Radical plan to pull 500 rhinos out of Kruger

THE Kruger National Park plans to evacuate 500 rhinos to secret locations in a last-ditch bid to save one of Africa’s Big Five from poachers’ bullets — suggesting that the park is losing the war against poachers.

But the “rescue plan” risks coming unstuck because of infighting in South African National Parks, according to four sources.

Of the 500 animals earmarked to be moved out of the Kruger, 250 have been sold to private buyers for about R60-million. The rest were slated to be moved to a safe location controlled by SANParks.

The plan has been suspended — because of infighting in the conservation community, the departure of SANParks CEO David Mabunda and the suspension of Dr Hector Magoma, head of conservation services, according to insiders.

Mabunda’s contract was not renewed. He was relieved of his duties five days before it expired.

His departure from SANParks, after 15 years, was followed by a slew of suspensions and cancelled contracts of senior managers and service providers amid hints that the organisation was “cleaning up” despite it being the only parastatal that has received clean audits annually.

A major private sector benefactor of SANParks said “it appears as though all Mabunda’s initiatives are stopped”.

A senior official of SANParks said the board suspected Magoma of “benefiting” in the sale and relocation of the rhinos.

Neither Mabunda nor Magoma were prepared to comment.

Dr Gert Dry, a SANParks board member, said Mabunda and Magoma had taken up their cases with the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration.

Dry said it was “a rumour” that Magoma was accused of benefiting from selling the Kruger rhinos.

Minister of Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa has been drawn into the fray. On June 24, a group of senior Kruger officials are said to have met Molewa, “imploring her to ensure the movement of rhinos out of the Kruger”.

“She asked the board why the relocation of rhinos isn’t happening, asking them to go ahead,” said a SANParks employee.

But Dry said Molewa “didn’t instruct the board to relocate and sell rhinos . . . All discussions with the minister are of a confidential nature,

but I can confirm that she did not instruct the board to move rhinos from Kruger.”

Dry confirmed the rescue plan, saying a “strategic decision . . . was taken late last year that the business plan, budget and sanctuary details for strategic rhino management will be considered . . . This process is under way.”

Since March — when the park’s first rhinos were to be transported to safer destinations — a further 209 rhinos have been killed in the park, bringing the total for this year to 370.

Nationally, 581 rhinos have been killed this year.

Under Mabunda, it was proposed to sell 250 rhinos. A tender process identified two individuals and a deal was reached for the sale of the Kruger rhinos. The deposit paid on the R60-million sales price was to be used to move a further 250 to 300 rhinos out of the park.

“We need to protect the rhinos better . . . The obvious thing is to remove the rhinos from the threat,” said a SANParks employee. The Sunday Times can report that:

There are only between 7 000 and 7 500 rhinos left in the park — not 10 800 as SANParks has stated;

Some sectional rangers in the Kruger are “under-reporting” rhino carcasses and buckling under the relentless poaching mainly from Mozambique;

Despite increased numbers of defence force personnel involved and R255-million from the Howard Buffet Foundation earmarked for anti-poaching efforts, the Kruger is unable to protect the rhinos and prematurely cancelled a contract with Pathfinder, a company providing intelligence on poachers and syndicates involved;

Forty-seven Mozambican poachers were killed in the Kruger last year and about 200 people have been arrested in connection with poaching; and

Up to 103 tracks, all believed to belong to armed rhino poachers, are found on a monthly basis in the Kruger, crossing from Mozambique.

The World Wildlife Fund estimates that the “rhino tipping point” (more rhinos killed than born) will be reached by 2015 or 2016.

“I can tell you categorically at this rate there will not be rhinos left in the Kruger in two years’ time,” said a contractor who has worked at the park for six years.

“There are only 400 SANParks rangers patrolling an area as big as Israel . . . there appears to be little political will to protect the rhinos,” he said.

“The plan to move rhinos out of the Kruger is a brilliant plan. It’s radical, but if we want to have rhinos left by 2016, they have to move them out of Kruger.”

Pathfinder’s three-year contract with SANParks to provide intelligence to the Kruger was terminated after 19 months without reason. A SANParks official said Pathfinder was sacked “because they were appointed during the Mabunda years”.

Twenty tons of stockpiled rhino horn, worth about R10-billion, is at the heart of the crisis.

A senior SANParks official said there were strong signals that the board and department wanted to sell the hoard. Such an act would put South Africa in defiance of a Cites ban on such sales.