Theo Bronkhorst

“MY home has been raided by the police three times and everything has been seized, guns, trophies and all. I really am under pressure,” an anxious Theo Bronkhorst told the Financial Gazette last Friday morning in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second city.
Wearing a grey shirt, military-style camouflage vest and black shorts, Bronkhorst, 52, arrived at the rendezvous, a cafe in the city centre in the company of his eldest son, Zane.
The owner and founder of the family-owned Bushman Safaris, Bronkhorst, is at the centre of global interest after his company organised a safari hunt last month for American big game hunter, Walter James Palmer.
Pegged at US$50 000, the hunt resulted in the killing of Cecil, a well-known male lion among foreign tourists at Zimbabwe’s largest national park: Hwange.
The killing of the 13 year-old male lion has attracted international condemnation and has seen authorities in Zimbabwe voicing concern over trophy hunting.
At the weekend, authorities announced a ban on the hunting of lions, leopards and elephants outside the Hwange National Park, following the illegal killing of Cecil.
Environment, Water and Climate Affairs Minister, Oppah Muchinguri, has also weighed in by appealing for the immediate extradition of Palmer who killed Cecil the lion so that he is made accountable for “poaching”.
“The illegal killing was deliberate. We are appealing to the responsible authorities for his extradition to Zimbabwe so that he be made accountable for his illegal actions,” Muchinguri said.
While Cecil’s killing has given fresh impetus to anti-safari campaigners, Bronkhorst suggested that there was nothing amiss — as two similarly collared male lions had been killed so far this year on the park’s periphery — without any international stink raised over their death.
Details made available to this newspaper are that Zane, is the one who found Cecil on the night of June 30 feeding on an elephant carcass left from a previous safari at Antoinette Farm, which is owned by Trymore Honest Ndlovu and informed his father.
Under Bronkhorst’s instruction, a blind was put up and Palmer, an expert at using a bow and arrow shot the lion at 10pm, with the first shot only able to wound the animal.
“At no point did we see a collar; although we suspected that he (Cecil) had been hit. We followed the lion the following morning when it became light enough and that’s when we realised that there was blood. We went for about 300 to 400 metres from where it had been feeding and that’s when the lion stood up. For our own safety we decided to follow with a vehicle because the grass was long. We then saw the lion and we got into a thicket and shot it. We moved off, came back and shot it again to make sure that it was dead and that was mid-morning,” said Bronkhorst.
Contrary to media reports that a rifle was used to deliver the death shots on the wounded lion, Bronkhorst said his client had entirely used his bow and arrows and no rifle had been used on Cecil.
Information gleaned from the Zimbabwe Professional Hunters and Guides Association shows that bow and arrow use in Zimbabwe is legal, but can only take place either on private hunting or communal hunting areas.
“A caliber of no less than seven millimeters in diameter with a muzzle energy of no less than 4,3 kilojoules is required for lion, giraffe and eland,” the association said.
Raking in millions of dollars, the safari business is a major contributor to tourism with officials from the tourism ministry anxious over the negative publicity which the country has earned so far over the trophy killing of Cecil.
Estimations suggest that US$65 million was earned last year from the safari industry, up from US$55 million in 2013.
As the international spotlight swung this week to the courthouse in Hwange, where the trial of Bronkhorst started yesterday, it has increasingly become likely that a can of worms could be opened during trial.
This could expose the intricacies of the country’s safari industry which is largely dominated by wealthy white trophy hunters.
Bronkhorst, first appeared before the court in Hwange on Tuesday last week, facing charges of conducting an illegal hunt of the lion, with the State’s case against him being that he did so without the requisite hunting licence.
The trial against Bronkhorst was supposed to kick off yesterday but was postponed until September 28 following an application from his lawyers. Bronkhorst has been charged with failing to prevent an illegal hunt and if convicted faces up to 15 years in prison or a maximum fine of US$20 000.
For Bronkhorst, among his many fears is that American trophy hunters could from now on shun wildlife-rich Zimbabwe following the concerted effort to extradite Palmer.
Cecil was collared as part of research being conducted by the Oxford University. Although his killing has attracted international condemnation, Bronkhorst and scores of professional hunters in Zimbabwe fear that anti-safari campaigners may have found — in the killing of Cecil — a perfect loophole to try and stop a legitimate trade.
“America is our biggest market and they will not come to Zimbabwe any longer after this,” he said.
“…In our industry we look at how big and old the trophy is; the bigger and older the trophy then the better.
“We don’t kill females, but the bulls which are old, that’s because we understand that it is important to breed the next generation,” a safari operator, Jacob Moyo explained.
The wildlife department at the Humane Society International has cautioned that trophy hunting is pushing African lions into extinction.
“More than 560 wild lions are killed every year in Africa by international trophy hunters…62 percent of trophies from these kills are imported into the United States,” Teresa Telecky, director at the organisation said.
The wheels of justice, in the meantime, seem to be moving fast with a crackdown launched at the weekend, resulting in the arrest of safari organiser, Headman Sibanda on allegations of breaching hunting regulations.
The allegations against Sibanda are that his client, an American called Jan Casmir Sieski was in Zimbabwe in April and also killed a lion.
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