS.
(b). If only you were right – that there is a significant decline in Zimbabwe’s elephants! If that were true there would be a chance that Zimbabwe’s once rich biological diversity could be rescued from the abyss. Unfortunately you are wrong. There are NO serious declines in Zimbabwe’s elephant numbers. And when ZIMBABWE might be desirous of legitimately ‘culling’ several tens of thousands of elephants’ – because it definitely has far too many elephants - what does a mere 300 (lost to poison) matter (and here I am talking about statistics not ethics or emotions)?
(c). Now I would like to ask YOU, Sir, a number of related questions. It is MY contention that ALL of Zimbabwe’s wildlife sanctuaries require massive elephant population reductions; followed by consistent annual culling programmes. IF Zimbabwe were to institute such a programme would YOU - the USF&WS - support Zimbabwe at CITES in a bid to be able to sell the ivory and elephant hide that was forthcoming therefore? Or would you ‘black list’ Zimbabwe for NOT adhering to the US Fish & Wildlife Service dictates? I am sure the Zimbabweans would want to hear your answer to THAT question!
What is abundantly clear is that WHAT YOU BELIEVE AFRICA’s wildlife authorities should do – with regard to wildlife management practices and the marketing of their game products – is NOT what Africa’s wildlife authorities would like to do. And there is a very good reason for this.
America’s ‘wildlife culture’ is based upon an ‘anti-market hunting’ philosophy. Americans – generally - believe it is immoral to ‘make money’ out of indigenous wildlife (and, in America, it is illegal to do so). The wildlife cultures of the countries of southern Africa, on the other hand, are all based upon ‘the commercialisation of wildlife’. America’s wildlife culture and the wildlife cultures of Africa’s southern states are, therefore, TOTALLY antithetical. They are diametrically opposed. Having said that, however, we need to understand that ALL, and every, national sub-culture - within each and every nation – are very strong psychological forces in their national psyches.
In a context other than wildlife - but a parallel one to explain this fact - try forcing an Arab nation (whose citizens are radically Islamic) to adopt the Jewish (or Christian; or Buddist) religion!!!!
Most people believe in the righteousness of their own (various and many) national sub-cultures – which include political; language; legal; dress; religion, education; business; agriculture...et cetera - and wildlife sub-cultures. It is right and proper that each and every nation should uphold, with high esteem, their cultural fabrics because they evolved over a very long period of time as a consequence of their historical experiences. Each sub-culture is an inherent part of a national cultural whole. The combination and the interrelationships of their various sub-cultures are, in fact, vitally important because it is from this complicated matrix that each country’s national character is moulded.
What responsible nations should be prepared to do, therefore, is to recognise their differences in this regard, and NOT try to force their cultural opinions and beliefs on other people. What works for the Americans will not necessarily work for other people – and most probably will not!
The ‘commercial basis’ of the wildlife cultures of southern Africa is just as important an issue to the citizens of the southern African states, as is the ‘anti-market hunting’ cultural issue important to the citizens of America. Neither country, therefore, should try to FORCE its opposing cultural beliefs on the other – but rather they should give each other the freedom to exercise their cultural beliefs in whatever way they like within their respective areas of jurisdiction. You cannot take a piece from one jigsaw puzzle and force it into the picture of another jigsaw puzzle - because it just doesn’t ‘fit’ - so you can NOT force one nation’s wildlife sub-culture onto another (because national wildlife sub-cultures are NOT interchangeable).
In making this statement I am NOT ‘pointing fingers’. I am merely stating facts and, by so doing, I hope to make it easier for both of us to ‘see’ our respective differences. This raises all sorts of psychological obstacles between us – and it will take extra special attention (from both of us) if we are to objectively see each other’s points of view.
I would like to point out that by imposing its ‘will’ on Tanzania and Zimbabwe – by banning the importation of their elephant hunting trophies into the United States – the USF&WS has been blatantly imposing its own wildlife cultural interpretations onto these two foreign countries. No matter how much the USF&WS may protest this fact, this is exactly what the USF&WS has done with respect to its draconian ruling. So don’t be surprised America, when AFRICA rejects this ‘bullying’ tactic – when it starts to kick back – when AFRICA begins looking towards other countries for its future partners – other countries that respect Africa for ‘what it is’ rather than ‘what they want to make of Africa; and how they can change our cultural character’.
Just bear in mind that for many of us in Africa, our wildlife culture (interpreted in the context of what is BEST for Africa) is just as powerfully upheld by us, as is the religion of Islam by the Arabs.
America, therefore, would be serving its own best interests if it stops meddling in our wildlife affairs, and if it stops trying to impose its will on Africa. It would behove America, in every way, to start working WITH Africa - genuinely - with the purpose of helping us to realise OUR dreams. Denying Tanzania and Zimbabwe access to the benefits that American hunters bring to this continent is a HUGE impediment to us realising our wildlife management objectives; and it is one (unnecessary and unjustified) obstacle that we could well do without.
(d). Fulfilling OUR wildlife management ‘needs’ are much more important to US, than are YOUR opinions about what YOU believe we should be doing – especially when you have now so thoroughly demonstrated that you have so little knowledge about what is REALLY going on in Africa, on the ground. It is, after all, AFRICA’s wildlife resources we are talking about NOT YOURS! In this regard - with respect - you treat us like children (as if we are ignorant of wildlife and its management) and I resent that – as do an awful lot of other people in Africa. WE, in fact, know MUCH MORE about Africa’s wildlife and its management needs, than does the USF&WS – MUCH, MUCH, MUCH, MORE!
This exemplifies the differences that can arise between people who have different wildlife cultural viewpoints; and who also have a great deal of tunnel vision.
(e). Who would you consider to be “RIGHT”, for example, when decisions have to made, and enacted, about the wildlife management practices in a sovereign African state? Would you favour the wishes of the African state (because the wildlife, after all, belongs to THEM), or would you insist that the USF&WS is correct? This is a VERY pertinent question the answer to which the WHOLE OF AFRICA would dearly like to know the answer.
If we take the current case in point – the question about Americans hunting elephants in Tanzania and Zimbabwe and not being allowed to take their trophies home – the UFS&WS has clearly FORCED THE ISSUE. They have, with one stroke of the pen, unilaterally decreed (by connivance) that they are going to stop Americans from hunting elephants in both these countries. So maybe my question is unnecessary? Maybe I already have the answer? But this has given me a good opportunity to make my point: WHAT RIGHT HAS AMERICA to interfere so blatantly (and so bombastically) in the wildlife management affairs of an African country (ESPECIALLY on such dubious grounds)? This reality has huge implications with regards to the successes and/or the failures that African states can expect when they try to implement their own home-grown wildlife management programmes. In effect - because HUNTING plays such a dominant role in the finances of Africa’s wildlife management programmes - African states CANNOT devise or implement their own-designed wildlife programmes without first ‘getting permission’ from the USF&WS in America. And how bizarre is that? And how ignominious is that for a sovereign African state?
(f). Africa is very conscious of the impending massive explosion of its human population this century. Today there are 650 million people in Africa south of the Sahara. By the year 2100 there will be 2.5 billion (United Nations statistics). As a consequence, there are many people in Africa looking towards creating a new paradigm for our wildlife management programmes – one that will WORK in the dense human population scenario that we know is coming. Many people (like me) realise that the ONLY solution to the very heavy pressures that our future human populations will be exerting on our wildlife sanctuaries – during the latter part of this century - is to fully integrate the ‘needs’ of our national parks’ with the ‘needs’ of the rural people who will be surrounding them. And we cannot achieve THAT if we are NOT FREE to act as circumstances evolve and dictate; and especially if we have America’s USF&WS breathing down our necks telling us what we can and cannot do. So Africa – especially southern Africa – would appreciate the USF&WS (and America) ‘backing off’ so that we can ‘paddle our own canoe’. We would like it better, however, if America changed its tune and gave us help when we are struggling to achieve ‘our own’ wildlife management goals. Africa WANTS to make a success of whatever it does this century and it does not need unnecessary impediments to be put in place by the USF&WS.
STATEMENT (3.): “Additional killing of elephants in Zimbabwe (& Tanzania), even if legal, is not sustainable and it is not currently supporting the conservation efforts that contribute towards the recovery of the species”
(a). General: Once again I have to re-state that I have no idea where you get the idea that Zimbabwe’s elephants need to “RECOVER”? And again I have to ask: Recover from WHAT?
(b). Re Hwange National Park (and Zimbabwe generally): With regards to the ‘non-sustainable’ (use) aspect of your statement, I have indicated (above) that the elephant herds in Hwange are breeding in a more than a satisfactory manner. They are, in fact, breeding far too well. They are breeding themselves out of house and home. And they are increasing at an alarming rate.
The REAL threat to the elephants of Hwange National Park (AND to other elephant populations in Zimbabwe) is lack of food at the height of the dry season – which can and does cause huge die-offs when droughts are bad. Die-offs would not happen at all, however, if the elephants in Hwange (and elsewhere) were ‘living within their means’ – in other words, if their numbers were of a size that their habitats could sustainably carry (even in a drought year). The biggest danger to Zimbabwe’s elephants, therefore, actually comes from the elephants themselves – from their HUGE population numbers; and from the constant non-sustainable ‘mining’ of their limited food supplies.
So the perception that the USF&WS has got, about the elephant situation in Hwange National Park (and elsewhere in Zimbabwe) could not be further from the truth.
(c). Re. The elephants in Zimbabwe’s 2000 square mile Gonarezhou National Park: I (and my supporting team) was directly responsible for reducing the elephant population in the Gonarezhou by 2500 animals in 1971/72 – from 5000 to 2500. Yes! We cut the population right in half! 10 years later the population had increased to 5000; and a colleague of mine (and his team) again reduced that population by half (in 1982/83). Since then the elephant population in the Gonarezhou has increased without constraint and it now numbers in excess of 10 000; and the habitats in the game reserve have been TOTALLY ruined.
The habitats will also now NEVER recover because the soil that once supported them has been washed down river into the Indian Ocean. This soil loss happened because the vegetative cover that once protected the soil from erosion is now gone. What caused the erosion (of the bare ground)? Every drop of rain that has fallen during the last 40 years; desiccation of the naked soil by the hot sun; the wind that blew the loose soil particles away; and trampling by a myriad of elephant feet and other animal hooves over the years! The root cause? Too many elephants!
So the protection of ALL elephants, at any cost, is causing the TOTAL destruction of Zimbabwe’s game reserves!
Furthermore, the elephants have eaten into oblivion practically every baobab tree in the game reserve – and, in 1960, there were HUNDREDS of giant baobabs in the park. LITERALLY HUNDREDS! Now, only those growing in remote positions amongst the rocks on the high hillsides (and so protected from elephants) survive. And the enormous baobab tree, Sir, lives to 5000 years old. That means they were 1 700 years old (in the Gonarezhou) when Tutankhamen was Pharoah of Ancient Egypt. To me, the baobabs are far more important than the elephants that kill them; elephants, after all, live for only 60 years – and elephants readily and quickly replace themselves. Baobabs do not!
The riverine forests on the Nuanetsi River and on the Lundi River (inside the Gonarezhou), that I knew in 1968, have now all gone - completely. And the mopani woodlands, and the deciduous sandveld woodlands, are now just piles of broken tree trunks (where anything of them is left at all).
In 1970, my estimate of the sustainable elephant carrying capacity for the Gonarezhou was 1000 animals (One elephant per two square miles). And if we want to help the game reserve’s habitats to RECOVER, we should halve that number and start the habitat reconstruction process at a level that WILL ALLOW the habitats to recover. And once the habitats have been restored, we could THEN allow the elephants to return to 1000 - which would be achieved after only 10 years! Tragically, the giant baobabs – those beautiful icons of Africa – are gone forever.
The Gonarezhou story exemplifies what our ‘conservation’ priorities should be. It tells us that our wildlife management ‘concerns’, in order of priority, should be:
(1). Our First Priority Concern: should be for the well-being of ‘The Soil’ – because without soil
no plants can grow;
(2). Our Second Priority Concern: should be for the well being of ‘The Plants’ (habitats & food)
– because without plants there would be no animals; and
(3). Our Third (& Last) Priority Concern: should be for the well being of the animals.
People who put their concern for animals FIRST are putting the cart before the horse. And, with regard to the issue we are addressing at this time, the USF&WS’s priority concern is clearly ‘for the Elephants’. The USF&WS, therefore – when it comes to their concerns for the wildlife resources of Africa - is clearly guilty of putting the ‘conservation’ cart before the horse!
(d) Re: The game reserves of the middle and lower Zambesi valleys: The elephants in all these game reserves are in exactly the same kind of fix as those in Hwange and the Gonarezhou. Their elephant population numbers are all grossly excessive - because they have not been culled during the last 25 years; and because their habitats have been shredded.
In the Chizarira and Matusadona National Parks, the once healthy miombo woodlands (1960 era) have all completely disappeared; only scrubby woody vegetation remains.
In the Mana Pools and lower Zambesi Valley game reserves the mopani woodlands are seriously degraded; many baobabs have been eliminated, others ruined; and the riverine forests (what is left of them) are degrading fast. At Mana Pools only the giant Acacia albida trees remain on the flood plain – and they are still there ONLY because they are too big for the elephants to push over. But there are no replacements. And, within walking distance of water during the dry season, there is NO understory beneath the surviving big trees.
(e). Management Goals: All in all, if we want to manage Zimbabwe’s elephant populations for posterity (which SHOULD be our goal; and it SHOULD be YOUR goal, too, Sir), we should be thinking about (collectively) removing at least 100 000 elephants from Zimbabwe’s game reserves. This is a thumb-suck guesstimate because I don’t know the REAL figures - game reserve by game reserve. But I make this bald statement with a purpose. I want you, Sir, ‘to get the picture’ that I am trying to paint for you - about the REAL status of elephants in Zimbabwe today. There are far too many for the available habitats to sustainably maintain; and, rather than Zimbabwe applying “RECOVERY” management strategies for its elephants, it needs to be applying DRASTIC “POPULATION REDUCTION” measures. We don’t have to help elephants to ‘recover’ (from anything) – they are quite adept at doing that without any help from us.
(f) So.... when you talk about ‘the recovery’ of the elephant population in Zimbabwe, I remain astounded! Again I ask - perplexed - what ‘recovery’ are you talking about? In living memory there has been no slump in the numbers of elephant s in Zimbabwe. Over the past 55 years - the period that I can personally talk about authoritatively, because during that period I was personally involved (and/or familiar) with all aspects of elephant management in Zimbabwe – there has ONLY been a persistent (and frightening) very fast rate of increase in elephant numbers. If Zimbabwe’s elephant mega-population was to ‘RECOVER’ any more, it would implode upon itself.
The wildlife management truth of the matter is that elephants in Zimbabwe will not prosper (that is, become vibrantly healthy) until the individual population numbers are reduced to a level that their respective habitats can sustainably support. And Zimbabwe is very far from achieving that state of affairs at this time.
Currently, the Elephants of Zimbabwe - ALL populations - are living “ON” (or below) the nutritional poverty line during every six-month’s long dry season. In every population their nutrition levels at that time of the year are so low (per capita) that there is a regular and very high mortality of calves up to one year of age (because their mother’s milk dries up). And in bad drought years, young elephants up to the age of three and four years (and sometimes older) also die of starvation.
When good year cycles return the survival of calves and juveniles improves - but many dry season deaths (due to starvation) still occur.
CONCLUSION.
With respect, Sir, the information you have been fed – and which has led you to believe that Zimbabwe’s elephants are in decline; and that they are threatened by Zimbabwe’s current sustainable-use management programmes (which includes hunting) - is grossly inaccurate. I further contend, Sir, that your argument - that intervention by the USF&WS is necessary to save Africa’s elephants from extinction - is not just full of holes, it is one big hole.
I cannot speak with the same kind of authority for Tanzania, but the ecological circumstances surrounding elephants and their management throughout savannah Africa are much the same. So I would recommend that your moratorium on the importation of elephant hunting trophies from both countries (Tanzania AND Zimbabwe) should be lifted – and lifted immediately. If you have another problem with the Tanzanian government (which you seem to have), then deal with it at government level. Don’t take out your chagrin (or whatever) on the country’s elephants, its wildlife or its people.
All your precipitate dictum has produced is one year of misery for a whole lot of Africa’s people – both within Zimbabwe and in Tanzania - and that statement will ONLY remain valid IF you rescind your illogical decision at the end of 2104. You must also be told - UNEQUIVOCALLY - that your action has opened wide the gates for the commercial poachers to enter all those wildlife areas where the hunters once operated. When professional hunters are in the field, they represent the biggest obstacle to poaching of all kinds! So, if your ‘purpose’ - by imposing the ban on elephant trophies into America - is genuine (that is, that it is truly intended ‘to save the African elephant’) your plan has been very badly conceived and it will go very badly awry.
Furthermore, whilst your moratorium on elephant trophy exports to America remains in force, the professional hunters and their teams of ‘local-people’ staff will have to find something else to do for a whole year – and if they can’t find new (temporary) employment, they (and their families) will, quite literally starve. And all the many benefits that flow to the local rural people, and to the wildlife sanctuaries where the elephant hunting takes place - most of which comes from America hunters - will come to a sudden dead stop.
The sustainable and ethical hunting of Africa’s trophy animals is the BEST way to ‘take wealth from the rich people of the First World’ and ‘give it to the poor people of Africa’. Nothing else matches it.
So why are you doing this? Why are you imposing this importation ban on elephant trophies to the U.S. from Tanzania and Zimbabwe? Your rationale is so flawed I could fly a Boeing 747 through the holes in your argument (because you have NO argument). The imposition of your dictum, Sir, will have NO positive effects; it will NOT stop the poaching – it will help the poachers; it will not help the elephants (and Africa’s other wildlife) - it will hurt the elephants (and Africa’s other wildlife); and it will hurt a whole lot of African people into the bargain as well, UNNECESSARILY.
I am angry about your draconian decision. So are a whole lot of other people here in Africa. We are angry at the USF&WS for basing such a huge decision on such flimsy ‘evidence’ – ‘evidence’ that is, in fact, not ‘evidence’ at all, but YOUR ‘whim’. Unthinkingly, you have set in motion a series of events that will very badly affect a great many people (AND our precious wildlife resources)! And we are particularly angry because your decision is based on a completely erroneous perception that, TRULY, has absolutely no basis in reality. The USF&WS is WRONG, Sir. It is wrong in everything that it has done, in every respect, with regard to this terrible blunder.
I believe, in view of the above, the USF&WS doesn’t even have to re-think the validity of (and to reverse) its decision to stop elephant trophy importations to the U.S. from BOTH countries. It was a wrong decision in the first place, all round! This conclusion is a no-brainer! The USF&WS, therefore, should reinstate the previous status quo as quickly as possible. Your imperious dictum needs to be rescinded with immediate effect!
On behalf of the whole of Africa, Sir, I trust that the information contained in this letter/report will help you to recognise, and to understand, the errors that are inherent in your information and in your judgements in this matter; and that you will find it in your heart (and in your protocols) to withdraw this unfortunate ruling right away.
I have no axe to grind in this matter. I am too old to be a hunter and I have no vested interest in
this whole salmagundi – except that I love Africa and its wildlife (especially black rhinos and
elephants). I just happen to know the subject matter very well, and I am aggrieved by the fact
that the USF&WS could have been so insensitive, so ill-advised, and so stupid as to have even
considered this action at all. It adversely impacts so very seriously on everything in Africa that I
love and cherish; and I cannot sit back and say nothing about it.
In all sincerity,
Ron Thomson
cc. President Barack Obama,
The White House,
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington D.C. 20500. USA.



Ron Thomson’s Big Game Hunting Books
In Rhodesia, his big game hunting experience grew out of government�s need to employ him, and others like him, to carry out problem animal control work � on leopards, lions, hippo, buffalo and elephant � wherever these animals were in...
ronthomsonshuntingbooks.co.za|By Brenda Cadle

FACTS! FACTS!

It is so horrifying how the "do gooders" in the West are so ignorant of the facts!

Excellent.

And so many of his points are accurate and can be applied for so much more than the African elephant in Zimbabwe and Tanzania.

Wow, that was informative.

A most awesome response !!!!

Good information!

Appears that local analysis and data collection trumps long distance observation for careful decision making.

Well written and extremely informative. Unfortunately in the new dispensation in our beloved Southern Africa, to admit that a mistake has been made is a total taboo.

You see to admit a mistake or to say sorry is like admitting that one is incompetent, even if a total ecosystem is wiped out, never admit a mistake or for that matter claim accountability!

A very educational and enlightening response. Sadly, USFWS obviously has an agenda, and I seriously doubt they'll be swayed nor deterred.

Facts with our leadership the USF&WS is something that they seldom use.

Very good letter.

A well written and informative report. How can any rational thinking person not take note of a report like this. I guess the key word is rational.

Excellent read and a lot of great information.

POWERFUL!!!
God Bless you Ron and all Zimbabwe

"Awesome facts"

Factual information provided by someone that knows of what he speaks.

USF&W has a serious credibility problem. They have a siege mentality.

Their defensive and self-protective mindset will now ignore this kind of factual arguments.

So sad.

Excellent response hopefully it will help.

Great letter. Thanks for posting. But I'm afraid it is merely a further attempt to confuse the current Administration with facts.

This demonstrates very clearly why Ron Thompson is my most frequently cited resource on the issue of the African elephant and the impact they have on the ecology they inhabit.

If you haven't read his book Mahohboh you owe it to yourself as an elephant hunter to do so at your earliest opportunity.

Well said Ron, and thank you for writing to USF&WS with facts and rational thought. And thanks to Buzz for posting it here on AR.

RON THOMSON'S LETTER TO THE US FISH & WILDLIFE SERVICE

DATE: 12 APRIL 2014
P.O. Box 452
Kenton-on-Sea 6191
South Africa
Email: magron@ripplesoft.co.za
Website: www.ronthomsonshuntingbooks.co.za

To: Mr. Gavin Shire,
US Fish & Wildlife Service

Dear Mr. Shire,

I wish to respond to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s recent suspension of the importation (to the U.S.A.) of sport-hunted African elephant trophies taken in Tanzania and Zimbabwe during the calendar year 2014. I trust that the following report will give you a genuine insight into the REAL circumstances of Zimbabwe’s (and south central Africa’s) elephant populations.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REPORT

A GENERAL OVERVIEW ON ZIMBABWE’S ELEPHANT POPULATIONS AND THE CONDITIONS OF THE HABITATS THAT SUPPORT THEM

First of all, I must introduce myself.

My name is Ron Thomson. I am a 75-year-old ex-game Warden from Rhodesia & Zimbabwe. I served in the Rhodesian and then Zimbabwean, Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management for 24 years (1959 to 1983). Not only was I an active field officer in the department, I was also a Member of the British Institute of Biology (London) & Chartered Biologist for European Union (for c.20 years). If you investigate my history, you will discover that I have had a very distinguished career – and that I have extensive big game hunting, management and capture experience in Africa.

For the last 25 years I have been - and continue to be - a wildlife journalist in South Africa specialising in writing books and magazine articles about many wildlife subjects - including and particularly ‘the principles and practices of wildlife management’. You might say, therefore, that I have been ‘in the job’ for 55 years.

I know the 5000 square mile Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe very well. I served three years in the park as a young game ranger (1960 to 1964). At that time (1960) there were only 3500 elephants in the national park (physically counted). They were then already demolishing their habitat & in the process they were eliminating various tree species - notably the Mukwa (Pterocarpus angolensis); and others. Many of those tree species are now locally extinct.

At that time it was determined the park should carry no more than 2500 elephants (one elephant per two square miles); and I was one of two young game rangers who were tasked with making the necessary population reductions. In those days there was no hunting (or culling) allowed inside the national park, so we were required to find and to destroy all elephants that left the park and that were living (seasonally and temporarily) in the Ndebele Tribal Trust Lands outside the park boundaries. The meat then went to the local people. I carried out this elephant population reduction – in addition to my normal game ranging duties – for three years (1961, 62 & 63).

Proper elephant culling commenced inside the national park in 1965 – where after (until 1987) 300 to 500 elephants were taken off every year. It was not enough.
Hwange (called ‘Wankie’ in those days) was the love of my life and throughout my career in national Parks I paid close attention to what was going on in Hwange vis-a-vis the elephant management situation. From the beginning of 1964, I was absent from Hwange – except for occasional visits – for 18 years.

During my period of absence from Hwange, I hunted and killed several thousand elephants (over a period of 5 years) in the Binga district of the Middle Zambezi Valley:

(1) In protection of the Batonka people’s crops (The Batonka were refugees from the Lake Kariba basin);

(2) to feed the Batonka people (after Lake Kariba filled to capacity for the first time in 1963); and

(3) to eliminate elephants (and buffalo) in the Sebungwe Tsetse Fly Corridors (This to stop the spread of tsetse flies into the country’s commercial Highveld farming areas).

In 1971/72, I was lead hunter, and commander of the operation, when we reduced the elephant population in the Gonarezhou National Park by 2,500 animals.
So although I was ‘away’ from Hwange for 18 years, therefore, I was still very actively involved in elephant management work within Zimbabwe.

I returned to Hwange in 1981 as the Provincial Game Warden-in-charge of the national park.

There were 23,000 elephants in the Hwange in 1981. This was because - for many years during the 1970s - the department’s expert ‘culling team’ was unable to keep up with the numbers that had to be removed. The last elephant culling exercise in Hwange took place in 1987. The reason for the culling team not being able to keep up with the culling task in Hwange was because it was also responsible of culling elephants in every other major national park in the country. And, in the late 1980s the unit became totally occupied in catching, and translocating, the surviving black rhinos in the lower Zambezi Valley where Zambian poachers were heavily poaching them.

So, a new and very arbitrary elephant management target was determined for Hwange – one that was thought might be attainable. The new idea was to reduce the elephant numbers in Hwange from 23,000 to 14,600 (one elephant be square kilometre). (c. 5 000 square miles = c. 14,600 square kilometres). Even this reduced number, however, was never achieved.

I was incensed by this (what I considered to be) dereliction of our duty – believing that a major facet of our management responsibilities was being neglected. I was very aware that our principle wildlife management objective at Hwange was to maintain the park’s biological diversity – and we were NOT achieving that desideratum (because there were too many elephants)!

But, at that time, the new Zimbabwe government had just taken office and money was short. So was the necessary elephant hunting/culling expertise ‘short’ - because many experienced white game rangers had left the country after Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980.

In 1981 the habitat that I took responsibility for in Hwange National Park was nothing like the one I remembered from the early 1960s. All the Mukwa trees had gone. Very few large Mlala palm trees were left standing. Several Acacia and Combretum tree species - entire species - appeared to be locally extinct; and the once heavy undergrowth in the ecotones of the teak forests - on the edge of the forests where they joined the grasslands - was now sparse and straggly.

The grasslands were a mess. The thick cynodon grass swards that once grew on all the major grassland/drainage lines had been eaten into extinction. In many places, where there had once been thick grass, there was nothing but wind-blown and rippling Kalahari Desert sand. Too many elephants and too many other grazers caused all this. But the elephants caused the most damage. They eat practically nothing but grass during the six-month long rainy season – when the grass is green and palatable – and, at that time of the year, they eat grass in very large quantities.

So, the Hwange National Park I inherited in 1981 needed an awful lot of very careful habitat management; and the elephant population needed to be reduced (then) by 20,000 animals. And, I could visibly see that the national park was already (then) well advanced towards becoming a desert.

Little has changed since the early 1980s. I have not been back since 1983 – but the habitat degradation trends (towards the park becoming a desert) that were very obvious to me in 1983, can only have progressed in the same direction over the last 30 years. The elephant population was not ‘managed’ in any way in the interim - and it has (at least) doubled in number since 1983 - so how could the habitat conditions possibly have got better?

Since 1987, NO elephant population reduction has taken place at all in Zimbabwe (or Hwange). Since the illogical and universal CITES international ivory trade ban came into force in 1989, Zimbabwe could not afford to cull its elephants – because, prior to 1989, the sale of ivory paid the huge costs of the culling exercises.

The elephant population in Hwange now stands at between 30,000 and 50,000. I believe it must be nearer the 50,000 mark (or more) - because at a 7.2 percent incremental rate, the population was doubling its numbers every 10 years at the beginning of the 1980s. Dispersal has undoubtedly taken place also, however – out of the national park - induced by population pressure, and lack of food and water inside the national park. And calf mortality must have been horrific over the last 30 years.

When nutrition levels drop, lactating mother elephants are subjected to tremendous energy stress – to keep themselves alive AND to produce milk for their babies. And when there is no food available during the last several months of every dry season, the mother cow’s milk dries up. In nature - when food is short - it is more important that the mother survives and that the baby dies! In 1982/83 I shot a great many baby elephants that had separated from their mothers. Without milk, they did not have the strength to keep up with their mothers on the daily journeys they had to make, to and from the waterholes, in their search for non-existent food.

When baby elephants are thus abandoned, they fall easy prey to lions and hyenas that rip them to pieces in the night and devour them alive – because it is: (1) difficult to kill a baby elephant by way of the lion’s normal manner of killing (strangulation); and (2) it is not easy to rip open even a baby elephant’s thick skin to get at the meat.

I hesitate to make even the wildest guesstimate as to how many baby elephants died this terrible death, every dry season, between the time I left Hwange in 1983 and now (2014) – because for all that time (and more) Hwange has been carrying grossly far too many elephants; and food, every dry season, is in very short supply. THAT is a ‘given’.

I find it difficult, therefore, to accept the US Fish & Wildlife Service’s reasons for suspending the importation, into the USA, of elephant trophies from Zimbabwe; bearing in mind all the foregoing; and bearing in mind that several tens-of-thousands of elephants SHOULD be removed from the Hwange population for good and defendable wildlife management reasons – mainly to rescue what limited biological diversity still remains in the national park.

So, now let’s take your decision apart point by point:

STATEMENT (1): You say: “There has been a significant decline in the elephant population” (although you DO say that “available data” is limited).

My first observation in this regard is: WHY did you make such an important decision if your information was so deficient and could NOT POSSIBLY stand up to any degree of responsible scrutiny? The fact that you base your decision ENTIRELY upon – “Anecdotal evidence, such as the widely publicized poisoning last year of 300 elephants in Hwange National Park, suggests that Zimbabwe’s elephants are (also) under siege” - is simply NOT good enough!

But let us examine this statement in its broadest sense.

(a). It would appear that you have based your opinion (inter alia) on press statements which allude to 300 elephants being poisoned by poachers in Hwange National Park last year (2013). Elephants WERE poisoned in Hwange last year but I have information from a more reliable source (from the horse’s mouth) that tells me the actual figure was less than half that number. You cannot rely on the veracity of the press! However, let’s accept the figure of 300; and let’s test its value as a valid determinant for your decision. So, note, from the very beginning I am giving YOUR argument all the positive advantages.

(b). I have stated that I believe there are between 30,000 and 50,000 elephants in Hwange today. Let’s take the lower figure – 30,000 – which will give YOUR suppositions YET greater strength.

(c). The incremental rate of Hwange’s elephant population (in the 1960s & 70s) was estimated to be 7.2 percent – which gives a population doubling time of 10 years. Let’s half that figure and say the incremental rate is 3.6 percent – to add EVEN MORE strength to YOUR bow. This gives us a population doubling time of 20 years.
(d). Now we get down to the nitty-gritty. 3.6% of 30,000 elephants gives us an actual annual increase of 1080 elephants per year. This figure (in general terms) equates to the number of calves, which survive their first three years of life.

(e). When we take 300 (the number of elephants poisoned in 2013) from 1080 this leaves us STILL with an annual increase of 780 elephants that year.

(f). In a natural elephant population 50 percent are bulls and 50 percent are cows. The ratio, however, is greatly skewed in favour of cows when every year bulls are selectively shot by hunters. But let’s ignore that obvious fact. Nevertheless, ignoring that fact is yet ANOTHER bent that is in favour of YOUR argument. So I suggest we accept that of the 30,000 elephants, 15,000 are cows.

(g). Of those 15,000 cows – with ages ranging from 1 to 60 – at least three quarters are of a breeding age (Puberty at 10 years; Senility at 50). So 11,250 cows are breeding animals.

(h). The normal interval between elephant calves is 4 years. So the number of calves born every year, on average, is one quarter of 11,250; that equals
2,812. A number of these will die during their first dry season (because of elephant overpopulation).

(i). The fact that we have now calculated that 2812 new elephants are born to the Hwange elephant population every year - even if the population remained static at 30,000 (which it doesn’t; it is constantly increasing) - this fact is now definitely NOT in favour of YOUR arguments. So the once-off poisoning of 300 elephants in 2013 - representing one percent of the population - had NO IMPACT whatsoever on the Hwange elephants.

(j). Furthermore, the fact that the poisoning happened during one short period of one year; that the responsible poachers were quickly apprehended and received heavy jail sentences; and that there has never been a recurrence of such an event, suggests that the Zimbabwe authorities were “on the ball’. It cannot be said of them, therefore – as you accuse Tanzania – that there is a lack of effective wildlife law enforced in Zimbabwe.

(k) You have absolutely no right, therefore, to make untrue statements that Zimbabwe’s elephants are in decline or under siege – because they are clearly NOT; AND the basis for your decision to ban Zimbabwean elephant hunting trophies from being imported to the United States is TOTALLY invalid.

STATEMENT (2.): Further referring to your belief that “there is a significant decline in the elephant population” in Zimbabwe, and that “the elephants are under siege”.

(a). Nowhere in your dissertation is there any reference to the numbers of elephants that are being carried by Zimbabwe’s game reserves relative to the sustainable elephant carrying capacities of their habitats. This indicates to me that you have no interest, or concern - whatsoever - about the related and vitally important ecological considerations that SHOULD determine elephant management decisions. You are concerned with NUMBERS and that is all! You are DEFINITELY not AWARE of the fact, and seemingly not interested, that every single big game national park in Zimbabwe is GROSSLY OVERSTOCKED with elephants or that ALL these game reserves are ALL being converted into deserts; that the national parks’ other wildlife is consequently in decline; and that they are ALL losing their once very rich biological diversities – ALL because there are TOO MANY ELEPHANTS.

(b). If only you were right – that there is a significant decline in Zimbabwe’s elephants! If that were true there would be a chance that Zimbabwe’s once rich biological diversity could be rescued from the abyss. Unfortunately you are wrong. There are NO serious declines in Zimbabwe’s elephant numbers. And when ZIMBABWE might be desirous of legitimately ‘culling’ several tens of thousands of elephants’ – because it definitely has far too many elephants - what does a mere 300 (lost to poison) matter (and here I am talking about statistics not ethics or emotions)?

(c). Now I would like to ask YOU, Sir, a number of related questions. It is MY contention that ALL of Zimbabwe’s wildlife sanctuaries require massive elephant population reductions; followed by consistent annual culling programmes. IF Zimbabwe were to institute such a programme would YOU - the USFWS - support Zimbabwe at CITES in a bid to be able to sell the ivory and elephant hide that was forthcoming therefore? Or would you ‘blacklist’ Zimbabwe for NOT adhering to the US Fish & Wildlife Service dictates? I am sure the Zimbabweans would want to hear your answer to THAT question!

What is abundantly clear is that WHAT YOU BELIEVE AFRICA’s wildlife authorities should do – with regard to wildlife management practices and the marketing of their game products – is NOT what Africa’s wildlife authorities would like to do. And there is a very good reason for this.

America’s ‘wildlife culture’ is based upon an ‘anti-market hunting’ philosophy. Americans – generally - believe it is immoral to ‘make money’ out of indigenous wildlife (and, in America, it is illegal to do so). The wildlife cultures of the countries of southern Africa, on the other hand, are all based upon ‘the commercialisation of wildlife’. America’s wildlife culture and the wildlife cultures of Africa’s southern states are, therefore, TOTALLY antithetical. They are diametrically opposed. Having said that, however, we need to understand that ALL, and every, national sub-culture - within each and every nation – are very strong psychological forces in their national psyches.

In a context other than wildlife - but a parallel one to explain this fact - try forcing an Arab nation (whose citizens are radically Islamic) to adopt the Jewish (or Christian; or Buddhist) religion!!!!

Most people believe in the righteousness of their own (various and many) national sub-cultures – which include political; language; legal; dress; religion, education; business; agriculture...et cetera - and wildlife subcultures. It is right and proper that each and every nation should uphold, with high esteem, their cultural fabrics because they evolved over a very long period of time as a consequence of their historical experiences. Each sub-culture is an inherent part of a national cultural whole. The combination and the interrelationships of their various sub-cultures are, in fact, vitally important because it is from this complicated matrix that each country’s national character is molded.

What responsible nations should be prepared to do, therefore, is to recognise their differences in this regard, and NOT try to force their cultural opinions and beliefs on other people. What works for the Americans will not necessarily work for other people – and most probably will not!

The ‘commercial basis’ of the wildlife cultures of southern Africa is just as important an issue to the citizens of the southern African states, as is the ‘anti-market hunting’ cultural issue important to the citizens of America. Neither country, therefore, should try to FORCE its opposing cultural beliefs on the other – but rather they should give each other the freedom to exercise their cultural beliefs in whatever way they like within their respective areas of jurisdiction. You cannot take a piece from one jigsaw puzzle and force it into the picture of another jigsaw puzzle - because it just does not ‘fit’ - so you can NOT force one nation’s wildlife subculture onto another (because national wildlife subcultures are NOT interchangeable).

In making this statement, I am NOT ‘pointing fingers’. I am merely stating facts and, by so doing, I hope to make it easier for both of us to ‘see’ our respective differences. This raises all sorts of psychological obstacles between us – and it will take extra special attention (from both of us) if we are to objectively see each other’s points of view.

I would like to point out that by imposing its ‘will’ on Tanzania and Zimbabwe – by banning the importation of their elephant hunting trophies into the United States – the USFWS has been blatantly imposing its own wildlife cultural interpretations onto these two foreign countries. No matter how much the USFWS may protest this fact, this is exactly what the USFWS has done with respect to its draconian ruling. So do not be surprised America, when AFRICA rejects this ‘bullying’ tactic – when it starts to kick back – when AFRICA begins looking towards other countries for its future partners – other countries that respect Africa for ‘what it is’ rather than ‘what they want to make of Africa; and how they can change our cultural character’.

Just bear in mind, for many of us in Africa, our wildlife culture (interpreted in the context of what is BEST for Africa) is just as powerfully upheld by us, as is the religion of Islam by the Arabs.

America, therefore, would be serving its own best interests if it stops meddling in our wildlife affairs, and if it stops trying to impose its will on Africa. It would behove America, in every way, to start working WITH Africa - genuinely - with the purpose of helping us to realise OUR dreams. Denying Tanzania and Zimbabwe access to the benefits that American hunters bring to this continent is a HUGE impediment to us realising our wildlife management objectives; and it is one (unnecessary and unjustified) obstacle that we could well do without.

(d). Fulfilling OUR wildlife management ‘needs’ are much more important to US, than are YOUR opinions about what YOU believe we should be doing – especially when you have now so thoroughly demonstrated that you have so little knowledge about what is REALLY going on in Africa, on the ground. It is, after all, AFRICA’s wildlife resources we are talking about NOT YOURS! In this regard - with respect - you treat us like children (as if we are ignorant of wildlife and its management) and I resent that – as do an awful lot of other people in Africa. WE, in fact, know MUCH MORE about Africa’s wildlife and its management needs, than does the USFWS – MUCH, MUCH, MUCH, MORE!

This exemplifies the differences that can arise between people who have different wildlife cultural viewpoints; and who also have a great deal of tunnel vision.

(e). Who would you consider to be “RIGHT”, for example, when decisions have to made, and enacted, about the wildlife management practices in a sovereign African state? Would you favour the wishes of the African state (because the wildlife, after all, belongs to THEM), or would you insist that the USFWS is correct? This is a VERY pertinent question the answer to which the WHOLE OF AFRICA would dearly like to know the answer.

If we take the current case in point – the question about Americans hunting elephants in Tanzania and Zimbabwe and not being allowed to take their trophies home – the USFWS has clearly FORCED THE ISSUE. They have, with one stroke of the pen, unilaterally decreed (by connivance) that they are going to stop Americans from hunting elephants in both these countries. So maybe my question is unnecessary? Maybe I already have the answer? But this has given me a good opportunity to make my point: WHAT RIGHT HAS AMERICA to interfere so blatantly (and so bombastically) in the wildlife management affairs of an African country (ESPECIALLY on such dubious grounds)?

This reality has huge implications with regards to the successes and/or the failures that African states can expect when they try to implement their own homegrown wildlife management programmes. In effect - because HUNTING plays such a dominant role in the finances of Africa’s wildlife management programmes - African states CANNOT devise or implement their own-designed wildlife programmes without first ‘getting permission’ from the USFWS in America. And how bizarre is that? And how ignominious is that for a sovereign African state?

(f). Africa is very conscious of the impending massive explosion of its human population this century. Today there are 650 million people in Africa south of the Sahara. By the year 2100 there will be 2.5 billion (United Nations statistics). As a consequence, there are many people in Africa looking towards creating a new paradigm for our wildlife management programmes – one that will WORK in the dense human population scenario that we know is coming. Many people (like me) realise that the ONLY solution to the very heavy pressures that our future human populations will be exerting on our wildlife sanctuaries – during the latter part of this century - is to fully integrate the ‘needs’ of our national parks’ with the ‘needs’ of the rural people who will be surrounding them.

And we cannot achieve THAT if we are NOT FREE to act as circumstances evolve and dictate; and especially if we have America’s USFWS breathing down our necks telling us what we can and cannot do. So Africa – especially southern Africa – would appreciate the USFWS (and America) ‘backing off’ so that we can ‘paddle our own canoe’. We would like it better, however, if America changed its tune and gave us help when we are struggling to achieve ‘our own’ wildlife management goals. Africa WANTS to make a success of whatever it does this century and it does not need unnecessary impediments to be put in place by the USFWS.

STATEMENT (3.): “Additional killing of elephants in Zimbabwe (and Tanzania), even if legal, is not sustainable and it is not currently supporting the conservation efforts that contribute towards the recovery of the species”.

(a). General: Once again I have to re-state that I have no idea where you get the idea that Zimbabwe’s elephants need to “RECOVER”? And again I have to ask: Recover from WHAT?

(b). Re Hwange National Park (and Zimbabwe generally): With regards to the ‘non-sustainable’ (use) aspect of your statement, I have indicated (above) that the elephant herds in Hwange are breeding in a more than a satisfactory manner. They are, in fact, breeding far too well. They are breeding themselves out of house and home. And they are increasing at an alarming rate.

The REAL threat to the elephants of Hwange National Park (AND to other elephant populations in Zimbabwe) is lack of food at the height of the dry season – which can and does cause huge die-offs when droughts are bad. Die-offs would not happen at all, however, if the elephants in Hwange (and elsewhere) were ‘living within their means’ – in other words, if their numbers were of a size that their habitats could sustainably carry (even in a drought year). The biggest danger to Zimbabwe’s elephants, therefore, actually comes from the elephants themselves – from their HUGE population numbers; and from the constant non-sustainable ‘mining’ of their limited food supplies.

So the perception that the USFWS has got, about the elephant situation in Hwange National Park (and elsewhere in Zimbabwe) could not be further from the truth.
(c). Re. The elephants in Zimbabwe’s 2000 square mile Gonarezhou National Park: I (and my supporting team) was directly responsible for reducing the elephant population in the Gonarezhou by 2500 animals in 1971/72 – from 5000 to 2500. Yes! We cut the population right in half! 10 years later the population had increased to 5000; and a colleague of mine (and his team) again reduced that population by half (in 1982/83). Since then the elephant population in the Gonarezhou has increased without constraint and it now numbers in excess of 10,000; and the habitats in the game reserve have been TOTALLY ruined.

The habitats will also now NEVER recover because the soil that once supported them has been washed down river into the Indian Ocean. This soil loss happened because the vegetative cover that once protected the soil from erosion is now gone. What caused the erosion (of the bare ground)? Every drop of rain that has fallen during the last 40 years; desiccation of the naked soil by the hot sun; the wind that blew the loose soil particles away; and trampling by a myriad of elephant feet and other animal hooves over the years! The root cause? Too many elephants!

So the protection of ALL elephants, at any cost, is causing the TOTAL destruction of Zimbabwe’s game reserves!

Furthermore, the elephants have eaten into oblivion practically every baobab tree in the game reserve – and, in 1960, there were HUNDREDS of giant baobabs in the park. LITERALLY HUNDREDS! Now, only those growing in remote positions amongst the rocks on the high hillsides (and so protected from elephants) survive. And the enormous baobab tree, Sir, lives to 5000 years old. That means they were 1700 years old (in the Gonarezhou) when Tutankhamen was Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt. To me, the baobabs are far more important than the elephants that kill them; elephants, after all, live for only 60 years – and elephants readily and quickly replace themselves. Baobabs do not!

The riverine forests on the Nuanetsi River and on the Lundi River (inside the Gonarezhou), which I knew in 1968, have now all gone - completely. And the mopani woodlands, and the deciduous sandveld woodlands, are now just piles of broken tree trunks (where anything of them is left at all).

In 1970, my estimate of the sustainable elephant carrying capacity for the Gonarezhou was 1000 animals (One elephant per two square miles). And if we want to help the game reserve’s habitats to RECOVER, we should halve that number and start the habitat reconstruction process at a level that WILL ALLOW the habitats to recover. And once the habitats have been restored, we could THEN allow the elephants to return to 1000 - which would be achieved after only 10 years! Tragically, the giant baobabs – those beautiful icons of Africa – are gone forever.

The Gonarezhou story exemplifies what our ‘conservation’ priorities should be. It tells us that our wildlife management ‘concerns’, in order of priority, should be:

(1). Our First Priority Concern: should be for the well-being of ‘The Soil’ – because without soil no plants can grow;

(2). Our Second Priority Concern: should be for the well being of ‘The Plants’ (habitats & food) – because without plants there would be no animals; and

(3). Our Third (& last) Priority Concern: should be for the well being of the animals.

People who put their concern for animals FIRST are putting the cart before the horse. And, with regard to the issue we are addressing at this time, the USFWs priority concern is clearly ‘for the Elephants’. The USFWS, therefore – when it comes to their concerns for the wildlife resources of Africa - is clearly guilty of putting the ‘conservation’ cart before the horse!

(d) Re: The game reserves of the middle and lower Zambezi valleys: The elephants in all these game reserves are in exactly the same kind of fix as those in Hwange and the Gonarezhou. Their elephant population numbers are all grossly excessive - because they have not been culled during the last 25 years; and because their habitats have been shredded.

In the Chizarira and Matusadona National Parks, the once healthy miombo woodlands (1960 era) have all completely disappeared; only scrubby woody vegetation remains.

In the Mana Pools and Lower Zambezi Valley game reserves the mopani woodlands are seriously degraded; many baobabs have been eliminated, others ruined; and the riverine forests (what is left of them) are degrading fast. At Mana Pools only the giant Acacia albida trees remain on the floodplain – and they are still there ONLY because they are too big for the elephants to push over. But there are no replacements. And, within walking distance of water during the dry season, there is NO understory beneath the surviving big trees.

(e). Management Goals: All in all, if we want to manage Zimbabwe’s elephant populations for posterity (which SHOULD be our goal; and it SHOULD be YOUR goal, too, Sir), we should be thinking about (collectively) removing at least 100,000 elephants from Zimbabwe’s game reserves. This is a thumb-suck guesstimate because I do not know the REAL figures - game reserve by game reserve. But I make this bald statement with a purpose. I want you, Sir, ‘to get the picture’ that I am trying to paint for you - about the REAL status of elephants in Zimbabwe today. There are far too many for the available habitats to sustainably maintain; and, rather than Zimbabwe applying “RECOVERY” management strategies for its elephants, it needs to be applying DRASTIC “POPULATION REDUCTION” measures. We do not have to help elephants to ‘recover’ (from anything) – they are quite adept at doing that without any help from us.

(f) So.... when you talk about ‘the recovery’ of the elephant population in Zimbabwe, I remain astounded! Again I ask - perplexed - what ‘recovery’ are you talking about? In living memory there has been no slump in the numbers of elephant s in Zimbabwe. Over the past 55 years - the period that I can personally talk about authoritatively, because during that period I was personally involved (and/or familiar) with all aspects of elephant management in Zimbabwe – there has ONLY been a persistent (and frightening) very fast rate of increase in elephant numbers. If Zimbabwe’s elephant mega-population were to ‘RECOVER’ any more, it would implode upon itself.

The wildlife management truth of the matter is that elephants in Zimbabwe will not prosper (that is, become vibrantly healthy) until the individual population numbers are reduced to a level that their respective habitats can sustainably support. And Zimbabwe is very far from achieving that state of affairs at this time.

Currently, the Elephants of Zimbabwe - ALL populations - are living “ON” (or below) the nutritional poverty line during every six-month’s long dry season. In every population their nutrition levels at that time of the year are so low (per capita) that there is a regular and very high mortality of calves up to one year of age (because their mother’s milk dries up). And in bad drought years, young elephants up to the age of three and four years (and sometimes older) also die of starvation.

When good year cycles return the survival of calves and juveniles improves - but many dry season deaths (due to starvation) still occur.

CONCLUSION.

With respect, Sir, the information you have been fed – and which has led you to believe that Zimbabwe’s elephants are in decline; and that they are threatened by Zimbabwe’s current sustainable-use management programmes (which includes hunting) - is grossly inaccurate. I further contend, Sir, that your argument - that intervention by the USFWS is necessary to save Africa’s elephants from extinction - is not just full of holes, it is one big hole.

I cannot speak with the same kind of authority for Tanzania, but the ecological circumstances surrounding elephants and their management throughout savannah Africa are much the same. So I would recommend that your moratorium on the importation of elephant hunting trophies from both countries (Tanzania AND Zimbabwe) should be lifted – and lifted immediately. If you have another problem with the Tanzanian government (which you seem to have), then deal with it at government level. Do not take out your chagrin (or whatever) on the country’s elephants, its wildlife or its people.

All your precipitate dictum has produced is one year of misery for a whole lot of Africa’s people – both within Zimbabwe and in Tanzania - and that statement will ONLY remain valid IF you rescind your illogical decision at the end of 2104. You must also be told - UNEQUIVOCALLY - that your action has opened wide the gates for the commercial poachers to enter all those wildlife areas where the hunters once operated. When professional hunters are in the field, they represent the biggest obstacle to poaching of all kinds! So, if your ‘purpose’ - by imposing the ban on elephant trophies into America - is genuine (that is, that it is truly intended ‘to save the African elephant’) your plan has been very badly conceived and it will go very badly awry.

Furthermore, whilst your moratorium on elephant trophy exports to America remains in force, the professional hunters and their teams of ‘local-people’ staff will have to find something else to do for a whole year – and if they can’t find new (temporary) employment, they (and their families) will, quite literally starve. And all the many benefits that flow to the local rural people, and to the wildlife sanctuaries where the elephant hunting takes place - most of which comes from America hunters - will come to a sudden dead stop.

The sustainable and ethical hunting of Africa’s trophy animals is the BEST way to ‘take wealth from the rich people of the First World’ and ‘give it to the poor people of Africa’. Nothing else matches it.

So why are you doing this? Why are you imposing this importation ban on elephant trophies to the U.S. from Tanzania and Zimbabwe? Your rationale is so flawed I could fly a Boeing 747 through the holes in your argument (because you have NO argument). The imposition of your dictum, Sir, will have NO positive effects; it will NOT stop the poaching – it will help the poachers; it will not help the elephants (and Africa’s other wildlife) - it will hurt the elephants (and Africa’s other wildlife); and it will hurt a whole lot of African people into the bargain as well, UNNECESSARILY.

I am angry about your draconian decision. So are a whole lot of other people here in Africa. We are angry with the USFWS for basing such a huge decision on such flimsy ‘evidence’ – ‘evidence’ that is, in fact, not ‘evidence’ at all, but YOUR ‘whim’. Unthinkingly, you have set in motion a series of events that will very badly affect a great many people (AND our precious wildlife resources)! And we are particularly angry because your decision is based on a completely erroneous perception that, TRULY, has absolutely no basis in reality. The USFWS is WRONG, Sir. It is wrong in everything that it has done, in every respect, with regard to this terrible blunder.

I believe, in view of the above, the USFWS does not even have to re-think the validity of (and to reverse) its decision to stop elephant trophy importations to the U.S. from BOTH countries. It was a wrong decision in the first place, all round! This conclusion is a no-brainer! The USFWS, therefore, should reinstate the previous status quo as quickly as possible. Your imperious dictum needs to be rescinded with immediate effect!

On behalf of the whole of Africa, Sir, I trust that the information contained in this letter/report will help you to recognise, and to understand, the errors that are inherent in your information and in your judgments in this matter; and that you will find it in your heart (and in your protocols) to withdraw this unfortunate ruling right away.

I have no axe to grind in this matter. I am too old to be a hunter and I have no vested interest in this whole salmagundi – except that I love Africa and its wildlife (especially black rhinos and elephants). I just happen to know the subject matter very well, and I am aggrieved by the fact that the USFWS could have been so insensitive, so ill advised, and so stupid as to have even considered this action at all. It adversely impacts so very seriously on everything in Africa that I love and cherish; and I cannot sit back and say nothing about it.

In all sincerity,

Ron Thomson

CC: President Barack Obama,
The White House,
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20500
USA

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Buzz,

Thank you for making me aware of this letter. I took the liberty of editing and formatting, so it would be easier for an American audience to read and understand. I have posted it on every Facebook group to which I belong, as well as sending it out on Twitter. I do not expect much from Twitter, but I have asked all the hunters on Facebook to 'Share' this letter, or cut and paste it on to their own Facebook page. Hopefully, if I can convince enough people to get on board, there is the possibility this thing will go viral.

Unfortunately, the person to whom it was sent, Gavin Shire, is the press officer for USFWS and writes press releases. I do not think he is not in a decision making position. Maybe it does not matter. I have the feeling the people who are decision makers know full well what the repercussions of this misguided policy will be. They would rather see every national park in Africa turned into barren deserts rather than actually begin the healing process by recommending the culling of 100,000 elephants.

In any event, like most of the conservation efforts in Africa, our efforts will be futile. However, that will not deter me from standing and fighting for what I feel is right.

Very well written. The USWFS certainly needs to be reminded that facts should control their actions not politics. We got the same knee jerk politically correct crap from them with the Polar Bears. All of our agencies have become political and extensions of the liberals and their feel good brain dead decision making process.

BTT, so everyone can read again.

Factual and credible and from a man well versed in his subject matter. Thank you Ron.

Excellent reading by a man who knows the subject well. My fear is this letter and others opposing USWFS's decision will disappear into a file and be forgotten.

Dave

Alan, your formatting and editing should be helpful. I cut and pasted a copy of the letter into the contact USFWS website and asked that it be delivered to Director Dan Ashe.

I would suggest that others could do the same:

http://www.fws.gov/duspit/contactus.htm

A lot of folks assume the USF&WS (and PETA, HSUS and other green organizations) care about animals. This is not true. THEY ONLY CARE ABOUT VOTES AND DONATIONS. ANIMALS DON'T VOTE OR DONATE. The uninformed and misinformed are running the show. So what if a few hundred thousand elephant are sacrificed if htese organizations gain 1 percentage point in a poll or gather in some more donations.

While well intended; it will have absolutely no effect.

Jeff

quote:

Originally posted by hunt99:
Alan, your formatting and editing should be helpful. I cut and pasted a copy of the letter into the contact USFWS website and asked that it be delivered to Director Dan Ashe.

I would suggest that others could do the same:

http://www.fws.gov/duspit/contactus.htm

I just sent it directly...

dan_ashe@fws.gov

And while I agree with everything Mr. Thomson says about Zim...the story is different in TZ.

I still disagree with punishing sport hunters as they are not the problem and as we all know...make things better. So I am definitely against the USF&W action.

But, the ele population in the Selous has plummeted by close to 90% reduction in the last decade.

quote:

Originally posted by Nakihunter:
USF&W has a serious credibility problem. They have a siege mentality.

Their defensive and self-protective mindset will now ignore this kind of factual arguments.

So sad.

Yes naki, it is sad and they are all Democrat appointees.

This is all about politics NOT facts!

.

Good read.

Thanks Buzz.

I have not read the actual USFWS ruling but does it rule out hunting elephants or just the importation of elephant trophies into the USA?

But, the ele population in the Selous has plummeted by close to 90% reduction in the last decade.

If you ask me, the only reliable ele census in TZ is the one they just did..... meaning, who knows what the accurate population was 10 years ago in Selous. It's quite obvious to me it wasn't as high as what we were led to believe.

Mr. Thompson's letter should be sent to every member of congress by every hunter and conservation minded person.

As a quick follow-up as chapter president of my SCI Chapter I forwarded the letter to all chapter members and ask they forward the letter to the congressional delegation. I further sent the letter to our Washington State Web Page to have it posted.
I would urge all of you and members of any similar minded organizations to do the same.

quote:

Originally posted by Bwanamich:
But, the ele population in the Selous has plummeted by close to 90% reduction in the last decade.

If you ask me, the only reliable ele census in TZ is the one they just did..... meaning, who knows what the accurate population was 10 years ago in Selous. It's quite obvious to me it wasn't as high as what we were led to believe.

We should get a statistician to work backwards using REALISTC but worst case scenario numbers for poached ele and see what they come up with as a hypothesized population of 10 years ago.

I know a particular red-headed fellow that knows the Selous as well as anyone in modern times...that used to tell me that their were pockets of blackies still in the Selous as late as eaerly 2000's...I bet their population has been zeroed.

Ron Thomson is not finished yet (see his response to USF&WS below), and one has to admire his tenacity with trying to get the message across. This material, and much of what has been posted on AR is being circulated widely, and will, one hopes, influence voters and donors, bringing pressure to bear somewhere.

--------------------- x ----------------------

Mr. van Norman
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service


Dear Mr van Norman,

I have no idea who or what you are in the US Fish & Wildlife Service - and I have no wish to offend you - but it seems I have been fobbed off by your Acting Deputy Chief of Public Affairs which I do not appreciate. Your response to my long and explanatory email to Mr. Gavin Shire is NOT good enough; and please be advised that I am NOT intimidated by the US Fish and Wildlife Service of the United States of America. My concern is for Africa, Africa's wildlife and Africa's people, and I have had enough of uniformed bureaucrats in the First World dictating to Africa in a manner that is both arrogant and destructive; which leaves me wondering WHO your 'advisers' are and why you even listen to them when, as you admit, they are clearly misinformed, too. So, Sir, please read what I have to say with an open mind because THIS EMAIL will be circulating the globe. I want the whole world to know that dictates from the USF&WS are doing a whole lot of harm to Africa's wildlife AND to its rural people; and whoever reads these missives will understand that I am RIGHT!.

Africa, Sir, is NOT perfect - and I know there is a lot of commercial poaching going on - but if YOU wish to dictate to Africa (because YOU believe you know what is best for Africa) at least make sure that your facts are correct and that your rationale is beyond reproach. And, if you want to take anything away from Africa, please have the courtesy to leave Africa with 'something of equivalent value'

Sir, I have not lived in Zimbabwe for a very long time - 30 years - but I lived at the heart of Zimbabwe's wildlife sanctuaries for 24 years before that; and I have kept my ear to the ground. And elephant and black rhino management was, and remains, my very deep passion; and a large number of my old colleagues are still resident in Zimbabwe and they keep me informed. Furthermore, I have a 'handle' on elephant management matters that YOU can't even begin to imagine, and I can interpret and extrapolate a lot from what I am told. What difference does it make, for example, when we are not sure if Hwange National Park has 30 000 elephants or 50 000 elephants - when it was determined in 1960 that the desirable population should not have exceeded 2 500? And in 1960 irreparable habitat damage was already then well advanced! How can the USF&WS possibly reach the conclusion that because 300 elephants were poisoned in Hwange last year, that the Hwange elephant population is "under siege"? Sir, in my opinion, if all the elephant poachers in Africa were to descend on Hwange and wipe out half the elephant population overnight they would be doing the national park a very big favour. I, obviously, do not condone or encourage such an unlawful event but it is no more 'unlawful' and no less 'undesirable and damaging' than to have YOU afford the Hwange elephants "super-protection from all harm". And, in the context of the effect that sport hunting will have on the Hwange population, even if you quadrupled the number of elephants shot by overseas hunters in the Hwange region (in Western Matabeleland) of Zimbabwe it will have NO DELETRIOUS EFFECT on the elephants whatsoever.

I have a recent letter (dated 14th April 2013) in my possession (from a Mr Marco Pani) who makes the following statement:

".... it is surprising that the USF&WS based its decision on Zimbabwe on anecdotal evidence when we have, for some parts of the country, scientific data that demonstrates an increase in Elephant population.

"The case of Gonarezhou was one of these.

"The last survey done in 2013 estimates a population of elephants of 10 314 elephants (Dunham, et al, 2013) with an increase of more than 10% on the previous 2009 survey.... which was double the population of the 1980s."

And, to advise you of the kind of dangers your precipitous decision to ban hunting trophies from Zimbabwe, COULD bring to Zimbabwe, he goes on to say:

"I can imagine that the local (African) communities of this area, where the sustainable use (particularly of elephants) philosophy and practice was born, will be forced to turn to illegal use if no other income, like the one provided by sport hunting, is available to them.

"It seem like 30 years of community based wildlife conservation in Africa has been trashed. And the voices of local communities continue to be unheard."

And, as I said in my last communication to your organisation I, personally, was responsible for reducing the elephants of the Gonarezhou from 5000 animals to 2500 at the beginning of the 1970s. Now they have over 10 000. And, in those days - when the habitats were still 'fairly' intact (compared to now - where the habitats have been completely trashed) - I considered that the sustainable elephant carrying capacity of the Gonarezhou was only 1000.

So, it would of GREAT benefit to BOTH Hwange AND to the Gonarezhou, if their both populations could be reduced by AT LEAST half (to begin with). ALL the pointers, SURELY, must tell you that THIS is a true reflection of the REAL status of elephants in these two Zimbabwean national parks?

You say that - if you follow the protocols of your Endangered Species Act - you are "UNABLE" to allow further imports of elephant trophies from Zimbabwe (or Tanzania). THIS kind of information (above), SURELY, must satisfy your legal requirements? OR, is it NOT a case of you NOT being UNABLE to rescind your importation moratorium but rather that you don't WANT to. It is common knowledge that many of your 'advisers' come from the Animal Rights Brigade and that they have put you under some considerable pressure to the impose these importation restrictions. It is also common knowledge that it is the animal rightist's purpose to ABOLISH all 'animal uses' by man - including hunting and trade (especially hunting). So Africa will be watching you very closely to see whether you favour your 'advisers' in this matter, or if you are genuinely interested in assisting Africa and its elephants. This is calling a spade a 'bloody' shovel, but it seems THAT is what it is going to take to get First World 'people' to listen to voices from Africa. I am unrepentant!

I wish to make a few more statements. The problem with the FIRST WORLD (AND with the animal rights brigade) is that, with regard to elephants, all you are interested in is NUMBERS. And in this context, I include the IUCN, WWF, CITES and the USF&WS. NONE of you ever THINK about whether or not the NUMBERS of the elephants you are trying to 'save' are capable of SUSTAINABLY living, IN THOSE NUMBERS, within the wildlife sanctuaries in which they live. And none of you have given one iota of thought to the TOTAL DESTRUCTION that has taken place to the habitats in what are currently thought of as being "elephant sanctuaries" - over the last 50 years. The situation in Zimbabwe today is that practically EVERY elephant sanctuary in the country is carrying 10 or more times the numbers of elephants those sanctuaries SHOULD be carrying. Isn't the USF&WS concerned at the MASSIVE loss of biological diversity that is taking place within these sanctuaries? And this is happening BECAUSE, people like the IUCN, WWF, CITES and the USF&WS are all concerned that NUMBERS of elephants must NOT decline (and because they are interested in nothing else). You guys have got it all wrong. You have ignored all the ecological considerations that proper scientific management of our national parks demands of us. And YOU GUYS are 'killing' Africa's national parks as a consequence.

I have just finished writing a similar dissertation to IUCN's Holly Dublin - who very proudly told me that the IUCN has to operate 'with caution' because TWO of Zimbabwe's several elephant sanctuaries in 2011 (Chewore and Nyaminyami) displayed "PIKE"values that are very worrying. "PIKE", as you probably know, stands for "proportion of illegally killed elephants" - so I presume these PIKE values are compared with "PILE" values" (my name) meaning "proportion of LEGALLY killed elephants". These highfalutin terms mean NOTHING AT ALL because they are in no way correlated with the size and health of the elephant populations to which they are applied. For example, if you apply a PIKE value to the Gonarezhou's 10 000 elephants - without qualifying the term by relating it to a population that is GROSSLY in excess of the game reserves carrying capacity, what do you get? A meaningless statistic. So what if elephants are being poached inside the Gonarezhou when no legal hunting takes place inside the park at all anyway - when the population numbers 10 000? The poaching burden would ONLY be meaningful if it forced a decline in the population and for that to happen is most unlikely. So what 'use' is a PIKE value when it is presented as a raw statistic and no consideration is given to the actual impact that population has on its environment? Here again, PIKE deals with elephant numbers ONLY; it makes no attempt to relate the statistic to the game reserve's elephant carrying capacity.

Now, finally, I have to take the USF&WS to task with regards the validity of the concept on which its "Endangered Species Act" is based. This is not a game of semantics. It is vitally important - because it affects, also, the very foundation of organisations like CITES. If the concept is invalid, this will render the whole U.S.Endangered Species Act invalid; and THAT would rock the foundations of CITES. Very few people, however, THINK of this. Even less are bold enough to point it out. But let me do so NOW.

"SPECIES" do not arrange themselves at the "species level". They organise themselves at the "POPULATION LEVEL". One species can have many different and VERY DISTINCT "populations" some of which may be declining (for a number of different reasons) whilst others are increasing (for an equally large number of different reasons). And the environmental (or ecological) "pressures" that are exerted on ONE population (by nature or by man) are unique to that population. That means specific wildlife management practices - which take into account those unique pressures - should be applied to THAT population. Whilst other populations need different kinds of management strategies. But in 1989 - when the elephant was declared to be "an endangered species" - CITES forced the imposition of exactly the same 'total preservation' wildlife management practices on every single elephant population in Africa. At the time elephants were expanding hugely, and they were being culled quite heavily, in the southern African states;whilst those in East Africa were declining severely because they were being heavily poached. This CITES decision, therefore, caused the southern African elephants (which were quite SAFE) to be MIS-managed - whilst ONLY the East African elephant populations (which were UNSAFE) actually required such protective management. In this case, applying a universal status on the African elephant "AS A SPECIES" was TOTALLY contrary to the concept of responsible wildlife management. It was tantamount, in fact, to saying that because there was a drought raging in India, the people of New York City in America should be forced to go on water rationing. The concept of "endangered species", therefore, is invalid. It is fantasy. So your "Endangered Species Act" is based on a false premise!

The world of wildlife hasn't learn anything since 1989. We are still - RIGHT NOW (with the imposition of the elephant trophy import ban) - looking at the elephant AS A SPECIES and we are ignoring all the vitally important ecological reasons why we should RATHER be looking at the "SAFETY" or "LACK OF SAFETY" factors of its populations. If the Chewore and Nyaminyami areas of Zimbabwe have declining populations due to poaching (or for any other reason) - and IF their population numbers were fast dropping below their habitats' sustainable carrying capacities - then I would concede that THOSE populations should be given extra special protection. NEVERTHELESS, I STILL BELIEVE AT LEAST THE CHEWORE POPULATION IS EXCESSIVE - and that it is not in any danger (YET). And I feel quite confident in saying the Chewore elephant population is still 'excessive'. But to say that, because the Chewore and/or the Nyaminyami populations are under a poaching threat, ALL the elephant populations in Zimbabwe (including Hwange and the Gonarezhou) need special protection is totally invalid and nonsensical.

I challenge you to prove that my evaluation of your Endangered Species Act is wrong!!!!! And because it is wrong; and because you are guided by its provisions so stringently, a whole lot of your impositions on Africa (and on the rest of the world) are wrong, too.

YOU want to tell Africa what to do!!!!! It gives me great pleasure to put the boot on the other foot. Learn from the African wildlife management philosophy expounded in this email, and become a better wildlife organisation!

Please, SIR, lets learn from each other. Let us put our heads together and get rid of all these many atrocious anomalies that bedevil our "togetherness" as a family of wildlife managers.

I believe you must NOW have enough ammunition to unilaterally and immediately withdraw your draconian imposition of the importation banning order of elephant hunting trophies from Tanzania and (especially) Zimbabwe.

Today sub-Saharan African carries 650 million people. By the year 2100 this same region of Africa will be carrying 2.5 billion people. We have a lot to do in a very short space of time - to integrate the needs of Africa's wildlife with the needs of its expanding human population. We don't have time to argue or to squabble. We need to get our heads and our hearts together to create a new paradigm that will enable Africa's people to take along with them their precious and unique wildlife resources into posterity. Your decision to ban the importation of these elephant trophies into America is NOT the way to make this work. I appeal to you: clear your minds and your hearts, and lets set in motion a system of cooperation that will see Africa's wildlife contributing to the well being of its people in a manner that will make them WANT to utilise their wildlife in a sustainable manner into posterity. If we don't do this, Africa's poverty-stricken people will just take it all anyway - in a non-sustainable manner - and by 2100 there will be no wildlife left on this continent.

In conclusion I offer no apologies.

With kind regards

Ron Thomson
Author, Wildlife Journalist &
Wildlife Management Consultant
Ron Thomson Publications
PO Box 452
Kenton-on-Sea 6191
Tel: (046) 648 1243
Cell: 072 587 1111
Fax2email: 086 540 6615
Email: magron@ripplesoft.co.za
Web: http://www.ronthomsonshuntingbooks.co.za

Thank you for posting this Ant.

Last week I was in South Africa, and was told exactly the same thing1
That people in the West are imposing their rules on Africa with total ignorance!

quote:

Originally posted by editor-ant:
Ron Thomson is not finished yet (see his response to USF&WS below), and one has to admire his tenacity with trying to get the message across. This material, and much of what has been posted on AR is being circulated widely, and will, one hopes, influence voters and donors, bringing pressure to bear somewhere.

--------------------- x ----------------------

Mr. van Norman
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service


Dear Mr van Norman,

I have no idea who or what you are in the US Fish & Wildlife Service - and I have no wish to offend you - but it seems I have been fobbed off by your Acting Deputy Chief of Public Affairs which I do not appreciate. Your response to my long and explanatory email to Mr. Gavin Shire is NOT good enough; and please be advised that I am NOT intimidated by the US Fish and Wildlife Service of the United States of America. My concern is for Africa, Africa's wildlife and Africa's people, and I have had enough of uniformed bureaucrats in the First World dictating to Africa in a manner that is both arrogant and destructive; which leaves me wondering WHO your 'advisers' are and why you even listen to them when, as you admit, they are clearly misinformed, too. So, Sir, please read what I have to say with an open mind because THIS EMAIL will be circulating the globe. I want the whole world to know that dictates from the USF&WS are doing a whole lot of harm to Africa's wildlife AND to its rural people; and whoever reads these missives will understand that I am RIGHT!.

Africa, Sir, is NOT perfect - and I know there is a lot of commercial poaching going on - but if YOU wish to dictate to Africa (because YOU believe you know what is best for Africa) at least make sure that your facts are correct and that your rationale is beyond reproach. And, if you want to take anything away from Africa, please have the courtesy to leave Africa with 'something of equivalent value'

Sir, I have not lived in Zimbabwe for a very long time - 30 years - but I lived at the heart of Zimbabwe's wildlife sanctuaries for 24 years before that; and I have kept my ear to the ground. And elephant and black rhino management was, and remains, my very deep passion; and a large number of my old colleagues are still resident in Zimbabwe and they keep me informed. Furthermore, I have a 'handle' on elephant management matters that YOU can't even begin to imagine, and I can interpret and extrapolate a lot from what I am told. What difference does it make, for example, when we are not sure if Hwange National Park has 30 000 elephants or 50 000 elephants - when it was determined in 1960 that the desirable population should not have exceeded 2 500? And in 1960 irreparable habitat damage was already then well advanced! How can the USF&WS possibly reach the conclusion that because 300 elephants were poisoned in Hwange last year, that the Hwange elephant population is "under siege"? Sir, in my opinion, if all the elephant poachers in Africa were to descend on Hwange and wipe out half the elephant population overnight they would be doing the national park a very big favour. I, obviously, do not condone or encourage such an unlawful event but it is no more 'unlawful' and no less 'undesirable and damaging' than to have YOU afford the Hwange elephants "super-protection from all harm". And, in the context of the effect that sport hunting will have on the Hwange population, even if you quadrupled the number of elephants shot by overseas hunters in the Hwange region (in Western Matabeleland) of Zimbabwe it will have NO DELETRIOUS EFFECT on the elephants whatsoever.

I have a recent letter (dated 14th April 2013) in my possession (from a Mr Marco Pani) who makes the following statement:

".... it is surprising that the USF&WS based its decision on Zimbabwe on anecdotal evidence when we have, for some parts of the country, scientific data that demonstrates an increase in Elephant population.

"The case of Gonarezhou was one of these.

"The last survey done in 2013 estimates a population of elephants of 10 314 elephants (Dunham, et al, 2013) with an increase of more than 10% on the previous 2009 survey.... which was double the population of the 1980s."

And, to advise you of the kind of dangers your precipitous decision to ban hunting trophies from Zimbabwe, COULD bring to Zimbabwe, he goes on to say:

"I can imagine that the local (African) communities of this area, where the sustainable use (particularly of elephants) philosophy and practice was born, will be forced to turn to illegal use if no other income, like the one provided by sport hunting, is available to them.

"It seem like 30 years of community based wildlife conservation in Africa has been trashed. And the voices of local communities continue to be unheard."

And, as I said in my last communication to your organisation I, personally, was responsible for reducing the elephants of the Gonarezhou from 5000 animals to 2500 at the beginning of the 1970s. Now they have over 10 000. And, in those days - when the habitats were still 'fairly' intact (compared to now - where the habitats have been completely trashed) - I considered that the sustainable elephant carrying capacity of the Gonarezhou was only 1000.

So, it would of GREAT benefit to BOTH Hwange AND to the Gonarezhou, if their both populations could be reduced by AT LEAST half (to begin with). ALL the pointers, SURELY, must tell you that THIS is a true reflection of the REAL status of elephants in these two Zimbabwean national parks?

You say that - if you follow the protocols of your Endangered Species Act - you are "UNABLE" to allow further imports of elephant trophies from Zimbabwe (or Tanzania). THIS kind of information (above), SURELY, must satisfy your legal requirements? OR, is it NOT a case of you NOT being UNABLE to rescind your importation moratorium but rather that you don't WANT to. It is common knowledge that many of your 'advisers' come from the Animal Rights Brigade and that they have put you under some considerable pressure to the impose these importation restrictions. It is also common knowledge that it is the animal rightist's purpose to ABOLISH all 'animal uses' by man - including hunting and trade (especially hunting). So Africa will be watching you very closely to see whether you favour your 'advisers' in this matter, or if you are genuinely interested in assisting Africa and its elephants. This is calling a spade a 'bloody' shovel, but it seems THAT is what it is going to take to get First World 'people' to listen to voices from Africa. I am unrepentant!

I wish to make a few more statements. The problem with the FIRST WORLD (AND with the animal rights brigade) is that, with regard to elephants, all you are interested in is NUMBERS. And in this context, I include the IUCN, WWF, CITES and the USF&WS. NONE of you ever THINK about whether or not the NUMBERS of the elephants you are trying to 'save' are capable of SUSTAINABLY living, IN THOSE NUMBERS, within the wildlife sanctuaries in which they live. And none of you have given one iota of thought to the TOTAL DESTRUCTION that has taken place to the habitats in what are currently thought of as being "elephant sanctuaries" - over the last 50 years. The situation in Zimbabwe today is that practically EVERY elephant sanctuary in the country is carrying 10 or more times the numbers of elephants those sanctuaries SHOULD be carrying. Isn't the USF&WS concerned at the MASSIVE loss of biological diversity that is taking place within these sanctuaries? And this is happening BECAUSE, people like the IUCN, WWF, CITES and the USF&WS are all concerned that NUMBERS of elephants must NOT decline (and because they are interested in nothing else). You guys have got it all wrong. You have ignored all the ecological considerations that proper scientific management of our national parks demands of us. And YOU GUYS are 'killing' Africa's national parks as a consequence.

I have just finished writing a similar dissertation to IUCN's Holly Dublin - who very proudly told me that the IUCN has to operate 'with caution' because TWO of Zimbabwe's several elephant sanctuaries in 2011 (Chewore and Nyaminyami) displayed "PIKE"values that are very worrying. "PIKE", as you probably know, stands for "proportion of illegally killed elephants" - so I presume these PIKE values are compared with "PILE" values" (my name) meaning "proportion of LEGALLY killed elephants". These highfalutin terms mean NOTHING AT ALL because they are in no way correlated with the size and health of the elephant populations to which they are applied. For example, if you apply a PIKE value to the Gonarezhou's 10 000 elephants - without qualifying the term by relating it to a population that is GROSSLY in excess of the game reserves carrying capacity, what do you get? A meaningless statistic. So what if elephants are being poached inside the Gonarezhou when no legal hunting takes place inside the park at all anyway - when the population numbers 10 000? The poaching burden would ONLY be meaningful if it forced a decline in the population and for that to happen is most unlikely. So what 'use' is a PIKE value when it is presented as a raw statistic and no consideration is given to the actual impact that population has on its environment? Here again, PIKE deals with elephant numbers ONLY; it makes no attempt to relate the statistic to the game reserve's elephant carrying capacity.

Now, finally, I have to take the USF&WS to task with regards the validity of the concept on which its "Endangered Species Act" is based. This is not a game of semantics. It is vitally important - because it affects, also, the very foundation of organisations like CITES. If the concept is invalid, this will render the whole U.S.Endangered Species Act invalid; and THAT would rock the foundations of CITES. Very few people, however, THINK of this. Even less are bold enough to point it out. But let me do so NOW.

"SPECIES" do not arrange themselves at the "species level". They organise themselves at the "POPULATION LEVEL". One species can have many different and VERY DISTINCT "populations" some of which may be declining (for a number of different reasons) whilst others are increasing (for an equally large number of different reasons). And the environmental (or ecological) "pressures" that are exerted on ONE population (by nature or by man) are unique to that population. That means specific wildlife management practices - which take into account those unique pressures - should be applied to THAT population. Whilst other populations need different kinds of management strategies. But in 1989 - when the elephant was declared to be "an endangered species" - CITES forced the imposition of exactly the same 'total preservation' wildlife management practices on every single elephant population in Africa. At the time elephants were expanding hugely, and they were being culled quite heavily, in the southern African states;whilst those in East Africa were declining severely because they were being heavily poached. This CITES decision, therefore, caused the southern African elephants (which were quite SAFE) to be MIS-managed - whilst ONLY the East African elephant populations (which were UNSAFE) actually required such protective management. In this case, applying a universal status on the African elephant "AS A SPECIES" was TOTALLY contrary to the concept of responsible wildlife management. It was tantamount, in fact, to saying that because there was a drought raging in India, the people of New York City in America should be forced to go on water rationing. The concept of "endangered species", therefore, is invalid. It is fantasy. So your "Endangered Species Act" is based on a false premise!

The world of wildlife hasn't learn anything since 1989. We are still - RIGHT NOW (with the imposition of the elephant trophy import ban) - looking at the elephant AS A SPECIES and we are ignoring all the vitally important ecological reasons why we should RATHER be looking at the "SAFETY" or "LACK OF SAFETY" factors of its populations. If the Chewore and Nyaminyami areas of Zimbabwe have declining populations due to poaching (or for any other reason) - and IF their population numbers were fast dropping below their habitats' sustainable carrying capacities - then I would concede that THOSE populations should be given extra special protection. NEVERTHELESS, I STILL BELIEVE AT LEAST THE CHEWORE POPULATION IS EXCESSIVE - and that it is not in any danger (YET). And I feel quite confident in saying the Chewore elephant population is still 'excessive'. But to say that, because the Chewore and/or the Nyaminyami populations are under a poaching threat, ALL the elephant populations in Zimbabwe (including Hwange and the Gonarezhou) need special protection is totally invalid and nonsensical.

I challenge you to prove that my evaluation of your Endangered Species Act is wrong!!!!! And because it is wrong; and because you are guided by its provisions so stringently, a whole lot of your impositions on Africa (and on the rest of the world) are wrong, too.

YOU want to tell Africa what to do!!!!! It gives me great pleasure to put the boot on the other foot. Learn from the African wildlife management philosophy expounded in this email, and become a better wildlife organisation!

Please, SIR, lets learn from each other. Let us put our heads together and get rid of all these many atrocious anomalies that bedevil our "togetherness" as a family of wildlife managers.

I believe you must NOW have enough ammunition to unilaterally and immediately withdraw your draconian imposition of the importation banning order of elephant hunting trophies from Tanzania and (especially) Zimbabwe.

Today sub-Saharan African carries 650 million people. By the year 2100 this same region of Africa will be carrying 2.5 billion people. We have a lot to do in a very short space of time - to integrate the needs of Africa's wildlife with the needs of its expanding human population. We don't have time to argue or to squabble. We need to get our heads and our hearts together to create a new paradigm that will enable Africa's people to take along with them their precious and unique wildlife resources into posterity. Your decision to ban the importation of these elephant trophies into America is NOT the way to make this work. I appeal to you: clear your minds and your hearts, and lets set in motion a system of cooperation that will see Africa's wildlife contributing to the well being of its people in a manner that will make them WANT to utilise their wildlife in a sustainable manner into posterity. If we don't do this, Africa's poverty-stricken people will just take it all anyway - in a non-sustainable manner - and by 2100 there will be no wildlife left on this continent.

In conclusion I offer no apologies.

With kind regards

Ron Thomson
Author, Wildlife Journalist &
Wildlife Management Consultant
Ron Thomson Publications
PO Box 452
Kenton-on-Sea 6191
Tel: (046) 648 1243
Cell: 072 587 1111
Fax2email: 086 540 6615
Email: magron@ripplesoft.co.za
Web: http://www.ronthomsonshuntingbooks.co.za

quote:

The sustainable and ethical hunting of Africa’s trophy animals is the BEST way to ‘take wealth from the rich people of the First World’ and ‘give it to the poor people of Africa’. Nothing else matches it.

+1