Conservation icon defends rhino baron

THE former head of Africa’s most successful rhino conservation agency has sprung to the defence of KwaZulu-Natal rhino baron John Hume.

Dr George Hughes is a zoologist and former game ranger‚ who rose to become chief executive of the renowned Natal Parks Board.

He lauded Hume’s efforts to multiply the species at a time when more than 1 000 rhinos were being butchered each year by criminal poaching syndicates.

“John is one of the most successful rhino farmers the country has seen and should be lauded for creating a population of real significance,” Hughes said.

“He has been doing what the formal conservation agencies have been promoting for decades.”

He said Hume should be praised rather than pilloried for his attempts to breed rhinos and sell the horns legally without killing them.

All the world’s surviving African white rhinos are descended from a tiny remnant population of about 50 in the iMfolozi Game Reserve.

This was guarded and slowly multiplied by the Natal Parks Board by moving them to public and private reserves across the continent.

Hughes has advocated the resumption of controlled horn trading for several decades.

He presided over several game auctions, where the Natal Parks Board (now Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife) encouraged private ranchers like Hume to buy rhinos in an attempt to multiply their numbers as an insurance policy against illegal poaching.

Hume is the largest private rhino owner in the world‚ with a herd of 1 500 in the North West province.

He has been making global headlines after announcing plans to sell an initial 500kg of his six-ton horn stockpile in an online auction.

Several conservation and animal welfare groups have sought to cast him as a profit-seeking opportunist who is sabotaging campaigns to safeguard rhinos.