Botswana rhino poaching worsens as

those who targeted South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia over the past 12 years,” a distressed RCB noted.

Enter the poaching politics. Botswana stopped releasing poaching statistics in October 2019, in a move that left conservationists guessing the death toll and extent of the crisis.

Withholding statistics is typical of troubled governments—just like the Zimbabwean government at one time banned the publicisation of data relating to inflation when it felt that it might cause political disruptions.

Experts involved in the fight against rhino poaching told Information for Development Trust (IDT)* that the problem was now at its worst amid concerns that the Botswana government was not doing enough to stem the crisis.

“Rhino poaching has never been so intense and indiscriminate. Even de-horned rhinos are being shot to remove the (remaining) stumps. The poachers are running rings around the BDF, hitting rhinos in the same place over and over again but still able to escape all the time.

“I think we have lost 25 rhinos to poachers since January, and it’s bound to get worse with so many different Zambian poaching gangs living in the Okavango Delta these days. They camp far apart but coordinate their activities in such a way that when one gang is disrupted, there will be others left behind to continue the poaching mission,” said a trusted source, who cannot be named for security reasons.

The surveillance collars that the Okavango Delta rhinos were fitted in 2015 had a three-year battery life and have not been replaced, the source added.

“In the beginning, the collars worked very well, but even then, not all the rhinos were fitted with collars. The batteries powering the collars expired in 2017-2018 and were never replaced. Whoever is shooting rhinos has (inside information),” said the source.

The heavy rains that fell across Southern Africa from November 2020 to March 2021 reportedly provided cover for many poaching syndicates that take advantage of full-moon nights to invade

Okavango with inflated mattresses that they use to navigate the clogged waterways.

“At the height of the rainy season, there was an average of seven different Zambian poaching gangs operating in the Delta every night. We have recovered at least 25 carcasses this year and the death toll will rise because the Zambians are still here, poaching on a daily basis,” added the source.

In a study entitled “Poaching as a security threat for Botswana

and the region” published by the US Naval Post Graduate School in September 2018, researcher Kopano Baruti attributed Botswana’s high vulnerability to poaching to weak law enforcement, long and porous borders and the existence of ungoverned spaces in its own territory and neighbouring countries.

“Poaching is prevalent in South Africa, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Botswana’s vast porous borders with these states constitute ungoverned spaces in which illicit activities like poaching for rhino horns take place without hindrance,” observed Baruti.

Zambian poachers have had the leisure to shoot selfies of themselves, posing with dead rhinos even before they de-horned the tuskers.

A series of selfies recovered from a suspected Zambian poacher who dropped a mobile phone as he escaped an army ambush showed some of the poachers aiming hunting rifles and others plunging knives into rhino carcasses. They also took photographs of the camps around which they operated.