"Rumors and speculation are rife amongst the Lowveld community on what transpired with the death of Carl Bradfield as a result of an elephant hunt that went terribly wrong on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 in the Sengwe 2 hunting area. The purpose of this e-mail is to put this incident into its proper perspective, and we ask that anything contrary to this brief be put straight.
"Carl Bradfield was conducting an elephant hunt with an American client and was `spooring' two elephant when they came across one of the elephants in thick scrub. The distance between the hunting party and the elephant was approximately 20 meters.
"Whilst Bradfield was `glassing' the elephant to assess its suitability as a trophy, the wind changed direction, the elephant caught their scent and immediately started to charge the hunting party, upon which Carl Bradfield instructed his party to run. No shots were fired, nor were any shouts heard from Carl Bradfield by any member of the party.
"Upon regrouping, the hunting party started searching the area for Bradfield, as he was not responding to their calls. They finally located him and established that the elephant had caught and killed him, and had then left the area. Bradfield had been `tusked' once from the groin through to the chest cavity and stomped on.
"This incident occurred at 7:30 am. The next day, on Thursday March 31, 2005, at approximately mid-day, the National Parks Game Scout that had accompanied the hunting party, along with the National Parks Warden from Mabala- huta (according to National Parks Staff at Mabalahuta Headquarters), managed to track down the elephant responsible and destroyed it.
"Speculation is rife as to........(continued)
