Rhino hunting is bad — or is it?
I have no idea what it is, these days, that would incite someone to shoot a rhino in a trophy hunt.
The fact is, however, that there are people who are keen to do this, and they are also happy to pay large sums of money to do so. That being the case, it is tough to say that conservation should not gather funds from controlled hunting activities.
I know saying that will bring me enemies. There are idealists out there who believe any rhino hunting is bad, especially now that our rhino are under such severe threat. There is no doubt the mounting crisis — 13 rhino poached in 2007, 333 in 2010, more than 430 last year — is alarming and distressing.
Given the crisis, I can see why Outraged South Africans Against Poaching’s Simon Bloch can argue that allowing a hunt sends the wrong message. He has a point, but, much though I hate the idea of rhino hunting, I disagree. A controlled hunt, undertaken under the watchful eye of Ezemvelo KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife, is not the same as poaching a rhino for its horn. Under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, better known as Cites, the trophy horn cannot be sold. It will hang on the hunter’s wall, or reside in his safe.
The furore that has erupted over the R960000 the KwaZulu-Natal businessman paid Ezemvelo for the hunt has revealed the reality that South Africa’s conservation authorities have to deal with daily. The hunt is to take place on the Mduku community’s Makhasa Community Game Reserve, and reserve chairman John Mathenjwa says using the some of the money raised from it for community upliftment will “calm” some community members who are resentful that the community has not benefited directly from the reserve.
Some will argue that nothing justifies rhino hunting; others who will argue against any hunting at all. They have my sympathy, but so do South Africa’s poor rural communities. It is wonderful that Makhasa exists at all.
In 1997, Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, with assistance from the privately owned Phinda reserve, fenced 2800ha of tribal land on the edge of its reserves and stocked the area with most of the game species found in both Phinda and Mkhuze, according to Wildlife and Ecological Investments’ website. The objective was to create a community-owned reserve with direct income benefits to the local community.
The funds will go to repairing damaged reserve fences, employing more field rangers, building markets for the community to trade with tourists, education and health, all for the community.
One of the most telling quotes in this debate came from Ezemvelo KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife CEO Bandile Mkhize: “The animal rights groups have been quiet throughout the year when 23 rhino-hunting permits were issued to private game reserves, but are up in arms when such permits stand to benefit the poor black community.”
Mike Knight, chairman of the Southern African Development Community rhino management group, says between 45 and 70 rhino have been legally hunted in recent years, with the money paid for the right to hunt going into conservation, and 1-million hectares of private land put under conservation as a result.
Personally, I wish no one wanted to hunt, especially to hunt an endangered animal that is under severe stress, but South Africa still has a growing rhino population (thank goodness, seeing we are home to 90% of the world’s estimated 22800 rhino). Knee-jerk reactions to controlled fund-raising activities such as this rhino hunt will neither save the rhino nor help the people who live most closely with them.
It is all very well for middle-class South Africans to get all het up about the pending hunt, but emphatic statements made without consideration for the realities of South African life will only raise the hackles of the very people we most need to help us fight poaching: the communities that live on the edges of game reserves, and the conservation staff who work with these people, and with the game.
If people like Bloch really want to save the rhino — although I have not spoken to him, I have no reason to mistrust his sincerity — then they need to remain calm and take a considered view of things.
Last year was awful for the rhino — and if you think things were bad here, take a look at Mozambique’s rhino poaching figures. We need to turn the tide. Work is being done. The police are arresting poachers all the time. What is being done is not enough, certainly, and it is sad that the on-the-ground henchmen are caught far more often than the real kingpins of this disgusting trade. However, it is not helpful to attack a conservation body for a practice that has history and is proven to have gathered funds for conservation aimed at saving the rhino and other species.
January 7th, 2012 at 1:13 pm
Hi Sue,
May I correct you on a couple of points. Firstly 488 rhinos were slaughtered last year not just 430. Research and enquiries to various organisations like Traffic confirmed that 85% of the rhinos killed in legal hunts horns are not going to be displayed in a hunter’s trophy room; neither do they even reach the country of the hunters’ origin. They go straight into the black market trade.
It is not to say this rhino’s horn after it has been killed will enter the black market, but the changes are way above average that it can. Our country’s authorities have not built up an efficient track record in applying the laws rigorously neither do they have a track record of efficient law enforcement.
How can I make this statement you may ask? I can make this statement as my evaluation of the situation comes from personal experience as we deal with illegal, unethical and irregular activities relating to wildlife crime on a regular basis.
One example I can give you in respect of the irresponsible manner in which the situation is being handled is that of a rhino that died of natural causes on a farm in Limpopo more than a year ago. The owner applied for a permit to destroy this horn and one would expect under the current circumstances of the poaching onslaught is that the authorities would act, visit the premises and aid in the destruction of the said horn. This has not happened; in actual fact in spite of repeated requests and follow up by the owners with the highest authorities the horn is still in safe-keeping with no response from the department. Now this is just one case and if they cannot even deal with one horn and one permit, what on earth makes us believe that they can monitor and control the problems that comes with the terrible onslaught on our rhinos at the moment?
It is after all their systems and officials that have allowed the total exploitation of legal rhino hunts by unscrupulous professional hunting outfitters, rhino owners and their clients.
With the current situation prevailing one simply cannot claim that killing a rhino aids conservation of the species because it does not. It benefits a few individuals and allows for terrible exploitation and corruption to continue. So my vote goes to putting an immediate moratorium on the legal hunting of all rhinos and to apply the precautionary principle. Let South Africa (private land and rhino owners, communities, the wildlife industry and authorities alike) join hands and put our differences of opinions aside to assure we can overcome this looming conservation disaster and absolute destruction of an icon species. We have now entered a negative population growth rate in respect of the remaining rhinos and to not apply the precautionary principle and assure the survival of each individual rhinos by whatever means possible is simply irresponsible and terribly unkind to the rhinos themselves.
Let’s not wake up one morning to find like our electricity supply disappeared overnight as a direct result of bad planning and management, our rhinos are back on the brink of extinction and all the excellent conservation work done in the past goes down the drain like most of our existing infrastructure. South Africa need to unite on this one and an excellent place to start is to stop killing rhinos legally with all sorts of excuses like “if they pay they stay” It is time all South African’s start paying (or make sacrifices) to see the survival of these magnificent beasts.
Louise Joubert
Founder trustee = SanWild Wildlife Trust
January 9th, 2012 at 11:30 pm
Louise Joubert, the failure of one part of the system is no reason to condemn the success of another. It is a fact that money prevents poaching. India’s government is discovering the benefits of investing in forces to fight tiger poachers, while Tanzania’s elephants appear to be suffering a rising casualty rate after funding of the major game reserve was dramatically cut. As Sue Blaine says, like it or not, paid hunting is a good source of revenue. It has, in many areas, demonstrably benefitted game populations. In KZN’s case, it is also part of careful herd management. There is nothing irresponsible about it. I strongly suspect that if you wait for South Africans (or anyone else) to start paying and sacrificing, there will be no rhinos left by the time you get a reaction. Your efforts may be more successful if they’re directed at the ‘highest authorities’, where improvement is probably most needed.
January 10th, 2012 at 2:31 am
Is Sue Blaine part of Ezemvelo’s propaganda machine? You never contacted me for comment, Sue, and I am the person who broke this story to the press in Durban.
Surely such an esteemed writer like yourself would have contacts at our local papers where you could get my number. Just ask someone for this information, I was once a newspaper journalist and was not shy to ask a favour from a colleague.
And what the hell do you know about rhino poaching in Mozambique?
You talk with authority saying “Last year was awful for the rhino — and if you think things were bad here, take a look at Mozambique’s rhino poaching figures.”
What figures have you seen, Sue? Mozambicans are killing OUR South African rhino because they themselves, and Frelimo, killed all their rhino.
Furthermore, I despise your condescending apology “Given the crisis, I can see why Simon Bloch can argue that allowing a hunt sends the wrong message. He has a point, but, much though I hate the idea of rhino hunting, I disagree. A controlled hunt, undertaken under the watchful eye of Ezemvelo KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife, is not the same as poaching a rhino for its horn. Under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, better known as Cites, the trophy horn cannot be sold. It will hang on the hunter’s wall, or reside in his safe”.
“Is that what they asked you to write, Sue? What about the TOPS permit? Who are you to disagree with me and be so self-assured you are right? Do you have the right credentials or do you have Ezemvelo in your corner giving you smelling-salts, insisting you go out there and try to convince us they are doing a good thing? How can you be so certain this hunter wants to decorate a spot on his living room wall for R960 000, or even maybe decide to hide it away under lock and key”. What a waste of a million bucks. Or is that another point you also disagree with me on?
You have not even met this BIG GAME HUNTER for his story. He is under Ezemvelo lockdown, just like the Makhasa Reserve was last week.
So please be honest Sue. At least with yourself, before you join the hunting club.
January 10th, 2012 at 10:29 am
Hello Louise
All you say is true, although you obviously have far greater knowledge than I. (And thank you for your reply).
However, I still believe that if we want to make dents in the horrible scourge that is rhino poaching, PART of the solution is to ensure that the people who live alongside the parks see value in their being there. Dismissing their concerns (and I am not saying that you are advocating that, or do do that) is counter-productive. That is what I was trying to get across.
It is very easy for people like me, who don’t work with wildlife and in reserves (and so not you, because I assume that you spend at least some of your working life in reserves), who live in middle-class comfort to judge those who are poor. Easy, but wrong. It is also easy to criticise the game rangers and parks managers who have to juxtapose their belief in conservation with working with poor communities.
I am hearing more and more about poor conservation management decisions, and I do not deny that they happen. I also believe that most people who work in conservation do so because at some level they do really care. That said, any mismanagement needs to be exposed, and the mismanagers need to face sanction.
You are absolutely right that our follow up on legal hunts is poor. I still don’t really understand why there is a need to kill any endangered species unless the animal in question needs euthanasia. However, I always take the view that it is easier to criticise than to do. That is how I approach my work.
From what I am hearing I believe there is a real change that the horrible scenario you paint – that we wake up one day and the rhino is gone, thanks to our own poor management.
Still, I do believe that acting in ways that alienate the poor communities that live alongside game parks is not helpful. The question, of course, is whether the community in question could not have been helped in ways that did not require the hunt.
Again, thanks for the response, it was excellent food for thought.
January 10th, 2012 at 4:04 pm
The age old hunting debate! Thanks for the elaborate comments. Louise touches on the “black market trade” which I believe is the large issue surrounding the rhino crisis. Not only is illegal trafficking driving this poor beast to extinction it is an indication of the sad state of South Africa… not being able (to this point) fight the terror of organized crime. I would venture to guess that rhino poaching and the illegal trading of its horn are merely the gruesome forerunner of what else maybe to come.
We spent five years in the Philippines and saw the dreadful aftermath of exploitation… wildlife, environment and people impoverished, leaving a one time paradise in ruins. Sadly, in my very finite vision, I see South Africa on a similar slippery slope.
So, may we find a way to look past our differences and find a common ground to not only save the rhino, but save South Africa.
January 11th, 2012 at 8:29 am
Simon
I in fact searched and searched for your contact number, but did not find it on the internet. This I mentioned to Alison Thompson of Outraged Citizens when I spoke to her on Monday. She said you did not speak for Outraged Citizens in its entirety, but as an individual member.
In my blog I say I have no reason to doubt your bona fides. Just because I don’t entirely agree with you is no reason to attack mine. We are all trying in whatever way we can to help the rhino. Fighting among ourselves is not helpful. And, by the way, please feel free to contact me, but I won’t be responding to your comments on this forum again. Not unless you refrain from personal attack.
January 11th, 2012 at 8:30 am
And, Simon, journalists do not ask other journalists for contacts. That is not the way it works.
January 11th, 2012 at 10:44 am
South Africa’s poor rural communities need financial support from their Provincial Government, KZN, not from ‘harvesting’ the wildlife that they were given to conserve. This justification is just lunacy!
And the rationale from Ezemvelo’s Bandile Mkhize that this is a race issue IS ‘telling’ – it tells us that he isn’t fit to be CEO a public conservation organisation if he can’t understand the issues clearly.
January 11th, 2012 at 10:56 am
“Ezemvelo spokesperson Bandile Mkhize says the hunt forms part of ongoing plans to control the number of white rhinos.”
(from East Coast Radio Newswatch; 3 January 2012)