CHIRUNDU ELEPHANT PROGRAMME - PATROL UPDATE - EXTREMELY URGENT APPEAL FOR FB SUPPORT. PROGRAMME UNDER THREAT. PLEASE LIKE AND SHARE TO HELP US PUT THE PRESSURE ON......PLEASE READ AND SHARE EVERYONE.......We sincerely need your support with this :( I am begging people to take the time to read this WHOLE post as basically I need your support to save the programme. If you read the patrol update below it will explain everything but I cant help but add my 2 cents so that people may see how dire our situation is! In a nutshell the elephant that started this programme (Hop-A-Long) has caused some serious damage to some local homes over the last week. We were in the process of trying to work a solution to his behaviour of late but it appears as if we may be too late. We have been told to stop all activity with there even being a threat of arrest to Nic Coetzee late last night whilst trying to stop Hop-A-Long from causing further damage. Nic N Iona Coetzee had taken to doing routine night patrols in an attempt to keep Hop-A-Long out of town whilst we made a plan to raise funds to dart, immobilize and assess his injuries, then we were going to try a process we believe has only been used once before to make a last ditch effort to save him from destruction. Sadly we appear to be too late, not only in saving Hop-A-Long but now we are facing the end of the programme forever. I could write a short novel on where we have gone right and where we may have gone wrong...In the end it all boils down to money and time. Neither of which I was able to get enough of. I hope that people may take the time to read this and help us gain support so that when push comes to shove we can use that support to show Zimbabwe Parks & Wildlife Authority that what we are doing may not matter to them but we know deep down that the amount of elephant we were going to be able to save in their natural habitat over the next few years is equal to what people are currently screaming about in Hwange, yet I seem to have failed to get the attention the programme deserved. I hope that in my failure I have not jeopardized the future of the resident elephant herd of Chirundu and the future generations of elephant who are bound to call Chirundu home...even if humans disagree that it is their right to be there. I hope people can share this and even go a step further to contact people and ask them to share it. FB is my only avenue of awareness and I appeal to people to do nothing more than push this message out. This is not an appeal for money, just support :( On to the report.... 13th January 2015 On patrol again in the town when we got a call from Mr Ghune of the Local Board to say that two Cabins had been destroyed in the new High Density area. We drove there and met up with the Town Secretary, Mr Ghune. The first cabin was damaged at around 2 am this morning .The woman who was in the cabin at the time, tried to break open her window to escape and cut her arm on the glass. I was parked right next to this cabin last night when I shot the bull elephant at 11 pm. The second cabin was about 500 meters away, and again the elephant lifted the roof and pulled part of the panelling off to get whatever was inside. These wooden cabins are erected on the stands by the owners whilst they are building their houses. Previously they stayed in the shacks at Bagdad. The Council permitted the landowners to erect these cabins whilst building as to give them a better place to stay and they can also secure their building materials etc. Where hop a long was at this time, remains a mystery as no one was certain which elephant it was. We drove all over in an endeavour to find, possibly hop a long, but to no avail. We were called out at 10.30 this evening to an elephant that was in almost the same vicinity as last night. As we got closer to town there were three frantic telephone calls to respond a.s.a.p.. As we got there Mr Ghune, the Local Board Secretary was also there in his car. Apparently Hop a long had damaged another cabin. The people indicated to us that he had headed for Bagdad. We did an about turn and headed for Bagdad. We did a complete 360 degrees and he was nowhere to be seen, obviously tucked away some place. We eventually ended up back at the place where Hop a long had damaged the cabin. A lady living opposite the damaged cabin said she knows where the elephant is and would show us. She got on the back of the land rover and together we proceeded towards Bagdad. As we got closer we heard people shouting. Hop a long had just had another go at a cabin. We asked which direction did he go and they said just on the other side of the houses. We sped around and sure enough there he was. I switched off the land rover and approached him on foot. I shot him on the side of his head at approximately 15 paces. It took off in a flash. I ran back to the land rover and went after him and caught up just before he got into the bush. I was racing along side of him, anxiously waiting for Iona to reload the chilli gun. As I stopped and jumped out he disappeared into the Jesse. We nonetheless did a detour to try and relocate him, but he was gone. On returning the Lady back to her house we stopped by Nation Parks wanting to know why the local community were calling us out and not them. I was threatened with an arrest in the morning. I called Mr.Maposa at Marangora reporting the incident and he said he will see me in the morning! We called Mr Mike LaGrange to report the incident. I drove back to camp. Will see what the morning brings! -end of report. I hope we can find a way to fix this issue & continue the good work that has been done so far. This group of elephant who call Cjirundu home deserve some protection and for what cost associated it is sad to see this happening. I doubt there has been many programmes that have managed to make such a drastic effect on an area for less than $3500 USD. Please send your good vibes this way as these elephant need & deserve your support.
Posted on: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 07:02:15 +0000
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