Massacre of the innocents: How starving families slaughter Zimbabwe's wild animals just to put food in their mouths

The skin of a giraffe lies discarded like an old coat on the ground. Alongside it lie a few bones. Isaac, a game warden of some 30 years' experience, points at the remains of the once elegant animal. 'This is what we are up against,' he tells me. 'How can we protect the animals when people are so hungry?'

A country that is battling with starvation, cholera and 90 per cent unemployment now faces an extra challenge. Zimbabwe's starving millions are targeting wildlife in the country's famous game parks as a source of food and income.

There have always been poachers who have no qualms about killing elephants and rhinos for their tusks, mainly for the Chinese market, where they are bought for their supposed aphrodisiac and medicinal powers. But now the anti-poaching units who patrol hundreds of square miles of Zimbabwe's game parks are reporting that hungry locals are targeting the animals for their meat.