Ron
Thomson is a 66 year-old ex-game warden and retired national
parks board director. He has 46 years experience in southern
African wildlife management affairs including 28 years of
full-time service in various national park departments and 3
years working as a professional hunter. He now writes books
"to create a better informed public" - better
informed, that is, about the realities of wildlife  management.
One of his books has been prescribed reading for the Higher
Diploma in Nature Conservation for the last 15 years - an
academic course offered to serving wildlife field officers by
the Tshwane University of Technology. For more than 20 years he
was a Member of the British Institute of Biology and a Chartered
Biologist for the European Union.
He has vast experience in both
the theoretical AND the practical application of big game
management - especially elephant management.
Two of his past posts were: (1)
The Provincial Game Warden i/c. of what is now Zimbabwe's Hwange
National Park - one of Africa's biggest and most prestigious
game reserves; and (2) The Director of the Bophuthatswana
National Parks Board (in the 1980s).
He has followed the current
controversy about elephant culling in Kruger National Park since
its inception and he attended the Great Elephant Indaba at
Berg-en-Dal last year representing the South African Hunters
Association (of which he is NOT a member).  |
