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Big game hunters take aim at Zimbabwe
Cape Argus (SA)
March 06, 2006

http://www.zwnews.com/issuefull.cfm?ArticleID=13937

Foreign big game hunters bid $1.5 million to shoot leopards, lions, elephants and buffaloes in Zimbabwe this year. In an annual state auction for hunting trophy "bags" on Friday, 64 local agents and foreign hunters, including bidders from Austria, Germany, Russia, Spain and the United States, paid a fixed fee of four million Zimbabwe dollars ($40) for a licence to kill a lion, the state Sunday Mail reported.

Bidding for elephants exceeded two billion Zimbabwe dollars. The season for hunting in selected areas is from May to October. The state Parks and Wildlife Management Authority said the hunting revenues were to be used in conservation programmes across the country. It said despite the collapse of regular tourism amid political and economic turmoil, international interest in hunting remained high.

Illegal hunting by corrupt officials, military officers and their foreign guests increased in many rural areas after the seizures of thousands of white-owned commercial farms began in 2000. Zimbabwe insists its bush habitat is overpopulated by elephants that cause damage and destroy crops.

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