Update On Mozambique

There are strong indications that another country in Africa - namely, Mozambique - may be about to open elephant hunting. The first word we received on this came in the form of an e-mail message near press time from Jamie Wilson of Kambako Safaris in the northern part of the country (Reachable in Madrid, Spain). "Elephant is open," Wilson wrote, only to go on to admit that the government has not yet issued his company any elephant licenses, nor even printed them apparently. We immediately called Piet Hougaard of Mozambique Safaris (reachable in Zimbabwe), who has hunted successfully in this country now for 13 years. He confirmed that the decision to open elephant hunting had been made, but the law authorizing it had not been officially published. Until that happens, no hunting can take place, he said. He gave us contact details for all of the relevant government officials, and we have faxed them, asking for a clarification. In the meantime, Hougaard said he was poised to go hunting and had a long list of European clients waiting for his call. He said the first clients in should be able to take elephants well into the 70-pound range. At press time, we had not been able to get details on the expected trophy size in the Niassa area where Kambako hunts, but preliminary word is much larger jumbos may be available there. US clients interested in either area should be aware that ivory is not importable into the US from Mozambique, and won't be until a great deal of paperwork has been completed. John Jackson of Conservation Force said he was prepared to process this paperwork but warned that full legalization of ivory from Mozambique was almost certainly going to be expensive and time-consuming.

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