NAPHA distances itself from rhino cow hunter

The penalty has to fit the crime!
 
Press Release

NAPHA’S REPLY TO THORMÄHLEN & COCHRAN SAFARIS (PTY) LTD

In the Namibian and the Republikein newspapers of of 11 November 2014 was published a lengthy response was published by Thormählen & Cochran Safaris (Pty) Ltd to NAPHA’s earlier press release and related newspaper articles concerning the shooting of a pregnant black rhino cow by a hunter client of Thormählen & Cochran Safaris (Pty) Ltd in the Mangetti National Park.


The response is interspersed with scandalous and vexatious allegations concerning NAPHA and its members, which constrains NAPHA to reply thereto by way of this further press release.


NAPHA is a voluntary association of which the fundamental purpose is to enhance and maintain, by effective management, an organisational infrastructure that can serve professional hunting members, clients and other interest groups. NAPHA’s intent is to ensure and promote ethical conduct, sustainable utilisation of natural resources, and to secure the industry for current and future generations.


As regards the resignation of Mr Thormählen as a member of NAPHA during 2011, the facts are that he resigned whilst a disciplinary investigation was pending against him and NAPHA thus no longer had disciplinary jurisdiction over Mr Thormählen. The initial complaint investigated in fact concerned the shooting of a collared lion called “Big Boy” by a client of Thormählen & Cochran Safaris (Pty) Ltd and during the investigation a further complaint was laid relating to the leopard hunt which is laboriously argued in the published response of Thormählen & Cochran Safaris (Pty) Ltd. Furthermore the Chairperson of NAPHA”s disciplinary committee was not replaced as alleged. His term of office came to an end after the resignation of Mr Thormählen.


The resort of Thormählen & Cochran Safaris (Pty) Ltd to the race card is simply scurrilous. Mr Thormählen, the majority shareholder in Thormählen & Cochran Safaris (Pty) Ltd, is a white South African citizen. The application for membership of the minority shareholder, Mr H Witbooi, was made by Thormählen & Cochran Safaris (Pty) Ltd and was turned down for the reason that the company’s majority shareholder resigned as member of NAPHA whilst under disciplinary investigation. Mr H Witbooi was duly informed of NAPHA’s decision and reasons in writing and was granted an opportunity to appeal against the decision at the annual general meeting of NAPHA.


Thormählen & Cochran Safaris (Pty) Ltd then at length laud its own social responsibility achievements. Likewise, the social responsibility achievements of the more than 450 individual members of NAPHA will fill many pages of newspaper articles. NAPHA is in fact currently presenting a Hunting Operator Course aimed at empowering Communal Conservancies to form their own trophy hunting operations.


NAPHA”s succinct initial press release of 23 October 2014 was prompted by the inexcusable shooting of a pregnant black rhino cow in the Mangetti National Park by a hunter client of Thormählen & Cochran Safaris (Pty) Ltd and not by the Big Game Professional Hunter guiding the hunt as would be the norm in the event of a life threatening emergency arising. This event was condemned in the strongest terms by the international trophy hunting community and has caused severe harm to Namibia’s status and reputation as a trophy hunting destination. It is to be noted that in the whole of the Mangetti National Park there were kept at the time a number of black rhino bulls and only the one cow that was shot.


In the published response of Thormählen & Cochran Safaris (Pty) Ltd it is contended that the company was exonerated on account of investigations and admissions made in the course of a civil court case it instituted against MET which culminated in a negotiated settlement. The terms of such settlement have not been disclosed as it apparently was a so-called confidential settlement, concluded between the company and MET. However, the papers filed with the Court in the particular court case do not show that MET and the Government attorney expressly admitted that the shooting occurred in a situation of sudden emergency. What the papers do show is that MET did not place the sudden emergency allegations in dispute as the issue of sudden emergency was not crucial to MET’s statutory defence raised against the principal relief that the company sought in the court case, namely a court order that the company on contractual grounds be allowed to further hunt a black rhino bull in the Mangetti National Park. Thormählen & Cochran Safaris (Pty) Ltd is invited to make the complete video footage taken of the shooting of the black rhino cow available to the executive committee of NAPHA for viewing.


In conclusion NAPHA is and will remain a truly Namibian Association, formed and driven by qualified Namibian Professional Hunters and Conservationists who embrace its objectives of ethical conduct in Trophy Hunting and sustainable utilization of natural resources. As a truly Namibian Association, NAPHA will speak out far and loud in order not only to protect the interest of its members but that of the country as a whole and it will not tolerate anyone to jeopardize those values.
 
The ad referred to above.


Thormählen- ad  to NAPHA.jpg
 
Now that we have a situation that should have never happen in the first place. SCI and DSC should be investigating the situation. The case should be brought by Namibia officials to SCI and DSC for disciplinary proceedings.

A couple things do not ring true here. If the Black Rhino was charging, did the PH shoot? If the answer is no, then i read this to be straight out poaching. On Dangerous game hunts the hunter is behind the PH and tracker or trackers most of the time until they set up to shoot, I have been even when we were tracking a wounded cape buffalo. Exceptions were when we had a group huddle to discuss what was on going.

NAPHA - Should be talking to SCI and DSC to have "Thormälen & Cochran Safaris Namibia" booted from the organizations and black listed.

I do believe that Thormälen & Cochran Safaris Namibia used a tracker or two to locate and track the Black Rhino, the tracker and PH should know the difference between a cow and bull rhino. If the trackers and PH are that poor in their job duties to put a client in danger that is failure of duty in by eyes. Both of these is a good reason for hunters to not book with them.

The client should have never been in danger if the trackers and PH were doing their job correctly.

All i know is that i have had Thormälen & Cochran Safaris Namibia company on my never book with list. And this further support what i have read in the past.


Hi James,
you got it somewhat wrong:
even one of us can tell the tracks of a bull and a female Black Rhino apart.....

The trackers got paid to shut up, and the Rhino cow was shot on purpose , because it had the longer horns!
Ask T&C Client :
Alexander Smuzikov!
This Client went with T&C for his Advertising to get the biggest trophies for his Clients!


I will Keep you posted!
 
Крис, учитывая Александров богатство он мог купить все, что Черный носорог он хотел.

Chris, Given Alexanders wealth he could buy whatever Black Rhino he wanted.
 
Крис, учитывая Александров богатство он мог купить все, что Черный носорог он хотел.

Chris, Given Alexanders wealth he could buy whatever Black Rhino he wanted.

Hey, and what about Money laundering and tax fraud in various countries?
Will they give him a Visa even to come in?

Or does Thormählen issues the visas?


And who signs his Permits for hunting animals in Namibia?

Who will track him, if everybody nows, there will be big Problems?
 
Along with some other story's that i have read from hunter(s) that hunted with them in the past 3 years in Namibia, i would have to strongly agree with you...
And, can I please have some Details?

You can also send These Details to a lawyer in Namibia or SA, so you are anonymous and do not have to fear any Problems!



New Info:


Namibia: Bizarre Death of a Rhino Protector
Date: 16 Dec 2014
By: Guest Blogger
Tag: Boxer, Daniel Alfeus //Hawaxab, Namibia, Peter Thormählen, rhinos, Save the Rhino Trust
Comment: 0
by John Grobler, courtesy of Conservation Action Trust
Is the mysterious death of a respected Save the Rhino Trust employee connected to rhino poaching in Namibia? Photo by Dr. Thomas Wagner via Wikimedia Commons
In Namibia, the sudden death of a Save the Rhino Trust (SRT) employee is raising questions.
The air over Sesfontein this time of year is usually a peculiar metallic hue, tinged by the talcum-fine dust whipped by the harsh desert wind blowing from the Skeleton Coast, 250 kilometres away to the west.
But today, the white heat seemed bleaker than ever, and another metallic taste stirred in the air: that of blood, redolent of greed and betrayal, of witchcraft and a strange death by anthrax. Boxer was dead.
As the oldest and most experienced tracker of the three-man Save the Rhino Trust’s (SRT) Damara-speaking team, Daniel Alfeus //Hawaxab – aka Boxer – was by all accounts an exemplary employee. At age 37, he had spent his entire adult life looking out for the world’s last free-roaming black rhinos of the Kunene region.
His knowledge of the rugged mountains and deep valleys, watered by secret fountains where the last free black rhinos live, played a major role in the recovery of their numbers after the 1980s slaughter during the South African occupation that left fewer than 20 animals alive. Their numbers now are officially kept secret to deter poachers – but the secrecy also serves to obscure the true state of affairs.
For 20 years, after the last reported case at Mbkondja in 1993, there had been no rhino poaching, as the SRT’s tactics of constantly patrolling the rhino ranges kept the poachers at bay. But on Christmas Day 2012, the first of 14 carcasses found so far started turning up in the field, at the Kommagorras fountain near Mbkondja.
Mbkondja – a Herero word meaning “struggle” – is a scattered communal farming settlement, roughly halfway between Palmwag and Khowarib, and is where the SRT keeps camels used for foot patrols into the mountains.
Boxer was on the scene quickly and identified a former soldier-turned-cattle herder named Tjihuure Tjiuamba as the most likely suspect.
He and two community game guards interrogated him – Boxer was a man known to talk with his hands when necessary, hence his nickname – and Tjiuamba soon pointed out where he had hidden the horns.
He also deposed a sworn affidavit a few weeks later to the police’s Protected Resources Unit, in which he implicated his employer, Efraim Mwanyangapo, as offering him R30,000 for rhino horn and supplying him with two .303 bullets for a rifle he then stole from a man named Jakotwa, he stated.
Jakotwa, a Himba farmer who also kept cattle at Mbkondja, independently confirmed this version. But he has moved away now – there were bad things at Mbkondja he did not want to discuss.
Tjiumba later withdrew his statement in court, claiming it was made under duress. Boxer’s actions, however, provided the legal ground for what has been the only successful prosecution so far, 24 black rhinos later.
So it was strange that no one in the SRT made any effort to get Boxer to the hospital in Opuwo as he lay dying in Sesfontein’s clinic, and that most of his colleagues, including all SRT’s management, did not attend his funeral in Sesfontein.
Boxer died alone, in agony. And that had everyone spooked.
Death certificate
The case closely matched the 1993 case, said Rudi Loutit, former chief game warden of Kunene whose wife, Blythe, founded the SRT: three locals arrested, but the state witness was threatened with death. In court, he claimed to have been assaulted (even though Loutit hid him away at Möwe Bay for four months at own expense), and the case collapsed immediately. The culprits walked free and returned to Mbkondja.
Fast forward 21 years: four days after their last patrol ended on Tuesday, September 30 2014, Boxer started complaining of stiff joints and painful glands when he returned to his small, mud-walled house in Sesfontein.
“He had a thing like a boil on the inside of his arm, a strange colour. He said he could not even lift a spade,” his aunt, Linda //Hawaxab, recalled later.
On that Saturday, the strange-looking blister started spreading rapidly on his upper inside left arm, spreading to the rest of his arm in discoloured lumps down to his wrist. The nurse at the local clinic treated him for a possible snake or spider bite, but by Sunday a huge blue-black sac had formed on his left chest.
Ice-packs and painkillers were administered, but by Monday night he started vomiting and having trouble breathing as the strange black infection spread across his abdomen, various friends and family related.
“I went to see him in the hospital on Monday. He was struggling to breathe, he could not really talk anymore. You could see that he was finished,” an SRT colleague, Ludwig “Mannetjies” Ganuseb, told me six days later.
Others said in his last moments of clarity, Boxer told them his mysterious illness was caused by those involved in the rhino poaching.
Early Tuesday morning, after four days of fighting for his life, the veteran tracker of 20-odd years and in the prime of his life finally lost the battle against the poison coursing through his body. His corpse had to be sent to the state hospital in Opuwo, 150km north, for a death certificate to be issued.
For some reason, the SRT, his employer of the past two decades, could not make any of their four vehicles available. The family instead had to take up a collection for petrol and borrow local councillor Hendrik Goamab’s battered 30-year-old pick-up to transport the body to Opuwo’s mortuary late that Tuesday. Boxer had no wife or children of his own, so his nephew accompanied the body for the four-hour drive.
By the time the overworked, new state doctor could attend to his case, Boxer had been dead for two days. No one examined the body, because in 35-degree heat with the body already in such bad state, there simply was no point in doing so, hospital staff said.
The death certificate, issued on 7 October 2014, simply noted the cause of death as “unknown.”
When Boxer’s symptoms were described to the matron of the Opuwo hospital, Lukas Ashivudhi, he immediately recalled seeing similar symptoms among villagers in a remote Kunene village who got infected with anthrax. Big black-green lumps under the skin spread through the limbs and then the rest of the body.
Pressed for more information, Ashuvudhi became nervous. Only the permanent secretary could disclose such information, he said, and put the phone down.
The deputy permanent secretary of the Ministry of Health and Social Services, Dr Norbert Foster, confirmed the remote village was Orupem-be, 208km north-west of Sesfontein, where villagers contracted anthrax after eating meat of an infected animal that died during the 1992 drought.
Boxer’s symptoms as described, he concurred, matched those of the Orupembe villagers.
Anthrax, so named after the Greek word for coal because of the lumpy, black discolouration that it causes in the limbs of the victim, is common in this area and is sometimes called “hide carriers’ disease,” said veterinarian Dr Conrad “Nad” Brain. As the former chief state veterinarian of the Etosha Game Park, which abuts Kunene to the east, he had handled “hundreds and hundreds” of anthrax cases among animals, as well as the odd human case, he said.
Anthrax
In humans, anthrax can manifest as a pulmonary infection from breathing in spores, a gastrointestinal eruption from eating infected meat and, most commonly, a cutaneous infection in the area of the body where it entered the body.
According to the United States Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, anthrax infection in humans presents as an ulcer-like boil, called an eschar, at the site of infection within two to five days of infection. If untreated, it leads to death within days by toxemia, caused by the massive release of two lethal exotoxins and a bacterial toxin via the host body’s lymphatic system. The fatality rate in untreated cases is 92%; even in observed cases, where medical treatment is administered, the mortality rate is 45%.
Brain said anthrax was easy to diagnose, provided you had a microscope and knew what to look for. “However, it very often gets misdiagnosed. I often can spot it long before medical doctors do, because they look for what the patient thinks the cause of the problem could be.” Once identified, it was easily treatable with a specific but commonly available antibiotic, he said.
Dark talk
Back in Sesfontein, there was trouble among the //Hawaxab and Ga-nuseb clans. Another //Hawaxab had died in the same week (of unrelated causes), and she was to be buried at the same time as Boxer. At the church service, accusations and counter-accusations started flying, and the police had to be called in to restore order.
No one would really say what the problem was: one said it was because someone from the Ganuseb clan bad-mouthed the dead woman, others said it had to with inheritance issues involving Boxer’s earthly goods. Fingers were being pointed, and tempers flared.
What struck the local community was that none of the senior SRT management, like CEO Simpson Uri-Khob or director of special operations Bernd Brell, attended the funeral in the dusty and decrepit Sesfontein graveyard.
People also noticed the absence of the Ganaseb brothers Hans and Mannetjies. Mannetjies was seen drinking all the next day at the local bar owned by Mwanyangapo, situated at the small business complex he co-owned with his Chinese partner, Paul Hoa.
Among the extended family – in this tiny, isolated community of some 3,000 people, everyone is related in one way or another – there was darker talk: Mannetjies and his brother Hans, who both live in Mbkondja where they keep their small stock, were questioned for 12 hours by the police’s protected resource unit last month in connection with the sudden outbreak of poaching in their back yard over the past two-and-a-half years.
The carcasses kept turning up in the wake of SRT patrols that somehow managed not to see them. Most were found by cattle herders – so why were the SRT patrols missing them?
A senior law enforcement official confirmed this: there was talk of one of the Ganasebs having bought a new car, which he clearly could not afford on his monthly R1,500 salary.
Both Ganasebs were moonlighting as hunting guides in their spare time for Peter Thormählen, a South African professional hunter blacklisted in South Africa for his involvement in pseudo-hunts of rhinos. The Namibian Professional Hunters Association had also expelled him, they said in an unusually strongly worded statement.
Mannetjies had made it clear that he intended becoming rich, and had gone to the Angolan witchdoctor Muanyamengi to get muti which he openly used, local sources claimed.
Belief in witchcraft was very strong. “You white people don’t believe us blacks about witchcraft because we are poor,” burst out Elifas Tjavindja, a community game ranger of somewhat spotty reputation.
Everyone knew that in the early 1990s, when the SRT and police caught some poachers here, all seven of those involved in the bust died over the next year, he said (it turned out to be not true). “There is very powerful medicine here, a very powerful Angolan witchdoctor. You must watch out!”
Muanyamengi, encountered at the Warmquelle shebeen (also owned by Mwanyangapo) on a Sunday night about a week before Boxer went on his last patrol, described himself as a doctoure tradicional (traditional doctor). He said he does lots of work for important, rich people and was in the Angolan commando forces during the war.
At the Ganaseb-//Hawaxab homestead, a motley collection of zinc lean-tos, mud huts and one small concrete house on the eastern outskirts of the settlement, there was no talk initially of witchcraft. When we arrived there the day after the funeral to pay respects and inquire about the cause of Boxer’s shockingly sudden death, Mannetjies jumped up and steered this reporter away from the rest of the people. “Let’s talk over there alone, not here among everyone. It will just upset everyone,” he insisted.
Boxer, he confided, was bitten on Saturday by something in his bedroll, here in his house in Sesfontein – maybe a snake or a spider, he repeated several times. Definitely something bit him, which caused that ulcerous sore to start developing.
But on the inside of his upper left arm? Someone who had spent half his adult life out in the veld, among mambas, puff adders, cobras and any variety of scorpions, and never been bitten before? How could he have missed seeing whatever it was that was in his bedroll that bit him?
Mannetjies’ eyes, blood-shot and blurred from an obvious hang-over, flickered and shifted as he flashed his trademark brilliant white smile. “Something bit him,” he said a little louder.
His eyes clouded over at a suggestion we would question the Sesfontein Clinic’s chief nurse about what kind of bug could be so deadly it would kill a strong, fit man in three days.
“You must come and tell us what they say at the hospital,” he urged, leaning closer. “Don’t forget to come and tell us. I will wait here for you.” It was an appointment I would not keep, and I have a feeling he wouldn’t either.
The chief nurse was cranky, upset at being woken just before noon on a Sunday, and wouldn’t supply a name. My guide had warned she was a former combat nurse with Plan (People’s Liberation Army of Namibia, ruling party Swapo’s former guerrilla army) and could be quite difficult.
She vaguely confirmed Boxer’s symptoms with grunts and cryptic answers: many poisonous things in the bush. Snakes and spiders.
Bush telegraph
Did Boxer say anything about being bewitched by the people he had helped put in jail? Had she seen anything like this before?
Angrily, she burst out: “Oh, you people. Just leave us alone. You only care about the rhino, not about people.” Excuse me? “I just want the maaaahny.”
“If I get a rhino, I will just sell it. I need a million. Then all my problems will be solved,” she said.
Even at the risk of jail? I was shooed away with an imperious wave.
A day later, at the SRT’s trackers’ camp at Palmwag, some trackers were preparing for patrol. “We’re going to get those poachers,” one vowed cheerfully.
But the mention of Boxer’s name brought a cold wariness – and no one could recall any other tracker dying in the same way Boxer did. And why would only one person out of that team get ill? Silence ensued, no one would meet my eyes. “I think a snake,” said Lesley Gariseb, kicking at the dust.
And no, the CEO and director of special operations were not there, as with four previous visits. Nor did any of them return calls or numerous text messages.
While the bush telegraph kept pinging in Mbkondja about the cause of and suspects in Boxer’s death, the SRT management appeared to have disappeared and the Ministry of Environment and Tourism stonewalled. Only the Permanent Secretary could answer questions, and no, he was not available.
A week later, the really bad news: a radio-collared black rhino was killed inside the Etosha Park, close to the fence with Kunene where the road leads up to Opuwo from the south. On November 19 three more black rhino carcasses were discovered in Etosha.
And where was Muanyamengi, the powerful Angolan witchdoctor? Word had it he had moved on to Orupembe, where an elephant was reported to have died of anthrax recently. After that, he was seen in Opuwo, drinking heavily.
Through a former director of the SRT, contact was quietly established with one SRT member still considered trustworthy. Why was it that dead rhinos were only being found in the area that Boxer’s team patrolled? I asked. Was his death connected to the poaching?
“Yes. But that secret got buried with Boxer,” came the answer after a long silence.
 
Hey, and what about Money laundering and tax fraud in various countries?
Will they give him a Visa even to come in?
Or does Thormählen issues the visas?
And who signs his Permits for hunting animals in Namibia?
Who will track him, if everybody nows, there will be big Problems?


I guess that will all depend on the "grease" and who's getting it.
 
And, by the way:


May be this anouncement gets a bit more Attention:

Verschickt: So, 14 Dez 2014 4:50 pm
Betreff: Safari Operators acting illegaly; Subject: Black Rhinos
Dear all,
I am planning an attack on a Safari Operator, who I hunted with this year in Zimbabwe , Namibia and South Africa.
I found Information, that this Operator might operate illegaly, not obeying the laws, even cut his way through with corrupting the necessary People, in order to get his own way for makink large amounts of money.
He might also be involved in money - laundering, doing his Business mostly in cash, with no declaration of the root of the funds...(Ukrain,Russia....).
I already have engaged a South African Law Firm, to act on my behalf in this matter.
I Need some help of course.
I want to set a reward of 100.000USD, even in parts, if witnesses are found who will provide enough evidence, facts , which will lead to a severe condemnation and a severe sentence of the Operator.
I will come up with all informatioin, guided by my lawyers in due time.
Is your Organisation ready to help me with this Project?
If yes, tell me please, how you can help.
Mit besten Grüssen,
Best regards,
Christian Winter
 
And, by the way:


May be this anouncement gets a bit more Attention:

Verschickt: So, 14 Dez 2014 4:50 pm
Betreff: Safari Operators acting illegaly; Subject: Black Rhinos
Dear all,
I am planning an attack on a Safari Operator, who I hunted with this year in Zimbabwe , Namibia and South Africa.
I found Information, that this Operator might operate illegaly, not obeying the laws, even cut his way through with corrupting the necessary People, in order to get his own way for makink large amounts of money.
........................
I want to set a reward of 100.000USD, even in parts, if witnesses are found who will provide enough evidence, facts , which will lead to a severe condemnation and a severe sentence of the Operator.
..............
Best regards,
Christian Winter

Ok, Christian that is getting pretty damned serious and you got my attention.

N$1,159,900.00

A million Namibian dollars might bring some folks out of the woodwork.

I hope it does.
 

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