Shoot to Kill

Sorting through the thicket of charges and countercharges can be difficult. Larry Cumming, a white rancher, purchased Woodland Estates near Victoria Falls more than 30 years ago and developed it into one of the country's best hunting and safari reserves. "I built dams, fenced the property, sunk 22 boreholes, purchased wildlife," he says. But in 2001 the Mugabe regime forced him to surrender half his property--and half his hunting revenue--to 89 destitute Zimbabwean families as part of its land-redistribution plan. Threats were exchanged and, in 2003, Cumming and his wife fled the ranch and moved to Victoria Falls. At that point, a local safari company, Inyathi Hunting--partly owned by Mudenda, the former provincial governor and a close associate of Mugabe--signed a deal with the ranch's new owners to take over commercial hunts on the property. During the past two years, Cumming charges, Inyathi has been ignoring quotas, hunting for game on other properties, and failing to keep track of wounded animals--a serious violation of hunting ethics. "Inyathi is hunting there knowing that they will not have the property forever, so there's pillage and rape [of the environment]," Cumming charges.

Steve Williams, the founder of Inyathi and now a marketing consultant for the company, says that he and his partners had no qualms about buying rights to hunt on land that Cummings says was stolen from him. "If your government goes with it [as a policy], then you have to go with it," he says. Williams claims that Cumming is spreading untrue reports because he is embittered about losing the property. "I can't condemn the man for being emotional about something that's been his for years, but we were never a part of that," he says. He argues that much of the hunting revenue benefits poor black Zimbabweans who wouldn't have shared the wealth during the days of white ownership. "The 89 black families who have taken over Woodland Estate now have safe drinking water, a better standard of living, an income. We've taken the blows, the allegations, the ridicule of people like Cumming. But we're operating the property in a manner that we are proud of," Williams says.

That may be so. But in September 2005, Mudenda, along with three other top officials of ZANU-PF, were accused by a conservation group in Zimbabwe of using fake hunting permits and poaching wildlife in the Intensive Conservation Areas in Matabeleland, established by the government in 1991 to protect rhino, elephant, lion and other prized species. All have denied the charges.

Debate also swirls around what many industry sources call the most controversial operator in Zimbabwe: Out of Africa Adventurous Safaris. Founded by four former South African policemen and based in both South Africa and Overland Park, Kan., the company has done a brisk business taking a heavily American clientele to hunt on several ranches that, according to industry watchdogs in Zimbabwe, were seized by ZANU-PF activists and independence war veterans. Critics, including the Zimbabwean Association of Tourism and Safari Operators, say that the group uses poorly trained hunting guides who, among other violations, sometimes endanger the lives of their clients and overhunt species in violation of the Zimbabwean government's hunting rules.

Zimbabwe's Parks and Wildlife Authority banned Out of Africa last year from operating in the country. "This is an unscrupulous organization that doesn't respect the environment and pursues unsustainable quotas," says David Coltart, the opposition leader. Conservationist Johnny Rodrigues calls the company the most "flagrant violator" of hunting regulations in Zimbabwe. Dawie Groenewald, one of the founding partners of Out of Africa, denies that his company has done anything ethically wrong and says that he has been slandered by white Zimbabwean hunters. "The white Zimbabweans hunting in Zim don't want anyone else coming in there to hunt--they hate South Africans coming to hunt in their kingdom," he told NEWSWEEK. Out of Africa's attorney, Kevin Anderson, says that "these allegations about poaching and other illegal activities have been floating around for several years and they've never been substantiated." Anderson also says that Out of Africa recently decided to stop organizing hunts in Zimbabwe because "it's just become too difficult."

Whatever the case, next week in Reno, Out of Africa will set up its usual booth at the SCI convention--just down the hall from Buffalo Range Safaris, according to the SCI Web site. But for the hundreds of American sportsmen browsing for an African safari next week, finding out the full story of those two companies' activities in Zimbabwe will require a real hunting expedition.

© 2006