Poaching surge imperils South Africa’s rhinos

From The Sunday Times,
RW Johnson in Johannesburg

WILDLIFE experts are alarmed at a dramatic upsurge in rhino poaching in South Africa’s game reserves that may threaten the survival of the creature in one of its last redoubts.

Just 10 rhinos were poached in the whole of 2007, but last year the number reached 100. On Christmas Day alone, 13 rhinos were killed by poachers.

“We’ve always had subsistence poaching,” said George Hughes, a former head of the KwaZulu-Natal Parks Board. “But serious poaching for large game by professionals selling rhino horn or ivory to Far Eastern syndicates is far more alarming.”

In order to steal the lucrative horn, the poachers hack at the rhino’s skull with pangas, the African machete, causing horrendous injuries.

“It’s a terrible thing to come across the poachers’ handiwork,” said Frank Reardon, a wildlife enthusiast. “To see one lying dead with the carrion feasting off it is an awful sight.”

Former army professionals with modern weapons are thought to be involved. Recently, a Vietnamese diplomat was caught on camera taking delivery of contraband rhino horn outside the Vietnamese embassy in Pretoria.

Elephant and rhino poaching are endemic in the game reserves of Tanzania, Kenya and Zambia. In Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe’s “land reform” has seen a wildlife holocaust since 2000. The only supposedly secure reserves left are in Namibia, Botswana and South Africa.

Only 3,500 black rhinos are left in the world and 3,000 of them are in South Africa.

“The rhino is actually a gentle and friendly animal,” said Hughes. “They are vegetarians, not predators, and only man preys on them.”

For Hughes, the fatal step was the international ban on rhino horn sales in 1977. “It was like prohibition. Prices shot up and so did poaching.”

In Botswana, where they once flourished, there are only about five white rhinos left. Poaching has now reached South Africa’s Hluhluwe-Umfolozi game reserve – in Gaisford’s words, “the holy ground of the rhino”. Although it still has 1,600 white rhinos, black rhino numbers are down to 300.

The golden era of the giant state reserves, like the 5m-acre Kruger National Park, may be over. Not only is much of their land under claim by local peasants, but the scale makes the parks difficult to guard.

David Cummings, a Zimbabwean wildlife expert, said private reserves held the best hope of survival for many species but they face government opposition. “Many African regimes don’t like the idea of losing monopoly control of their wildlife,” he said.

“Corrupt game rangers are also a problem. In Zimbabwe, we’ve seen rangers caught poaching rhino allowed to go scot-free, despite a mandatory 25-year sentence.”


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