Some hope for wildlife ranchers

The easing of restrictions on some economic activities during the national lockdown to contain the COVID-19 pandemic has brought some ‘cautious hope’ for South Africa’s multibillion-rand wildlife ranching value chain. Lloyd Phillips reports.

During Level 5 of the national lockdown to contain the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), many of the wildlife ranching industry’s activities were prohibited, unless absolutely vital.

These included game capture and translocation; the hunting and culling of trophy and excess game numbers; and the slaughtering, processing, and distribution of game meat to markets. In addition, game auctions were strictly controlled and limited, with lockdown regulations encouraging online auctions instead of live, open-cry auctions.

Since Level 4 of the lockdown was implemented on 1 May, Wildlife Ranching South Africa (WRSA), which has over 1 500 members, had reportedly pressured government authorities to urgently publish clarifying directives on which activities would be allowed by the wildlife ranching value chain. These directives were finally published in the Government Gazette on 14 May.

permitted activities

At the time of going to print, a range of additional activities had been permitted, while others remained prohibited, according to the directives that were signed by the Minster of Environmental Affairs, Forestry and Fisheries, Barbara Creecy.

All permitted activities will, however, have to adhere to government’s COVID-19 risk management requirements, and include culling of excess game numbers by teams not exceeding 12 staff members; the transporting of game carcasses to off-farm meat processing and marketing facilities; capturing, trading and translocating of game species; live game auctions with the total number of people attending not exceeding 50; the management of damage-causing wild animals; and the taxidermy and exporting of hunting trophies from animals that were hunted before the lockdown commenced at midnight on 26 March.

Activities prohibited during Level 4 included sport or recreational hunting; the importing and exporting of live or dead game animals; and ecotourism on wildlife ranches.

Johann Vosser, managing director of auctioneering company Vleissentraal’s Bosveld Region business, said after the implementation of Level 4 regulations, the company had resumed live, or boma, game auctions.

“The size of the boma auction venue dictates how many people are permitted to be present. A big problem is that although there are game animals to sell, interest by buyers is generally poor because hunting is still banned. Any who do buy animals are mostly those who are taking the risk of stocking up on hunting animals in the hopes that hunting will be allowed again soon, or they are ecotourism ranchers that need to replenish animals that have been [hunted] by predators,” Vosser said.

He added that the prices of a number of game species on auctions held during the lockdown period had “come down a bit”.

Statistics on Vleissentraal’s website showed that some of the average prices achieved at the Groblersdal Game Auction during May were R8 035 for an eland cow (May 2019: R8 345); R8 750 for a kudu bull (2019: R18 500); R4 200 for a kudu cow (2019: R5 500); R3 625 for a blue wildebeest bull (2019: R3 800); and R2 431 for a blue wildebeest cow (2019: R3 114).

Grant Tracy, owner of Tracy and Du Plessis Game Capture in KwaZulu-Natal, said his operation had to close down completely during the Level 5 lockdown period, and during Level 4 it had started “limping along” on the sporadic business that the business was able to find.

Ecotourism prohibited

“Many of our clients say they need animals, but with hunting and ecotourism still prohibited, they’re not in a position to take any now. I had to send my staff home without pay during Level 5, and they had to access government’s UIF benefits during that time. They’re back working now, but we need more business so that I can keep paying them,” he said.

Tracy added that with the game capture and hunting season ending on either 1 September or 1 October every year depending on each province’s laws, if lockdown regulations were not eased considerably anytime soon, operations catering to game capture and hunting would be without any significant income for more than a year.

Data cited by WRSA indicated that domestic, or so-called biltong hunting, generated approximately R11,6 billion for the South African economy annually, while hunting by foreign visitors generated around R2,1 billion annually.

Auction prices have been slightly down