Porritt denies responsibility for mass poisoning of endangered vultures

DURBAN: KwaZulu-Natal businessman Gary Porritt has denied that he or his farmworkers are responsible for the mass poisoning of endangered vultures.

Porritt said he was “devastated” by the deaths and said the birds might have been poisoned for muti purposes.

At least 55 vultures have now been confirmed dead, after 48 birds were found poisoned on the farm in the Swartberg district of East Griqualand.

Musa Mntambo, Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife spokesman, said the carcasses of seven more Cape vultures were later discov- ered on a neighbouring farm by a farmer who reported the matter to conservation groups.

“We suspect they ate the same (lamb) carcass the other birds ate and may have died from the same thing,” he said.

The carcasses of the birds are being tested to determine the cause of death.

It is believed the vultures died after eating a lamb carcass which had been poisoned by a farmer who was trying to kill jackals hunting the lambs.

Two vultures were found alive and were treated at the site before being taken to the Raptor Rescue Bird of Prey hospital. Police and Ezemvelo are investigating.

Porritt did not return calls by the Cape Times’s sister newspaper the Daily News seeking comment, but in a statement yesterday he denied liability for the deaths.

“The Porritt family, who have fed and nurtured the colony of vultures on their lands over the past 33 years, are devastated by the mass death by poisoning of these birds,” he said.

“The Porritts, like most long-time farmers, are active conservationists. When they arrived to start farming in this part of the country where the principal farming activity was cattle and sheep, very little wild animal life was to be seen.

It is believed the vultures died after eating a lamb carcass poisoned by a farmer trying to kill jackals

“Since Gary Porritt introduced large-scale maize farming to the area, rare and not so rare species of birds and ani- mals have proliferated on the food provided by the extensive crops – from the green shoots of the newly planted maize to the dried gleanings at harvest time.

“The plentiful supply of nutrition has meant a longer breeding season for some of the animals, resulting in increased numbers.”

Porritt said his family had also taken action against illegal “taxi hunts” killing rare oribi in KwaZulu-Natal, and had apprehended some members of one such hunt comprising about 15 men and 50 dogs.

“Unfortunately, the police allowed the hunters to leave without making arrests, but the Porritts sought the assis- tance of a private security firm to take the men into custody, and charges have been laid.

“The mutilated condition in which some of the vultures were found could indicate they were killed for use in the preparation of ‘muti’. Over 400 vultures are killed with poison annually in KwaZulu-Natal for this lucrative trade.”

He said his family considered themselves “lifetime trustees” of the land and farmed with a conservation ethic in mind. “This has resulted in the proliferation of wildlife not just on these lands but in the whole Swartberg area, where former cattle and sheep farmers followed Gary Porritt’s lead and took up largescale maize farming. The mass deaths of the vultures are therefore of enormous concern for the family, who are determined that such an event cannot and will not be repeated.”

Porritt took his neighbouring farmers to court recently for apparently refusing to allow him permission to drive almost 2 000 cattle through their land.

The former chief executive of financial services company Tigon was arrested in 2002 for allegedly being involved in fraud relating to almost R160 million from pensioners and other unit trust investors. The case is unresolved.

Police spokesman Colonel Vincent Mdunge said yesterday that a case of poisoning was being investigated, and other charges, including killing endangered species or malicious damage to property, were being added.

Initial tests on the vultures showed they died after ingesting carbofuran, a pesticide used to destroy worms in crops.

Gerhard Verdoorn, of the Griffon Poison Information Centre, said the poisoning was among the worst he had seen in his 30 years of conservation.

He said it was illegal to use any agricultural chemical to kill an animal. Verdoorn said the vultures were protected under the Wildlife Act.