INLSA
Rhino poaching is escalating in SA with six more killed rhino discovered in KZN on Saturday alone.
Six rhinos were found dead in KwaZulu-Natal game parks on Saturday, World Rhino Day.
The killings push the province into second spot on the national rhino-kill rankings for this year.
The bodies of four white rhino were found in the Hluhluwe Game Reserve, one at Ndumo and a black rhino in the Isimangaliso Wetland Park.
These deaths bring to 42 the number butchered in Ezemvelo’s 13 parks this year – a toll that officials say is the highest year-to-date number yet. Most of the deaths have been in Hluhluwe and iMfolozi, followed by the Ndumo Game Reserve in the north.
World rhino anti-poaching expert Ian Player, who said he was devastated and shocked at the news, called for a senior SAPS officer to investigate poaching in the province.
“It is now becoming more and more serious,” he said.
The head of the Rhino Anti-Poaching Unit at Ezemvelo, Jabulani Ngubane, confirmed the rhino deaths yesterday.
He said the unit was short of field rangers to do foot patrols, and a lack of funding remained the greatest challenge for the conservation body, together with “high-profile” syndicates.
“We have reintroduced air patrols. They are helping.”
As the investigation into the killings gets under way, The Mercury has established that three of the four rhinos shot in Hluhluwe were found close to the reserve’s corridor road and were believed to have been killed during a recent thunder storm.
According to the source, who is not allowed to speak to the press, the rhinos seemed to have been shot with the same weapon.
In figures released by the national Department of Environmental Affairs on Friday, KwaZulu-Natal was third-highest in the number of poaching-related rhino deaths in the country at 36, following North West at 40. This weekend’s discovery, however, now puts the province firmly in second place behind Limpopo’s 43.
“That,” said Player, “calls for a high-profile investigation, but whether that will ever be done is another matter.”
KZN also lags way behind in the number of poacher arrests this year. In Mpumalanga, 56 have been arrested, 49 in the Kruger National Park, 34 in Limpopo and 10 locally. The statement did not say if there had been convictions.
Environment Department spokesman Albi Modise said 17 of the arrests were couriers and buyers.
Ngubane believes the only solution is to legalise the sale of rhino horn. But Modise said yesterday the government would not budge on the matter.
“[The] national government has never called for [the legalisation of the rhino horn trade]. Stricter controls, that’s our way forward,” he said.
Ezemvelo CEO Bandile Mkhize called an emergency meeting this morning to discuss the issue.
