All4AP Foundation

Zimbabwe, Newsletter March - April2010

Dear readers,

The month of March was a ‘water month’. In the way that there was still a lot of it coming from the sky and also because I have been busy to install an electric water pump for Khatshana Lodge where I live. I lived there for half a year without running water, but now I am enjoying the luxury of having it running from a tap!
The team in the mean time was doing more patrols around their base camp. In March they removed 48 snares, compared to 16 last year. This is low, but that’s because of the rains and the fact that people are still busy in the fields. Actually as we speak (end of April) even we (Mr. Dube, our camp guard and myself) are preparing a garden at Khatshana to provide ourselves with vegetables. With the water running now it will not be the question if we will be successful, but if we manage to keep the wild animals out of it! Already the first tomato was stolen by a squirrel!
In April we saw the weather gradually changing to a bit dryer and cooler. Besides the patrols around Jackal Berry camp at the Gwayi, we did a patrol on the South bank of the ‘Shangani River’. Last year August we did our first patrol there and collected a record of 338 snares, 100 of which were for birds. Time for a check we thought and although we only managed to do the south bank (the River is still flowing quite rapidly, where as the Gwayi River already stopped flowing) we found 18 Mopani logs and removed 140 snares. Again it is the people that stay at the hunting camps that are most likely to be the poachers. Otherwise it’s impossible to get there, because it is too remote. Disturbing is the fact that we did hardly find any fresh spoors or droppings from any animals. Even at night the only sounds of mammals we heard were one jackal, bats and a bush baby.
During this period we were asked by Sharon Pincott, to see if we could help darting a snared elephant at Kanondo pan, on the Hwange Safari Lodge estate. I joined forces with a colleague from Lion research and we did find the female elephant. A horrible snare quite high on her right hind leg which made her movements look painful. No luck that day; the dart broke without injecting and the cow did not let us come near her, neither by vehicle or on foot. After some tracking we had to abandon her for security reasons; other elephants around and the thick bush. Hopefully she will re appear and give us another chance.
Another patrol was performed on request at the concession of the Hide Safaris. On that day we did not find any snares which means the place was clean. Also here we saw fresh lion spoors. Lions are doing very well and we can hear / see them often around both Jackal Berry camp and Katshana camp.
On the last day of April we started a joined patrol with Forestry commission. Our sister organization had found a lot of snares and saw the poacher but lost him. We are working on the holiday (workers day) and during the weekend to see if we can arrest some persistent poachers in the Forest area. In our next report we will inform you about the results of this patrol.
Best regards, Martin & team