The Daily Maverick is an Animal Extremist’s Mouthpiece

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The Daily Maverick purports to tell “THE TRUTH”, in all things, to the South African public.

Well, let me tell you that THAT statement is THE BIGGEST LIE the Daily Maverick has ever told.

To tell the truth in a newspaper means you either have to quote science; or you have to accept articles written by people who are REAL experts in their fields.

This does not mean to say that ‘people’ are NOT entitled to their own personal preference opinions and prejudices, or that they are NOT entitled to express those opinions and prejudices openly, anywhere and everywhere.

But it is not ‘correct’ for a newspaper’s editorial board to tell the world that their newspaper “TELLS THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH in its columns when that is not true.

I have written to the Daily Maverick several times complaining about this FACT and they have either ignored me completely, or they have offered me a placatory sop.

The time has come, therefore, to tell South Africa to “BEWARE THE DAILY MAVERICK” because, in terms of South Africa’s current red hot wildlife management ‘issues’, the DAILY MAVERICK is antagonistic towards our wildlife industry; it readily distributes animal extremist’s propaganda; and it ignores the ‘true facts’ when they are presented to them.

Ron Thomson. CEO TGA

Ron Thomson

I am NOT a ‘trophy hunter’ - and never have been. I am not involved in the trophy hunting safari business. I am also not a game rancher. But I have ‘administratively controlled’ professional hunters and safari outfitters in my capacity as a government game warden. I am an 80 year old ex-game warden with 60 years of continuous experience in hands-on wildlife management, and national park management, in Africa (1959 to 2019). In breakdown, I have 24 years experience in the management of national parks in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe - and in the management of the wild animal populations that lived inside those national parks; one year as the Chief Nature Conservation of the Ciskei in South Africa; three years as Director of the Bophuthatswana National Parks Board in South Africa; and I worked for three years as a professional hunter in the South African Great Karoo (taking foreign hunters on quests for plains game trophies). I discovered, however, that professional hunting was not my forte. I worked as an investigative wildlife journalist for 30 years in South Africa. I have written fifteen books and hundreds of magazine articles on the subject of wildlife management and big game hunting in Africa. Five of my books are university-level text books on wildlife management. I am a university-trained ecologist; was a member of the Institute of Biology (London) for 20 years; and was a registered chartered biologist for the European Union for 20 years. I have VAST experience in the “management hunting” of elephants, buffaloes, lions, leopards and hippos (as part of my official national park work in the control of problem animals); and I pioneered the capture of black rhino in Zimbabwe’s Zambezi Valley (1964 - 1970). My university thesis was entitled: “The Factors Affecting the Survival and Distribution of Black Rhinos in Rhodesia”. Look at my personal website if you want any further details about my experience: www.ronthomsonshuntingbooks.co.za.

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