Rhino poaching vs the hunting industry – Rian Cloete

Rhino poaching is one of the most horrifying realities of recent times. Every time I watch, listen or read the news I am disgusted with what is reported.
My disgust is at the organised and brutal way that these poaching gangs operate. It is with an equal organised brutality to that of drug gangs. I am also convinced that it is not the random decision of a poor Mozambican to cross the border into Kruger for a quick buck, especially if you see the equipment that they have to ensure success. No, it is most definitely the work of high level organised crime bosses. These bosses, I will bet all I have, includes current known drug bosses and politicians or other officials but in true African fashion these are not the people that authorities are after. Rather shoot the foot soldiers! This is laughable as there are millions of poor Mozambicans, Zimbabweans, Malawians, Nigerians and every other African country you can mention including South Africans that can replace the killed foot soldiers. Are we going to kill all of them too?!
Have you heard of any high level person that has been suspended or their assets forfeited because of involvement in rhino poaching? No, and you won’t. Like every other scheme that politicians and officials are involved in there is no accountability.
How many times have you heard a public figure, let’s say for instance the president of the country, condemning the use of rhino horn? Never? Well that will not change. It will un-line the pockets lined with Asian money for poaching in our waters, poaching our rhinos and every other resource that can be thieved out of Africa.
The worst crime however is that of the hunting industry! The biggest private custodians of wildlife in the country are keeping a silence reminiscent of Thabo Mbeki’s “silent diplomacy” towards Zimbabwe’s “land reforms”.
Every program on tv from E news to Carte Blanche to 50/50 has taken a swipe at the hunting industry but have you heard anything from the hunting industry? How many formal hunting organisations are there? Do we need to name them? Phasa, SAJWV and and and. (are you paying their membership fees?)How many game farmers is there that have spent millions of rands on infrastructure to bread rhinos yet you do not hear from them protecting the very industry that gives them a livelihood? People are paying more than a million rand for a breeding buffalo bull even over 18million and I am very sure it is not to breed buffalos for the purpose of photographic safaris!
One report on TV was really intriguing to me. They reported that although rhinos are under severe pressure there is still formal hunting of rhino going on. It was reported that a rich foreigner will pay over a million rand for this privilege?! Why is this newsworthy? Why is it not common knowledge? Why don’t the whole of South Africa know that rhino, elephant, lion or any other hunting is common in SA and happens every day? Why doesn’t every one know that the reason for all the game fences and the wild game population outside of state parks are because of the biggest conservation group in SA (maybe in the world) called, hunters?
It seems like we are hoping that people forget about us and what we do. We’d much rather wait for a canned hunting or Asian-prostitutes-hunting-rhino scandal to be in the spotlight and even then have you seen any of the hunting organisation bosses take a stand?
We are too busy to try and justify what we do. Why?! We have the moral high ground. We are the biggest conservationists. We are the people that spend the most time in the bush and know the bush and critters the best. We spend the most money on conservation. The foreign currency streams onto our shores because of the hunting industry. All of this without help from government. Individuals travel to foreign countries each year to promote tourism at a huge expense to them. All of this and we still feel that we need to justify ourselves? Do we ask people, for instance, to justify why they take up huge patches of land consume enormous amounts of water so that they can hit a small white ball around? No we don’t. So why then do we have to justify ourselves if we are conserving nature in all its forms not just benefiting our children’s future but also that of the guy hitting the little white ball and every other person’s in this country?
People should rather justify to us why they don’t hunt. Hunters pay for farmers to put up infrastructure to bread animals like rhino. Hunters pay for new breeding herds of scarce and endangered game which also ensures a greater genetic pool. Hunters pay for thousands of hectares of land to be converted from live stock land, where wild animals are exterminated, to private game reserves where the natural balance is restored. Hunters pay for marketing our country to foreign travellers. …….and so we can go on and on…..!

I am getting more and more disillusioned with the formal hunting fraternity. Stop hiding. Go onto TV, Radio and into papers. Promote hunting, condemn poaching. If a tv programme do not have their facts straight, take them on and correct them. If the media report incorrectly be sure to educate them. Hunting should be on every TV channel in every paper on every website. We should be proud of what we are doing. If we think it will offend a lot of people we should educate those people. Why have not a single tv programme had a feature of all the good hunting do for conservation and our country as a whole?
Now there are rumblings of banning Rhino hunting. But we are too comfortable inside our own organisation, our own magazine, our own farm and our own hunting circles to step out of our comfort zone. We are only preaching to the converted and that is the biggest crime of all……….
To everyone out there: We are HUNTERS not poachers. We are responsible conservationists not raiders or thieves. Our killing of an animals ensures their future and do not only provide an aphrodisiac to the super rich and selfish to the demise of the species.
I am a HUNTER!

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