On 23rd July 2003 Alex Barrett took to the air with Ian Stevenson, the Operations Mangager of CLZ, in the organisation's Bellanka Scout, a two seat American built plane designed for patrolling the forests of Canada.

The aircraft allows for monitoring well away from the minimal road network of the 4000 square kilometre park and its surrounding game management areas. Flying slowly at low altitude the pilot and observer can look for the evidence of poaching activity, such as the ashes of their fires at campsites and the racks used by the criminals for drying meat prior to taking it out of the park for sale at markets as far away as Lusaka.

With years of experience and intelligence from safari operators and wildlife police officers the plane can fly over areas where activity has been heard or is suspected over previous days.

As they entered the park the views of large herds of buffalo, zebra, waterbuck and breeding herds of elephant could be seen from the air quite clearly as they made their daily progress to water and grazing areas. The game paths used by the wildlife clearly indicated the locations of permanent water holes, always a popular place for poachers to place snares.

Flying deep into the park, the two were to pay a courtesy visit to safari operators Grenville and Cathy at their new lodge on the Mosika River. With his many years of experience and as one of the few men left in the park who can remember seeing black rhinos wandering free around the Lower Zambezi, Grenville is a man to be listened to and respected. He recommended that the plane might do well to patrol an area a few kilometres north where patrols had been absent for a while and that he suspected that poaching activity may have returned.

The following is a direct extract from Barrett's notes written up immediately following the next hour in the air:

"We spotted a drying rack; in good condition, though it appeared not to have been used in the last few days. As we dropped altitude to take a closer look, the horrible and upsetting site of a butchered elephant carcass appeared through a small clearing in the trees. The flesh was so fresh that the meat still retained the bright red colour of the animal's blood that had so recently been spilled.

"We circled several times to mark the spot on the GPS [a hand held global positioning system device] and recorded the scene with a number of photographs while Ian vocally expressed his opinion of the poachers over the intercom.

"In the course of less than an hours flying we spotted six poachers' camps. The criminals must have known that patrols had not been active in the area for a while and returned to exploit the opportunity for easy game."

The following morning Stevenson and Barrett returned to the area with six wildlife police officers in one of the CLZ Landcruisers. Using the GPS co-ordinates recorded from the plane the previous day they trekked their way through thick bush to the spot of the carcass. 

As the team came close to the scene the GPS was no longer necessary as the smell of rotting meat and the activity of vultures clearly indicated the location of the carcass.

On examination of the animals teeth,  Stevenson estimated the age of the elephant to have been around fifteen years old. The tusks had been removed in such a crude way that it was no longer possible to estimate their size or value. The majority of meat from the elephant had been butchered and removed. It was probably already on sale at some market outside the park. Where the tusks were headed could only be guessed at.

As the patrol team conducted a thorough examination of the site it became evident that the assassination had been recent (maybe even a day or two before).

The ashes in the fires around the site were still warm to the touch despite the cold nights of the previous few days. Stevenson and Barrett had to consider that the poachers may have still been around when they had flown over the previous afternoon.

Sadly bolting the stable door a little too late, Stevenson decided to deploy the small team of wildlife police officers in the area for the next few days. The elite team did not relish their new campsite with its single and dodgy waterhole  It was a decision that he would later have to justify to ZAWA as CLZ has no direct authority over the policing of the valley but one that he felt compelled to take. Stevenson and Barrett left the team at a site that had had a good view of the region particularly with the night vision scope that is CLZ's latest piece of equipment in the fight to protect the wildlife and habitat of the Lower Zambezi.

© Afrikeye 1999 - 2007 (certain items under permission of original copyright owner)

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