ZIMBABWE: Rare species like the black rhino are being wiped out in Zimbabwe because of rampant poaching and human settlement on private game reserves seized by the state, a conservation group said yesterday.
"At the moment the situation really stinks," said Mr Johnny Rodrigues, the head of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, a wildlife advocacy group.
"The reports we're getting from the guys on the ground are that all the wildlife stocks have been completely wiped out in the private conservancies, there's nothing left," he said.
Private reserves, once a backbone of Zimbabwe's thriving wildlife and tourism industries, were being decimated by President Robert Mugabe's seizure of white-owned land for distribution to blacks, he said.
The black rhino population had halved in four years and the African wild dog was in danger of extinction in Zimbabwe, he said. Elephant numbers had also dropped.
Game reserves as well as farms have been targeted under Mr Mugabe's land redistribution policy. Mr Rodrigues said only 12 of the country's 88 private conservancies had not been confiscated by the state.
Impoverished settlers are snaring animals for food and reducing habitats by cutting trees for firewood while unscrupulous rangers are bringing in foreign trophy-seekers for uncontrolled hunting, he said.
The government has frequently denied reports of an upsurge in poaching linked to lawlessness and a collapsing economy, which has experienced fuel and foreign currency shortages along with food supply problems linked to the farm seizures.
But Mr Rodrigues said there was growing evidence Zimbabwe's once magnificent herds of wildlife were suffering.
"In 2000 there were 400 to 500 black rhinos in the country but we now estimate there are only 200 left, if that ... We know of at least eight that have been poached this year."