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Africa Hunting : Zimbabwe Professional Hunters and Guides Association letter Explaining their attitudes towards hunting Zimbabwe’s National parks
on 2011/3/7 12:07:54
I was at first surprised at this letter.... then realised that I shouldn’t be surprised because no hunters association in Africa seems prepared to discuss wildlife management issues in national parks without cow-towing to public opinion. The letter in question was written by Sally Brown – whom I have no wish to offend.

Just to appraise your readers with regards “from where I am coming”: I worked for the Rhodesian/ Zimbabwe Department of National Parks & Wildlife Management for 24 years. I had service in Hwange National Park (Main Camp) for three years as a young game ranger. Other national parks and wildlife areas I worked in were the Matopos (1 year); Binga (5 years)(during which I was in charge of the Chizarira and Chete Game Reserves, and the Sebungwe sector of the Tsetse Fly Control Corridor); Gonarezhou (5 ½) years (where I also headed the elephant and hippo culling team in the early 1970s); Mushandike Recce School (1 year); Provincial Game Warden-in-charge Mashonaland-South (7 years); Provincial Game Warden-in-charge, Hwange National Park (2 years). I also studied for two years at the University of Rhodesia for their Field Ecology Certificate (passed distinction); and I was a Member of the Institute of Biology (London) and a registered Chartered Biologist for the European Union of more than 20 years before my retirement. I also headed the black rhino capture team in Rhodesia for seven years and captured, on foot, 140 black rhinos.

My Big Game Hunting experience (elephant, buffalo, rhino, hippo, lion & leopard), therefore, is vast. I have written seven books and innumerable magazine articles on, inter alia, wildlife management issues.... for the purpose of trying to create a “better informed public” – better informed that is, about wildlife management issues.
It is my contention that people the likes of Michael Schumacher do not become world champion racing drivers without getting to know how every single element of their racing car functions, what its capabilities are and what its limitations are. You can say the same sort of thing about national park game rangers. And you can say the same thing about hunters and professional hunters and people in every other facet of human endeavour. Nobody can reach the pinnacle of ANY career without learning about its nuts and bolts.

I work a lot with hunters and hunting associations in South Africa nowadays, and I write two columns in every issue of one of South Africa’s leading (international) hunting magazines “The African OUTFITTER” for which I am also a sub-editor. It is my experience that the majority of hunters (not all!) couldn’t care a damn about the niceties surrounding wildlife management issues and they have a particular blind spot when it comes to standing up against emotional animal rights issues and public opinion. Most of them ‘say’ they are concerned but they rarely put their ‘money’ where their mouths are. I find this state of affairs to be remarkable because I myself am an avid hunter and I am disappointed because hunters are my kindred spirits and I work ‘for hunting’ every day of my life – and I have done this in South Africa now for twenty-eight years (after my removal from Hwange for political reasons in 1983). But this conclusion (about hunters generally), I believe, is valid.

It is my opinion that hunters who write letters, such as the one in question, should be of the ilk of Michael Schumacher in the hunting world. They should know and understand the nuts and bolts of their profession and they should be knowledgeable enough to be able stand up and fight, blow-by- blow, and face-to-face, with our opponents. Our opponents are the people who make up the animal rights brigade and their fellow-travellers in the public arena. And our opponents are winning the war for the hearts-and-minds of society – because too few of our hunters, and too few of the non-hunting but thinking-and-responsible people in society, are prepared to become a Michael Schumacher in their hunting professions and/or interests in nature and tourism.

I participated in the Hwange National Park annual game counts in 1960, 1961, 1962 and 1963. In 1960 we determined that the Park was then carrying c. 3500 elephants – and we began shooting every elephant that crossed the national park boundaries in an attempt to reduce the population. It was then considered that the elephant population should be reduced to 2 500 – one elephant per two square miles {or one to 5 square kilometres}). At that time the elephants were in the process of annihilating the Mukwa trees (Pterocarpus angolensis) and the mature Mlala Palms – among others. Elephant culling began in Hwange in 1965.

Elephants have the capacity to double their numbers every seven years!

By 1981 - despite the annual culling that had been taking place since 1965 - Hwange’s elephant population stood at 23 000. It was then our endeavour to reduce the population to 14 000 by increased culling. The goal posts had been moved – because the elephant population had ‘gotten away from us’. The objective of the elephant population reduction programme in Hwange had by the early 1980s become ‘a numbers game’. It was no longer a programme to reduce the elephant population to a level that the Hwange habitats could sustainably support. And by then the Mukwa tree in Hwange was virtually extinct and mature mlala palms were few and far between.
The new 14 000 target was designed to reduce the population to one elephant per one square kilometre (Hwange National Park is 5000 square miles in extent { or c. 14 000 square kilometres}). To my knowledge, this goal was never achieved. By the end of the 1980s all culling was stopped in Zimbabwe and the elephant population ‘took off’. And by then (1989) CITES had declared the elephant to be “an endangered species” and prohibited the international trade in ivory. The elephant has NEVER been a so-called “endangered species”.

Theoretically (by mathematical extrapolation) - with the capacity to double their numbers every ten years - Hwange’s elephant numbers SHOULD (starting at an estimated 20 000 in 1990) in have reached 80 000 animals by 2010. Various reports since 1990, however, suggest that large numbers of elephants vacated Hwange when the game water supplies began to break down. It is now anybody’s guess how many elephants there are REALLY in Hwange at this time (2011).
Now we have come to the stage where we have to evaluate all this information in terms of WHY we should be at all concerned. We SHOULD be concerned because the PRIMARY purpose of ANY national park is to maintain the endemic species-diversity of the locality in which the national park occurs. I was a young game ranger in Hwange fifty years ago. In those days – with just 3 500 elephants in the park – we were already losing mega-plant species in the park because there were THEN too many elephants. So I can just imagine what is happening in Hwange NOW with 50 000 (which is the probably minimum number) elephants in the national park. How those habitats must have change over the last thirty years – when I last worked in Hwange out of Main Camp.

Our first wildlife management priority should be for THE SOIL – because without soil no plants can grow. Our second wildlife management priority should be for the PLANTS – because without plants there would be no animals (There are other functions that plants perform too – like creating the specific habitats that a wide variety of animal species need to survive – and they provide ‘cover’ to protect the soil from erosion, too). Animals come last on the list of our management priorities. This does not mean that animals are unimportant. It means that the soil and the plants are MORE important.

Tourism doesn’t feature in this hierarchy of wildlife management priorities at all.

Wildlife management is the juggling act man performs to create a balance between the soil, the plants and the animals – to create a stable and sustainable ecosystem. ONLY WHEN a stable and sustainable ecosystem is established can tourism be considered as an additional factor; because, ipso facto, a stable and sustainable tourism industry can ONLY be established on a stable and sustainable ecosystem. The foundation for tourism must be solid and sustainable.
The animal rights brigade believe that national parks are only properly ‘managed’ when no management takes place at all – when nature is left to her own devices. This is a fallacy that needs to be conveyed to the general public because unless there is public support, government will NOT bring into effect the ‘hard-love’ element of wildlife management – which is the need to cull wild animal populations when their numbers exceed the carrying capacities of their habitats. If vital population reductions are NOT made – when it is appropriate to do so – all that the no-culling dictum will do it to eventually turn our great national parks into deserts.

Hwange is on the road to becoming a true desert. So are the game reserves of Botswana. (Botswana now harbours something in excess of 200 000 elephants – when it should carry only about 5000). And so, now, is Kruger National park in South Africa also becoming a desert. (Kruger National park now carries in excess of 16 000 elephants - when it should be carrying only about 4000; and since 1960 Kruger National Park has lost 95 percent of its top canopy trees). Why is this happening? Because in all these elephant ranges the elephant populations are now not being ‘managed’ at all.

We cannot, therefore, concern ourselves with whether or not it is ‘ethical’ to hunt an elephant (or anything else) in an African national park – which is ‘managed’ according to First World principles... principles that do NOT ‘work’ in Africa anyway – when the national park ITSELF is not being ‘managed’ ethically or properly or not at all. In my opinion, ANY action that will reduce the elephant population in Hwange should be considered. We REALLY need to return to the old principle that Ted Davison brought to Hwange in 1928 – that the animal populations need to be maintained in numbers that the habitats can sustainably support.

And THIS is the role that I believe that hunters and tourists guides should be playing in the greater African Wildlife Management picture. We should be supporting responsible management first and foremost – because THAT will result in truly sustainable hunting. We don’t have to be apologetic to the animal rightists about what we are doing and advocating – because what we will be doing and advocating is RIGHT. And the common sense principles upon which we operate will be justified when they are explained to, and examined by, responsible and intelligent people is society.

We need now to start looking at those wildlife management ‘issues’ that are important. Are we, as society, for example, conducting ourselves properly when we glibly accept the ‘conservation’ norms that are ever-more-rapidly creeping into our way of life – norms that are being programmed by the propaganda of the animal rights brigade!!!!!! Why are we leaving the playing fields within society so open and uncontested to the animal rightists in our midst? Why do we rely so much on the dictums of CITES – which has now been thoroughly corrupted by its accredited First World animal rightist NGOs. CITES is now the biggest weapon that the animal rights brigade has in its armoury. Why are we not urging our governments to get CITES back into line - and if it doesn’t do so to resign from CITES. We are doing none of these things – which are vitally necessary – because we lack the intestinal fortitude to learn the nuts and bolts of our trade and to apply the wisdom inherent in the wildlife management principles that should be our primary guidelines.

I do not wish to slight Sally Brown by over-stating my opposition to the tone of her letter, but if I had NOT compiled this retort I would be just as guilty of those that I have herein denigrated for not having the guts to say what has to be said. The whole wildlife management scene in Africa is ‘in a mess’ – because we are crumbling under the weight of the successes of the animal rights propaganda campaign – and our national parks are suffering the most because of it.

Whilst, therefore, I believe that the wildlife authorities in Zimbabwe should be embarking on a more precise way of reducing the elephant population in Hwange (and in the other Zimbabwean National Parks), I believe society should support them when they allow elephants to be shot under licence in the national parks of that country. If the elephant population of Hwange sits at 50 000 at this time, the solution will not be to JUST shoot one or two bulls a year on licence, it requires 47 500 elephants to be culled en masse – and to be culled as quickly as possible. And even when there just 2 500 elephant left in the park the tourists will STILL see them. In 1960 I never heard one tourist complain that he had not seen enough elephants on the days that he toured the park.

And, if the authorities are NOT prepared to take the bull by the horns – and cull thousands of elephants in Hwange - then maybe we should encourage the poaching of elephants in Hwange because the poachers will then do the work that authorities are too scared to tackle! I say this, of course, with tongue in cheek!

THIS letter comes from a man who has worked for MORE than 50 years for Africa’s wildlife, a man who is a staunch supporter of Africa’s national parks (who is ‘national parks’ to the core of his heart), but who is dismayed at the direction that African societies - especially its hunting fraternities - are moving.

Please guys... please all you hunters ‘out there’.... let’s starting getting our ducks in a row.

Ms. Brown stated in her final paragraph: “This is Conservation, but it is not Bunny Hugging. It has logical, scientific reasoning behind it. As the hunting industry we do not believe this should be upset for short-term gain. If we start doing that in a very short time we will have destroyed the balance of breeding rates/hunting take-off and have nothing left.”

I would ask my readers to evaluate this statement with the facts I have myself here presented. I have no wish to upset Ms. Brown or the organisations she represents, but I MUST state what I believe to be right.... and encourage Ms. Brown to get the members of the associations that she represents to take the blinkers off their eyes.
As Ms. Brown concluded in HER letter: “I hope this (my letter) explains things a little more clearly”.

Yours sincerely,
Ron Thomson