SA, Zim epicentre of rhino poaching explosion
http://www.iol.co.za

Tony Carnie
December 04 2009 at 07:19AM

South Africa and Zimbabwe have been ringed as the new epicentre of a
resurgent rhino smuggling and poaching crisis, with reports of bogus "sport
hunters" from Vietnam coming to hunt, allegedly with the collusion of
Vietnamese embassy staff, including a senior official who invoked diplomatic
immunity to escape arrest.

South Africa's proud record in protecting Africa's endangered rhinos also
lies in tatters with the publication of a report on a recent wave of
poaching for the international rhino horn trade, now at its highest level in
15 years.

Well over 100 live rhinos have been exported to China and there is evidence
that marksmen have been hired to kill rhinos using poison, crossbows and
lethal drugs - quieter killing methods to prevent gunshots alerting game
guards and security patrols.

More than 200 rhino have been poached in South Africa over the past three
years. At least 70 have been killed this year in state-funded and private
parks, and two dehorned carcasses were found last weekend in KwaZulu-Natal's
Opathe and Imfolozi game reserves.

The report was compiled by international rhino specialists Tom Milliken,
Richard Emslie and Bibhab Talukdar, and is to be presented at a meeting of
the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna
and Flora (Cites), next year.

Noting that more than 25 percent of the country's rhinos are now privately
owned, the report implicates unscrupulous private ranchers in arranging
illegal trophy hunts and permit violations.

Despite clampdowns over the past two years initiated by Marthinus van
Schalkwyk while he was minister of environmental affairs, the report
suggests that Vietnamese "trophy hunter" tourists were being allowed to hunt
rhino on private farms, although some could barely shoot straight, did not
bother to apply for hunting permits and were prepared to pay well above the
market price.

At least 203 Vietnamese "sport hunters" were allowed to hunt rhino over the
past four years. There was also growing evidence that rhinos were being
exported to China and Vietnam for their horns to be harvested commercially.

While rhino horn has a long history of use in Eastern traditional medicine
to reduce fevers and as an aphrodisiac, horns were now advertised as a cure
for cancer and marketed on the Internet.

The publication of the report is likely to put further pressure on South
Africa to introduce even stricter curbs on poaching and the number of rhinos
hunted legally.

It identifies loopholes in horn record-keeping and permit controls and a
"precipitous decline in law enforcement".

At least 470 rhinos had been poached on the continent during the past three
years, with nearly 95 percent of them killed in South Africa or Zimbabwe.

"These two nations collectively form the epicentre of an unrelenting
poaching crisis."

Another disturbing trend was a shift in poaching tactics.

"In Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe, quieter methods to kill rhino to
avoid detection have been employed, including the use of veterinary
immobilising drugs, poison and crossbows. This points to a growing and
cunning sophistication in the illegal procurement of rhino horns and the
involvement of marksmen with specialised skills."

Also for the first time, criminals were targeting rhino on private game
reserves.

Milliken and his fellow researchers estimate about 1 500 rhino horns entered
the illegal markets of Asia over the past three years. About 940 were from
poached animals, 286 from rhinos killed in legal hunts and 200 from
privately owned stocks sold illegally.

"The number of rhino horns being traded has steadily grown, with 2008
probably representing the most intensive illegal movement over the last 15
years."

Milliken notes statistics from Cites and South Africa do not match. For
example, official records said 193 live rhinos were exported from 2006 to
this year, whereas other records showed Ãf« were received in other
countries in that period. South Africa declared 61 live rhino exports to
China in 2006/07, but China said it received 117.

Grave concern

Another area of "grave concern" was the involvement of Vietnamese sport
hunters. In 2003, South Africa allowed Vietnamese hunters to shoot nine
rhinos. "From that modest beginning, trade in rhino horns to Vietnam rapidly
grew to entail 286 horns from 2006 to 2009."

Further discrepancies in records suggest that more than a third of the
Vietnamese "sports hunts" took place without Cites permits.

"Investigations have revealed disturbing evidence of organised crime,
including the frequent involvement of a small number of Vietnamese nationals
in rhino hunting, often on the same game ranches repeatedly; numerous cases
where Vietnamese 'trophy hunters' paid above market price for rhino hunts,
but had to be instructed how to shoot."

The report cites "repeated involvement of Vietnam embassy staff, one of whom
invoked diplomatic immunity to avoid arrest".

South Africa instituted a clampdown on trade rules and hunting regulations
in February, leading to an immediate decline in Vietnamese trophy hunts. But
there was an immediate surge in poaching.

This article was originally published on page 1 of The Mercury on
December 04, 2009