When game parks become killing fields
Many of the animals tourists come to see are later hunted
PRIVATE game reserves with open fences to Kruger Park have applied for permission to shoot 34 elephants, among them a trophy bull, as well as 5 444 other animals including rhinos, lions, leopards and buffaloes. The Associated Private Nature Reserves (APNR), consisting of Timbavati, Klaserie, Balule and Umbabat, contain many privately-owned luxury lodges that cater for tourists who pay high rates to experience some of the most exciting wild animal sightings in the world.
What’s not well known, especially by guests attracted by marketing websites, is that a reserve like Timbavati is, in terms of its income, primarily a hunting destination, this accounting for 61% of the reserve’s income against tourism’s 17%.
Hunting is perfectly legal: The reserve applies to Mpumalanga or Limpopo’s conservation agencies and, after Kruger Park oversight, its allocation generally gets approved with just a few amendments.
Tourism and hunting are not good bedfellows however, so over the years the reserves have managed to keep them apart, with almost zero public visual crossover. Tourists, who pay top prices to stay at Timbavati’s lodges plus a R215-a-persona-day conservation fee (which nets many millions of rands), would not know that many of the animals they come to see and photograph fall to hunters’ guns when they’re out of sight.
For those unaware of this arrangement, the latest hunting quota application by these reserves might come as a shock.
It includes 193 buffalo (including 76 classic bulls), 34 elephants (including a super tusker), two white rhinos, two lions, two leopards (despite a national moratorium on hunting leopards), 29 kudu, 5 162 impala, 25 waterbuck, 10 hippos and a hyena, giraffe, zebra and wildebeest. It also requests the capture of 30 white rhino and eight hippos. As in the past, many of the carcasses will probably go to Timbavati’s abattoir, which presently sells impala and buffalo meat.
Game counts for the APNR show that, apart from blue wildebeest, zebra and giraffe, all other animal numbers have come down during 2016 and 2017 – elephants by 142 and buffalo by 1 797. Other than deferring the rhino quota and a warning that there is a moratorium on leopard hunting, however, Kruger signed off on the quota, but appears to have become uneasy with the association’s non-compliance with hunting protocols.
In correspondence with the APNR in January and again in March, Kruger conservation management complained that the association’s hunting protocol had not been signed and warned that no further requests would be considered until this was done. Its officials sounded irritated: “The fact that hunting and live-animal off-take is the major income for APNR should have ensured the highest due diligence to get any protocols concluded and formally signed within and between entity structure, but this is still not the case. This simply demonstrates ineffective governance and decision-making between entities within the APNR system.
“KNP… will not support future off-takes unless the necessary co-operative agreements and the associated hunting/animal off-take protocols have been formalised.”
If quotas are an indication, Timbavati – which is congruent with Kruger – is the prime hunting area. And while shooting animals to raise money is accepted by APNR owners in general – they have high anti-poaching overheads – its scale now sits uncomfortably with a number of them who see hunting a trophy bull elephant and rhino as a bridge too far. This may explain why some of them have not signed the hunting protocol called for by Kruger. The issue, according to conservationists, is not so much about hunting Kruger animals that may wander across the fenceless boundary – or hunting at all – but going for a super tusker.
Elephant numbers in Africa are crashing, with around 30 000 poached a year. It’s only a matter of time before the tsunami hits the Kruger Park. It may have begun. Since September 2015, more than 80 have been poached in the park – the highest in it’s history.
Dr Lucy Bates, an elephant researcher at Sussex University, said poaching numbers in Kruger may be low now, but a serious threat was imminent. “South Africa cannot act in isolation, claiming that its elephant populations are not at risk,” she said. “They are at risk. Kruger is one of the last bastions of large-tusked bull elephants in the whole of Africa. South Africa should be duty bound to protect and preserve these super tuskers and their genes.”
Dr Vicki Fishlock, a scientist at Amboseli Trust for Elephants, a research and conservation organisation in Kenya, said that “old and experienced individuals are crucial. They are so much more than a breeder. By the time these animals reach this size, they have been part of social networks for five or six decades and have accumulated social and ecological experience that younger animals learn from.”
– Conservation Action Trust: Author Don Pinnock
KRUGER IS ONE OF THE LAST BASTIONS OF LARGE-TUSKED BULL ELEPHANTS IN AFRICA. SA SHOULD BE DUTY BOUND TO PRESERVE THEM TOURISM AND HUNTING ARE NOT GOOD BEDFELLOWS, SO OVER THE YEARS THE RESERVES HAVE MANAGED TO KEEP THEM APART