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A recent unilateral decision By the USFW service to ban all sport hunted elephant imports from Zimabawe and Tanazania may well be the end of African elephants as we know them. This letter addresses some of the issues involved. Long but worth the time if you are interested in this issue.
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: [email protected].
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.
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: [email protected].
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.