Zimbabwean Ron Thomson has been identified as a bloodthirsty wildlife hunter in a new report revealing how elephant populations have plunged by about two-thirds
Ron joined the Zimbabwean Department of National Parks and Wildlife management as its first cadet game ranger. For the following 24 years, he rose through the ranks to become the Provincial Game Warden-in-charge of Hwange National Park, one of Africa’s biggest and most prestigious game reserves. In his era, he has hunted more than 5000 elephants; 800 buffalo, 50 to 60 lions, 30 to 40 leopards, about 50 hippos and many more taking their lives using conventional hunting methods.
The father of two denied the allegations of being motivated by bloodlust to massively destroy wildlife and insisted that he killed to help populations survive.
“If key species were not reduced, their growing numbers would destroy their own habitats. I’ve done enough in my lifetime to satisfy any ‘bloodlust’ people may think I have. It wasn’t bloodlust it was my job,” Mr. Thomson said.
He noted that he is “10,000 times” unrepentant accusing western conservationists of spreading “fraudulent lies” to extract money from the public while understanding nothing about managing wildlife.
“I didn’t have any sentiment. I’m totally unrepentant, a hundred – ten thousand – times over for any of the hunting I’ve done because that’s not the problem. The problem is we’ve got a bunch of so-called experts from the West telling us what to do. I’m a trained university ecologist – I must surely know something about this. The African elephant is nowhere near extinct. People who say this are animal-right-ist NGOs who ask for money and tell lies to get it. When you have a healthy population you must ensure they don’t increase beyond the capacity of their habitat,” he slammed the report.
Trophy hunting has been a cruel and abhorrent hangover from colonial times. The recent surge in elephant hunting shows the industry is out of control, with the lions being most targeted. An investigation by the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting found over 1.7 million trophies were legally traded, including 200,000 from threatened species.
