Fears that pregnant animals among victims of driven hunt
ON THE FRONT LINE: A TV crew films a human chain of 83 people — reportedly paid R200 each for the day — spanning a 1km range, walking into the bush to chase wildlife into the sights of the hunters waiting on hunting platforms HIGH AND MIGHTY: A hunter on a platform next to a fence awaits a driven hunt near Alldays in Limpopo AS the controversial Alldays driven hunt felled dozens of animals this week, conservationists and hunters fear that pregnant females will be among the dead.
With protesters converging on the Limpopo farm, a burly man with teary eyes seemed out of place.
“After I saw what was happening here, I cried,” said Peter Exley, former owner of one of the three farms where the hunt was taking place.
The Exley family converted the cattle farm into a game farm about 20 years ago, importing gemsbok and eland.
“We’re hunters ourselves, but we don’t hunt like this. This is unethical and that’s why nobody else is doing this,” said Exley.
Exley said hunting season generally fell between May and July, in part to prevent killing pregnant females.
“Some hunters will be killing animals that are seven or eight months pregnant,” he said.
Isabel Wentzel, an inspector with the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, confirmed there was a real possibility there were pregnant animals among those being driven towards the hunters.
“September is already getting critical . . . when they shoot, they can’t pick,” she said.
Nearly 600 wooden platforms have been erected across three game farms, with as many as 100 “drivers” chasing the animals towards the platforms where 13 Belgian and Dutch hunters wait to shoot the fleeing animals.
KILLING SPREE: A group of hunters enter Ammondale Lodge to take part in a driven hunt
Some have likened it to canned hunting, as the animals have nowhere to run but into the line of fire. It has made conservationists and traditional hunters unlikely bedfellows in their protest.
The Limpopo department of economic development, environment and tourism said the hunt was legal. Spokesman Simon Matume said: “I’ve visited the farm and everything there is being done legally. I also spoke to some of the staff and they tell me that without this hunting they would not be able to survive. The animals get given to the local people for meat.”
The NSPCA obtained a court order to monitor the hunts, but had to return to court on Wednesday for a new order to allow a videographer to help document it. By the time they returned, the hunters had moved on to a different farm, one that the animal welfare organisation did not have permission to enter.
Conservationist Natasha Brown feels helpless. She is part of a wildlife investigative unit that has determined that European hunters paid up to à11 000 (about R168 000) to take part in the week-long hunt.
The farms belong to a community co-operative that received the land as part of the government’s land redistribution programme.
The hunt has been organised by Dutchman Anton de Vries, who runs a fruit exporting firm from the Cape.
Driven hunts are common in Europe. Holland outlawed the practice in 2002.
After I saw what was happening here, I cried
SPOILS: The results of a driven hunt near Alldays