http://bryanchristy.com/hunter...t-poaching-tanzania/


Link has photos and story.

Here is the full text.. ~ Alan

I read your excellent piece in Nat Geo, and wanted to tell you of our recent experience in Tanzania. Last August my wife and I were buffalo hunting on a block in Rungwa, fairly smug in our certainty that we were helping to support conservation of endangered species, and wildlife in general. 2nd day out we heard sustained automatic weapons fire not more than a km away. We could hear several weapons and there was initial fire of 80-100 rounds.

Our PH [professional hunter] was clearly outraged, but was calm and assured us the gunfire was from poachers who would do what they had come to do and leave us alone; the gunfire had ceased so we accepted the PH’s assurances, though we were shocked that poaching could happen on a private block, and were conscious that a PH had been killed by elephant poachers the previous year in the area. When the gunfire started again we ran for the truck and got out of there.

The PH had already rung the game commissioner on a sat phone who couldn’t do anything because he was new and “didn’t know the area”; calls were made to the safari company’s head office, and strings were pulled. The result was that a bunch of rangers in new land cruisers turned up at our camp that evening and promised to visit the kill site next day. It was unclear why they had come to our camp, which was some distance from the kill site.

The PH asked if we were willing to go to the kill site the next day. We were, and we’re horrified to find 11 dead elephants; mothers, babies, immature males. The poachers had clearly killed the whole herd irrespective of whether they had ivory or not. I took a lot of photos.

The trackers looked around and confirmed there had been 8-10 poachers, 4 shooters; and that they were all on bicycles. The tyre tracks from the bicycles were clearly visible. We had been about 800m from the site the previous day when the poachers opened fire.The trackers could see no vehicle tracks from the rangers, who were supposed to have visited that morning. There was one small village in a 30 mile radius, so it didn’t ring true that the poachers could easily evade the authorities. Yet they did.

We looked around for a couple of days and easily found 3 more recent kills. The PH had been active in the area for several years and was horrified by the volume of kills, which he said was unprecedented and worried him that there would be no elephants left in Tanzania in a few years. He was also worried at the comparatively small number of elephant sightings during our safari.

We got cut off from camp by a bush fire, about 12 km from camp, the next night: it was thought initially that poachers had started the fire , but later we were told it was the safari company’s employees (which sounded a bit unlikely given neither the PH nor camp staff expected it).

The next morning we were told by one of the trackers that the Rangers were raiding a shebeen where the poachers were on a drinking binge. It seemed probable that if we knew about this raid, that the poachers would as well, and sure enough a Ranger told us the next day that the raid had been unsuccessful; the poachers had gone elsewhere to drink.

Our driver had seen 2 poachers on bicycles with 2 large plastic containers on the back of each leaving the village; he was in no doubt they were carrying ivory.

The senior area game commissioner insisted on visiting me in camp a few days later; I believe this was a PR exercise but it rather misfired. A well dressed and accessorised and charming man, he assured me that elephant poaching in the area was unusual, and generally the few kills were on a small scale. He also confirmed that his department was taking strong and decisive action against the poachers all of whom it had already identified, and that it had already conducted a successful raid against the poachers who carried out the main attack (which we knew to be untrue). He also told us that one poacher at the main site had been killed by the elephants , and another seriously injured who was in hospital and would be arrested when well enough. Our tracker laughed when I asked him if this was true: he was adamant that no one had been killed or injured at the site, only elephants.

The commissioner became somewhat less charming when I argued that the way Tanzania allocated the hunting blocks to safari companies for only 2 years discouraged investment, and encouraged corruption; that poaching is facilitated by the fact that, unlike Namibia and South Africa, game animals have no ownership. He got particularly prickly when I suggested that the very considerable revenue generated by the government from leasing out hunting blocks, and from trophy fees, was not all ending up being used for conservation.Thankfully I had to cut that pointless conversation short to get the truck to the airstrip, but it left a bad taste in the mouth and had the opposite effect to that intended.

We were deeply upset by the whole experience, it ruined the trip of a lifetime and has given us doubts over the “hunters protect wildlife” argument. Worst of all we doubt there will be any elephants left in Tanzania for our grandchildren to see.

Wouldn't it be bloody wonderful if once, just once, there could be a modern African country that could run their country honestly, ethically and efficiently?

Instead, not a single one of them could run a piss up in a brewery!

The day that happens, pigs will fly.

quote:

Originally posted by Scriptus:
The day that happens, pigs will fly.

Yup. I appreciate it'd be a miracle but damn, it'd be sooooooooo wonderful!

What? Shooting hogs, a right, then a left with your twelve, a couple doses of SGs. I wonder how fast they would fly. Can you imagine the thump a winged 45kg hog would make hitting the ground.
Sorry, hijacked again.

Steve,
I'm very tempted to ask what country or countries we should hold up to Africa as examples to emulate - but I will resist the temptation...
kh

quote:

Originally posted by kevin henderson:
Steve,
I'm very tempted to ask what country or countries we should hold up to Africa as examples to emulate - but I will resist the temptation...
kh

Kevin

I appreciate your comment is partly (at least) tongue in cheek but joking aside, I guess no country is perfect but pretty much any modern western country such as the UK, US & large parts of Europe actually run their countries pretty well....... Govt policies might be a stuff up in many of them but there's not any that I can think that would consider renaming every town and street at a cost of billions when they have nothing like properly run hospitals or schools or where a citizen has to wait something in the region of 5 years for a simple permit of any kind or or where an entire criminal prosecution for serious crimes such as murder can be made to disappear so the accused walks for often just a relatively few USD or would so much as consider seizing all the land from farmers who feed their entire country and handing it over to politicians who then do bugger all with it except destroy it and render it completely useless for anything.

As someone recently said in another thread, the Africans couldn't organise a one car funeral procession.

Steve,
I know, that's why I didn't give in to the temptation. My comment that I really didn't make was, of course, with tongue firmly in cheek and with a slight headache from current TV ads and robocalls from more politicians than I can shake a stick at. Not that shaking a stick at some of them, closely and with vigor, might not be a bad idea. Like you, I ache when I see the waste and destruction that goes on as a matter of course in Africa. Maybe, someday, a pig will actually get off the ground. We can only hope.
kh

A 300mag at long distance could have done in alot of the damn poachers. case closed.

Mike

Unfortunately, this is not news. Except that the poachers, and the corruption, seem marginally more brazen than in the recent past.

any expectation that ANY African country will ever be anything but a shining example of greed/corruption at it's best is a pipe dream.

Elephant poaching is on the increase right across africa, lots on the go in Zimbabwe and Zambia and even a few clients and PH's have been caught up in some rather frightening encounters in areas that weere previously largely untouched.

African inefficiency and poor governance+ The rising demand and increasing wealth in the Far East = decimated wildlife

Tragic that poaching incident , and might linked to the poaching in RSA that possible have the same buyers when it comes to it .

And there was African country that was led and ran wel land ethically, its name was Rhodesia.

My error. I should have said modern African country.

quote:

Originally posted by PerH:
Tragic that poaching incident , and might linked to the poaching in RSA that possible have the same buyers when it comes to it .

And there was African country that was led and ran wel land ethically, its name was Rhodesia.

And the Ivory Coast before the current crap, and the RSA where before this lot took over, schools had books, hospitals had staff, medecins, beds, x-ray machines, nurses training colleges, teacher training colleges, money to pay teachers and nurses and one could drive in a straight line and remain on the correct side of the road. Africa, every day is a challenge.

http://keranews.org/post/tanza...hant-poachers-thrive


In A Tanzanian Village, Elephant Poachers Thrive

By John Burnett


Originally published on Thu October 25, 2012 4:52 pm



An insatiable demand for ivory in Asia is fueling a massive slaughter of elephants across Africa. As NPR's John Burnett reports, one of the worst poaching hot spots is Tanzania. In this story, he visits an ivory poacher's town that sits next to a major game reserve.


It's midday in Mloka, a cheerless village that is the gateway to one of Africa's greatest nature sanctuaries, the Selous Game Reserve, which is larger than Switzerland and has vast numbers of giraffes, zebras and hippos in addition to elephants. The sun is stultifying, and the streets are lifeless, but business is booming for the poachers in Mloka.

Two poachers agreed to talk about their illegal work in the courtyard of a low-cost guesthouse in Mloka, where laundry hangs on a line and prostitutes slip in and out of rooms.

A 46-year-old elephant killer who gives his name as Mkanga slouches in a plastic chair.

"Ivory buyers come to Mloka and look for us. They say they want 200 kilograms [440 pounds] of ivory, can you arrange for that? The businessmen are mainly Chinese," he says.

"After getting a down payment, I look for some boys to hire as porters. We bring flour, sugar, beans and water with us," he adds. "We cross into the game reserve at night, but after that we can move in the daytime because there is no one there."

Tracking Elephants To Watering Holes

The second poacher, who gives his name as Salma Abdallah, is 35 and wears a dirty Dallas Cowboys jersey.

"Elephants fear for their lives so it's not easy to spot them," he says. "We'll walk for five days or more. We find them when they go to drink water in the afternoon or go to a forest to feed."

Abdallah says he goes out with about 10 guys, each with a different role.

"I am the shooter," he says.

"While we're out, we'll shoot an impala or wildebeest for food, dry the leftover meat and bring it back to the village to sell," he adds.

Both poachers have poisoned elephants with pesticide-spiked pumpkins or other fruit, but they said that method is inefficient.

They use large-caliber hunting rifles. After the kill, they hack off the tusks with an ax. They usually take six to eight elephants per trip.

Scientists tell us that elephants have death rituals. They will, for instance, cluster around a dead individual and touch the carcass with their trunks, and then return much later to caress the bones.

Mkanga, the first poacher. is asked if he knows that elephants mourn their dead. He shifts in his chair, adjusts his Safari Beer cap, and smirks.

"Sometimes when they have a funeral, it's like a party for me," he says. "You shoot one, and before he dies the others come to mourn for the one who is injured. And so I kill another one, and kill another one."

Big Money In A Poor Place

"Sometimes when I finish my business and I'm back at my house and I've gotten paid, I do feel like I've done something bad," he adds. "But when I don't have money to pay for my children's school fees or anything to eat, I say, 'Yeah, the game reserve is my shop. Let me go to the shop and kill.' "

Local sources say elephant tusks fetch about $60 a kilo (2.2 pounds). That's $12,000 for a 200 kilogram (440 pound) consignment of ivory in a country where the per capita income is $125 a month.

Wildlife activists, government officials, safari operators and poachers say the elephant herds of the Selous are being systematically wiped out.

They confirm a 2010 report by the Environmental Investigation Agency, in London, which points to the Selous as one of Africa's worst elephant killing fields. DNA tests conducted on nearly 1,500 tusks seized in 2006 at seaports in Taiwan and Hong Kong traced them to elephants in the Selous and neighboring Niassa Reserve in Mozambique.

Tanzania's natural resources minister, Khamis Kagasheki, was brought in five months ago to clean up his notoriously corrupt agency, strengthen protection for game reserves and crack down on poachers. He says Mloka will be one of his first targets.

"The biggest poaching community is protected by the leadership in Mloka, this I know," he says. "And believe me, I sent them a message, I'm going to move after them."

In the first week of October, rangers reportedly shot two poachers inside the reserve. Mloka residents were so furious they temporarily blocked the road and wouldn't let tourists in or out.

Meanwhile, Mkanga, the poacher, insists he has given up poaching and gone back to farming. He's asked if he cares whether his four children might not be able to see a wild elephant.

"Yeah, sure," he says distractedly, "that would be very sad."

What a load of hogwash!

Yeah, you just walk into Mloka village and interview a couple of poachers

Burnett needs to come up with something more original.

Hey Fujo,
i bet that if i go to most villages around the Selous and spread the word that i have some $$ for any poacher who volunteers to be interviewed, I will find all sorts of people claiming they are.....

quote:

Originally posted by Bwanamich:
Hey Fujo,
i bet that if i go to most villages around the Selous and spread the word that i have some $$ for any poacher who volunteers to be interviewed, I will find all sorts of people claiming they are.....

Precisely and the reason for this Swiss "Inspector Clouseau" claiming to have interviewed "real live poachers" being a load of hogwash!.....Besides, Salma is a woman's name which adds more crap to the story.

Good reading material for the Bunny Huggers tho'

quote:

Originally posted by fujotupu:

quote:

Originally posted by Bwanamich:
Hey Fujo,
i bet that if i go to most villages around the Selous and spread the word that i have some $$ for any poacher who volunteers to be interviewed, I will find all sorts of people claiming they are.....

Precisely and the reason for this Swiss "Inspector Clouseau" claiming to have interviewed "real live poachers" being a load of hogwash!.....Besides, Salma is a woman's name which adds more crap to the story.

Good reading material for the Bunny Huggers tho'

Wonder if he has a "lisance for his menkey?"