Over at This is Zimbabwe, Sokwanele reports on the killing of three black rhinos that took place last week at Imire Game Farm. What follows is a heavily edited version of the original blog post:

Sprinter; the killers tried to remove what little horn she had left.

“Reports are that their killers arrived at the farm on Wednesday evening dressed in Zimbabwe Army camouflage fatigues and that they were armed with AK-47 rifles. They beat up a maid and left her tied her up. They then forced someone else to lead them to the rhino pens where they viciously assaulted the guards whose job it was to watch over the vulnerable animals all day and all night. Amber, DJ and Sprinter were shot and killed, and only Tatenda, a four-week-old calf, was left unharmed.

“The senselessness of their killings is compounded by the fact that two months ago a decision was taken at Imire to have Amber, DJ and Sprinter dehorned - this is a procedure that involves a wildlife veterinarian literally sawing off the rhino’s horn.

“We had an approximate 7,500 black rhino in Zimbabwe in the 1980s and wildlife experts estimate now that only 500 black rhino are still surviving. This figure represents a very small gene pool, and three healthy adult black rhinos therefore play a critical role in building a healthy population that will help the species to survive.

Amber’s Unborn Calf

“Imire, has lost their entire adult population and now face a struggle to protect the four remaining orphans under their care. In addition to this farm’s losses, it is reported that a large conservancy in the Mavuradonha area, about 200km north of Harare, had their rhino population fall from 54 to 8 in the last year. Other conservancies in the central Midlands province lost 31 in the same period, and are down to 21 now. The rhino ‘iceberg’ is melting fast, and if steps are not taken to address the grotesque scale of the problem, then very soon – perhaps in a few short years - there will be no black rhino left in Zimbabwe at all.

“[In Zimbabwe] inflation stood at 7 892,1% in September 2007 (independent estimates put real inflation closer to 25 000%). Hyperinflation, coupled with massive unemployment, food shortages and declining social services leads to increasing desperation among decent Zimbabweans. Add to that a social environment where the rule of law is discarded in favour of political imperatives, it isn’t difficult to see how poaching for something as internationally lucrative as ‘rhino horn’ starts to look like a viable survival option with diminished risks. It is hardly surprising in this context that, having slaughtered Amber, DJ and Sprinter, the poachers spent some time trying to hack out the inch of new horn growth from Sprinter’s face. Regardless of why they were originally there – whether they were soldiers or poachers – even the smallest piece of horn in a crumbling economy was too tempting an opportunity to pass up.”

For the full story go over to the Sokwanele blog, and please subscribe to their feed for up-to-date reports on what is happening in Zimbabwe right now.

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