Mozambique police detain five poachers in Manica game reserve

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mozambique police detain five poachers in Manica game reserve

1:13 CAT | 18 Jan 2018

EPA (File photo) / For illustration purposes only

Five poachers have been detained by police in a sports hunting game reserve in Manica, central Mozambique. Police also seized 14 poaching traps, both mechanical and home-made, Lusa reports.

The poachers had set up a camp inside Coutada Nove, a conservation area between Macossa (Manica province) and Gorongosa (Sofala), slaughtering animals and transporting their meat and trophies away by car, Manica police spokeswoman Elcidia Filipe explained.

Two of the detainees were caught red-handed by police transporting antelope and wild boar slaughtered in the reserve in a vehicle. A third man was arrested selling meat to buyers at Macossa village headquarters, and the remaining two setting traps inside the reserve.

Filipe said that the arrests were the culmination of a joint operation by police and rangers in the conservation area, which had also deactivated homemade and mechanical traps in the area of the game reserve where the group was operating.

The conservation area was repopulated by Rio Save Safaris, investing three million dollars (EUR 2.4 million) in safaris and sports hunting under a 15-year operating contract.

In 2014, Rio Save Safaris introduced lion to Coutada Nove to try to stop poaching.

Illegal hunting in Coutada Nove sources animal parts and hunting trophies for international markets, as well as for traditional medicine, which pays well for the blood, fat, skin, and claws of powerful animals.

Source: Lusa