Poachers kill 249 animals in SAfrica's Kruger park 12th May 2008 JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - Poachers have killed 249 animals in South Africa's largest game park, Kruger, in the last four years, including at least 44 white rhinos, an opposition parliamentarian said on Sunday, quoting official figures. "A reply to a DA (Democratic Alliance) parliamentary question to the minister of environmental affairs and tourism has revealed that over the last four years at least 44 white rhinos and 31 buffaloes were killed by poachers," Gareth Morgan said in a statement. "The jewel in the crown of South African conservation, the Kruger National Park, is the hotspot for poaching of mammals among the various parks managed by the South African National Parks. In total 249 mammals were killed by poachers in Kruger during this (2004 and 2007) period," he said. Morgan, DA's spokesperson on environmental affairs, later told AFP that the figures "were provided to me by the minister on Friday in a written reply to my query on the issue". He said that the Kruger figures might be much higher as "many of the animals killed by poachers disappear without a trace". Kruger National Park has the ability to monitor poaching, unlike a majority of the other 21 parks in the country, he said. A total of 8,665 marine species were poached last year at the Table Mountain National Park, compared with 4,578 in 2006 and 3,378 in 2005.
Powered by Zoundry
Donations made here are
Mar 7th Johanna N USD 16.50
13 Comments
My God! do they not have anti-poaching patrols? that’s obscene.
s.
Sherly,
This is one of the oldest and the probably the best equipped park in Africa. If it is this bad down there, what is happening in other parks and reserves in Africa?
Mwenja
Mwenja, your obsevation is the best. i was in SA as a student in Southern African Wildlife College in side the Kruger Park. It is realy the best equipped, and visited by tourists from all corners of the world.
I cannot be sure that this kind of sabotage could be done over there pity.
Hi,
Please excuse my lack of knowledge in this matter, but is it possible for foreigners (Canadian in this case) to volunteer (long term) to work as part of an anti-poaching patrol team anywhere in Africa.
Is this not common due to language barrier or difficulty in obtaining government visas?
David.
My god!!!!!!!! This is horrible…..such depressing news!How in the heck can this be stopped?????
Sarisar, Ann, and Somba,
Thanks for taking time to read my blog and give comments. I am surprised at the level of mismanagement of the wildlife in Tanzania although very few people are willingly to come out and talk openly against it. We need to stop being complacent as wildlife will definitely not recover from this ongoing plunder. Please keep in touch and lets work together to save our planet
Mwenja
David,
Thanks for taking time to read my blog and give comments. I will try and hook you up with some organization that can assist you. Please send me your details and what you exactly you looking for so that I can forward these details to these organizations.
Mwenja
Oh Gosh, I am shocked at this alarming rate of animals being killed by poachers!! I visited Kruger in 2005 as I was one of the participants of SADC/ Rhodes University International course in Environmental Education. I got an impression that Kruger is one of best managed park in Africa…But with the killings of 249 is serious!! Something needs to be done now to salvage this situation!! Thanks Mwenja for keeping us posted with the latest… keep up the great work.
Zeinab Musa
Why do people do this? It is so horrible! It is like animals killing people for the skin and leaveing us to die or killing us for money. (I know animals can’t do that but still)I don’t think it is write. Many animals are dieing for no reason at all. If you are a poacher or you know someone that poaches, PLEASE TELL THE POLICE!!!!! People just don’t get it. This is a very bad thing and we not see many animals for long because people poach. Think about it, come on think. Thank you,
Elizabeth
I completed a fgasa course on the edge of kruger park 2 years ago. Much of are training was done on the local tribes land. The tribal leader had gone into partnership with a local buisnessman. The idea is that the profits are supposed to be split down the middle half for the tribe half for the company, but the tribal leader takes it all. Some of the tribe are employed in poorely paid jobs, but most not even this. They have all lost their land and homes. As such although they dont have the right to hunt anymore they still see it as something that they have a right to.
I believe that there are several such areas around the park, however most of the poaching is being done by large groups (often from countries that border south africa, eg. it is far worse in the limpopo park which shares an unfenced border with kruger).
South africa is amazingly racist. There are three ethnic groups, ‘whites’ ‘africaans’ and ‘blacks’. The whites are mostly originally english africans a mix of dutch and several other countries, and the blacks are the original south africans. They use these terms when talking about it. There are few Whites but the ones I met behaved pretty well. The africaans though run most buisnesses and employ blacks in large numbers, paying them a pittance. As such many of the local blacks feel that thier rights have been removed without getting anythign in return and there is now no work.
As for how can this happen? That is someone who has no idea what they are talking about- Kruger is the size of wales, with very few rangers (something between 10-20). It would take thousands to make it impossible. The poaching is hitting black rhinos hardest (and has in the past). When i was there the population of black rhinos was estimated between 100 and 200. This is because their horn is made of keritin, and is used often in asia to make dagger handles usually bought by tourist who think it makes a good gift. White rhinos are hunted less for their horn as it is hardened hair. Most of the animals apart from black rhino have a population that is high enough to stand low level poaching.
The roads are very wide apart, some more than 200 miles from the nearest paralell road which means that poachers can set up camp 200-300m from a road and noone would ever know.
My answer is for Tim, what a load of rubbish you are talking, I live in Cape Town, the afrikaans do not run most of the business’s thats is such rubbish, south africa is a diverse place with many ethnic groups not only white and black, we are very proud of our ability to all live together, the Afrikaans do not pay black people a poor salary, most farmers are GIVING a portion of their farmers to their workers and their family’s. As for the Kruger Park yes it is bigger than Wales adn is probably the most well maanged park in the world, the anti poaching teams are highly successful in reducing rhino poaching with the introduction of telemetry and tracking devices, but as with everything they are fighting a huge battle and they are winning, please dont run our country down if you dont know what you are talking about, get your facts straight.
tim i stay in south africa and visited it four times.what you are saying is wrong.kruger is huge.bigger than wales thats right.and they have a huge amount of game rangers.with south africas labour laws poor pay hardly exists
its people who enter from mozambique that poach for meat and rhino horn then jump the border and escape