Call to end shock SA wildlife trade
Thousands of animals legally exported only to meet cruel fate in countries like China
Pressure is mounting on the SA government to end the wholesale international export of thousands of wild animals especially to — China where anti-cruelty activists say they disappear into food markets, muti shops, laboratories, circuses and amusement parks.
The SA activists, spearheaded by Ban Animal Trading (BAT), EMS Foundation, Blood Lions and the Human Society International Africa, have mounted a sophisticated, research-campaign.
On Thursday they called on environment, forestry and fisheries minister Barbara Creecy to act on her promise to take action against what they called a massive legal “” public fraud driven by naked greed which “” was resulting in the extinction of species.
Speaking on a public Zoom platform, BAT director Smaragda Louw, Blood Lions campaign manager Louise de Waal and EMS Foundation director Michele Pickover said their letter and meeting with Creecy on May 18 had resulted in silence.
Louw admitted there had been some elbow wrestling with organisations declining to offer further information to Creecy until she agreed to an independent investigation.
“Government can ’ t investigate itself,” they said on Thursday.
Louw said the minister was also told demands around the export of lions had been extended to include all SA wildlife caught up in the trade.
They criticised government for rubberstamping trade permits without any regulated stipulations on the animals future welfare ’ or checking on where they actually went.
Government had lost control of the trade and it was a free-for-all ”.
“The activists were addressing BAT s investigative ’ report in their Breaking Point series in May titled Uncovering SA s Shameful Live “’ Wildlife Trade with China ”.
The investigation saw Louw attempting to follow the trail of legal wildlife permits to over 40 Chinese destinations. She uncovered fake addresses, animal traders posing as zoos, and signs of widespread sale of animals from SA for slaughter for Chinese muti or to be eaten.
She listed at least 5,035 animals traded between 2016-2019 by 14 SA breeders, brokers, parks, which often presented themselves as sanctuaries, complete with SA permits, into a world of secrecy, deception and cruelty.
She said the system of regulation, and checking what was in the crates and boxes, was so poor or non-existent they estimated as many as 20,000 wild animals — many bred in captivity but a number suspected to be taken from the wild — had met a terrible fate in China.
The three speakers emphasised the report finding that all responsibility for the welfare of the animals ended for the sellers the moment their papers were signed and stamped in SA, and that adherence to the international Cites treaty for animals threatened with extinction (Cites Annexure 1) and endangered (Annexure 2) was farcical.
On the permits Louw found 182 lions, 20 cheetahs, 159 caracals, 92 serval cats, 45 tigers, 14 black leopards, 12 puma plus thousands of birds, and hundreds of giraffes, meerkats and parrots.
Louw said many petting sanctuaries were part of the legal export trade and visitors had no idea of the terrible fate awaiting the animals.
She scoffed at claims they were sent to zoos for educational purposes, saying all she found was shameful commercial holding facilities posing as zoos with no educational programmes. The animals she saw looked depressed and many were young.
The report s key findings were that illegal ’ “shipments of wild animals classified by Cites as threatened with extinction (appendix I) ‘ ’ and endangered (appendix II) masquerade ‘ ’ as legal exports. Brokering and wholesale companies, along with zoos, are heavily implicated in the trafficking of wild-caught extinction-listed species.
“The permit system is the backbone of the legal trade in wild animals. In general, the export of live wild animals from SA to China is characterised by permit irregularities and lack of proper oversight. These irregularities are not benign administrative omissions, but rather permanent features of the regulatory system. ”
The report research shows that the wildlife trade between SA and China is characterised by:
● Illegal shipments masquerading as legal exports of wildlife species classified as threatened by extinction or endangered;
● Brokering and wholesale companies and zoos implicated in the trafficking of wildcaught species facing extinction;
● The sale of Cites-listed species to theme parks, circuses, laboratories, zoos and safari “parks ”;
● Untraceable destinations of importers; and
● Enforcement negligence, particularly in relation to likely false declarations by traders, agents and exporters.