VICTORIA FALLS – Four poachers have been arrested in possession of two elephant tusks weighing 4.28 kilograms, 15 lion claws and four lion teeth in Zimbabwe’s famous tourism spot, Victoria Falls, police said.
It was not clear how much the suspects were charging for the ivory or how they had come to possess it. Authorities did not reveal the discovery of any elephant carcasses.
Police allege that 45-year-old Simon Nyoni had snared and killed a lion and then removed some teeth and claws.
He was arrested by Victoria Falls Police along with Listed Munkuli, 35, Kudakwashe Ndlovu, 31, and Darlington Moyo, 35.
The quartet were charged with unlawful possession of raw ivory at Mhizha turn-off, Matetsi Safari area as well as contravening trapping of Animal (Control) Act chapter 20:21.
“Detectives recovered two elephant tasks weighing 4.28 kgs, 15 lion claws and four lion teeth from the suspects,” police spokesperson Paul Nyathi said.
Detectives claim that during investigations Nyoni told them he had first snared, killed and removed two kudus in Matetsi Safari area before they had come into contact with a lion which they killed. The men took some of the meat to Chikandakubi, an area located in Hwange District some two hours away, for sale, police claimed.
Detectives said Simon and Shupani led them to what police described as their poachers’ base where some four big sacks loaded with dried kudu meat, a spear and 26 Class 1 wire snares were reported to have been recovered. The accused were yet to plead at the time of going to press.
In another case, Police and Zimbabwe National Parks rangers acted on a tip and arrested Evidence Moyo, 22, for poaching.
“The suspect trapped and killed a male buffalo at a bush near the Victoria Falls dumping site,” Nyathi said.
“Police recovered a kitchen knife from the suspect and five wire snares set in the area surrounding the place where the carcass was found.”
Moyo appeared at Victoria Falls Magistrates Court before Victoria Falls Magistrate Miss Linda Dzvene while Miss Audrey represented the State.
He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to nine months imprisonment. Magistrate Dzvene ruled that Moyo has a previous conviction of unlawful trapping of animals and the three months which were suspended were then added to the new sentence. He will serve an effective 12 months imprisonment.
Matetsi Safari has been experiencing a spike in poaching as the area currently does not have any anti-poaching units, said a ZimParks official who declined to be named as they do not have authority to speak to the media.
Meanwhile, wildlife enthusiasts on Wednesday celebrated a new milestone on World Lion Day.
The University of Illinois announced the development of a Lion Localizer, ground-breaking software for examining the geographic provenance of lions and trafficked lion products, based on mitochondrial DNA sequences.
The software has the potential to identify regions from which lions are being poached.
The technology is a timely addition to the fight against this decline as it comes as Africa’s lion population has almost halved in the past 25 years, due to threats such as illegal wildlife trade, bushmeat poaching, habitat loss and fragmentation, and human-lion conflict.
Dr. Alfred Roca, a Professor in the Department of Animal Sciences at the University of Illinois who is heading up this innovative project, said the thinking behind the project was that “smuggled wildlife products may be moved far from their original geographic source, and may be consolidated or travel across various countries, before being confiscated by authorities in a transit or destination country.
“With lions increasingly subject to poaching for their teeth, claws, and other bones, we wanted to develop software and databases to allow law enforcement and forensics laboratories the capacity to examine the geographic source of the lions using DNA.”
Wesley Au, a graduate student working on the project, said “The Lion Localizer is an interactive software that utilizes a database of mitochondrial DNA sequences obtained from published studies, in order to gain insight on the possible origins of confiscated lion body parts.
“A mitochondrial DNA sequence, which may easily be produced using DNA extracted from lion tissue samples, is used as a query for the software. The software creates a list of all the locations in Africa from which lions have been reported to have a particular DNA sequence, and plots these locations on a map of Africa. This makes it possible to identify regions from which the lions could potentially have been poached.”
Chief of Party for USAID’s VukaNow Activity, Deborah Kahatano, said USAID is thrilled to have been able to support the development of this software through a grant. “The software will act as an essential addition to the tools we have available to combat wildlife crime,” she said.
“In addition, it will support the Southern African Development Community in implementing its Law Enforcement and Anti-Poaching (LEAP) strategy, by furthering the LEAP objective of minimizing wildlife crimes and illegal trade.”
