Rhino Poaching 2017-2023

Information & discussion on the Rhino Poaching Pandemic
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Re: Rhino Poaching 2017-2020

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Re: Rhino Poaching 2017-2020

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PHOTO ESSAY
Lockdown: Good news for rhinos, bad news for other animals

By Shiraaz Mohamed• 7 August 2020

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A baby elephant crosses the road in the Kruger National Park. The easing of the national lockdown now allows day visitors, but forbids overnight stays. (Photo: Shiraaz Mohamed)

The lockdown’s restriction on movement has seen a drop in rhino poaching, but community hunger has led to an increase in poaching for bushmeat in reserves like the Kruger National Park.

The decomposing remains of an adult white rhino lie in the bush. Its horn has been cut off – the bleached skull and vertebrae the only evidence it ever existed.

A skull is the only remains of a white adult rhino that was recently killed by poachers. (Photo: Shiraaz Mohamed)
Environmental crime investigator Frik Rossouw suggests hyenas scavenged the carcass after poachers shot the animal several days before it was discovered by patrolling field rangers.

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Environmental crime investigator Frik Rossouw, left, and his unidentified team member search for evidence after the decomposed body of an adult white rhino was found. (Photo: Shiraaz Mohamed)

On a recent visit to the site in the Kruger National Park (KNP), Rossouw described how his team found two bullets at the scene of the crime. A piece of the horn was also found and a sample for DNA profiling was sent for forensic testing. The results will be stored in a database and used to match horns to a particular kill and location if arrests are made.

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Members of the SANParks Anti Poaching Unit is seen in a demonstration with the SANParks air wing. The air wing plays a vital role in assisting field rangers in anti-poaching operations. (Photo: Shiraaz Mohamed)

Studying the scene, Rossouw was able to determine that the animal was shot at close range and that a knife was used to remove the horn. The knife tells him this was a professional job – less skilled poachers tend to chop the horn out with an axe.

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A member of the SANParks anti-poaching unit in the Kruger National Park. The easing of the national lockdown and allowing of day visitors to the Kruger has seen an increase in poaching. (Photo: Shiraaz Mohamed)

A scene like this is sadly all too familiar in the KNP. There was a brief respite during Level 5 lockdown when the movement of people was curtailed, leading to a drop in the number of rhino poaching incidents.

According to statistics, cases of rhino poaching around the country decreased by almost 53% in the first six months of 2020. A total of 166 animals have been killed since the beginning of the year, compared to 316 during the first six months of 2019.

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A member of the SANParks anti-poaching K9 unit with his dog. (Photo: Shiraaz Mohamed)

In a recent statement, Minister of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries, Barbara Creecy, said: “With the Covid-19 associated countrywide law enforcement measures to restrict movement, the decline in rhino poaching compared to the same period last year is striking. This reprieve was specifically welcome in the Kruger National Park where, during April, no rhino were killed in the Intensive Protection Zone for the first time in almost 10 years.”

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SANParks anti-poaching K9 unit dog trainer, Johan De Beer, shows a rhino horn fragment. The fragments are used in the training of the K9 unit dogs. (Photo: Shiraaz Mohamed)

Between the start of the lockdown on 27 March until the end of June, 46 rhinos were poached across the country. Of these, 14 were poached during April, 13 in May, and 19 in June.

The Kruger National Park recorded 88 cases of rhino poaching in the first six months of 2020, compared to 153 in the first six months of 2019. With lockdown restrictions gradually being lifted, poaching is picking up again.

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An elephant in the Kruger National Park. The easing of the national lockdown now allows day visitors, but forbids overnight stays. (Photo: Shiraaz Mohamed)

Between January and June, 38 suspected rhino poachers were arrested in the KNP and 23 firearms were confiscated. A total of 57 suspects were arrested during joint SANParks/SAPS operations outside the KNP, with 18 firearms being recovered.

But while rhino poaching might have tailed off during the lockdown, subsistence poaching for bushmeat is increasingly a problem.

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Members of the SANParks anti-poaching unit in the Kruger National Park. (Photo: Shiraaz Mohamed)

“What we do find is a lot of meat poaching nowadays. People come and set snares for impala, kudu and buffalo. Even a hippo was killed recently. It is not as bad as rhino poaching was, but it has definitely increased over the last four months,” Rossouw told Daily Maverick.

The Famine Early Warning Systems Network’s (Fewsnet) Acute Food Insecurity map has revealed “crisis” levels of hunger in areas bordering the Kruger Park as well as huge swathes of neighbouring Mozambique. The next level is “emergency” – followed by “famine”. A similar pattern is evident on Kruger’s northern border with Zimbabwe.

Pilot Brad Grafton from SANParks air services, which play an integral part in assisting field rangers to control poaching, added: “Meat poaching has always been a problem in the Kruger, but the coronavirus has worsened that aspect… with people from the communities alongside the park coming in and poaching for meat.”


Despite statistics showing a decrease in rhino poaching this year. Poaching started increasing after lockdown started easing. A white rhino was recently found dead in the Kruger National Park and its horn was removed by poachers. The carcass of the rhino was found by field rangers out on patrol. The only remains left of the rhino was its skull.

In the video Senior Environmental Crime Investigator, Frik Rossouw sitting meters away from the skull describes how his team found two bullets at the scene of the crime. A piece of the horn was found and a sample for DNA profiling will be send for forensic testing to be stored in a data base. This can be used to match horns if an arrest is made at a later stage.

Apart from the lockdown Rossouw feels the decline in rhino poaching connects to previous convictions against poachers in 2019.


SANParks’ Isaac Phaahla emphasised that they would tighten access control and the monitoring of people entering the Kruger Park in an effort to further protect wildlife. DM


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Re: Rhino Poaching 2017-2020

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:-(

It is odd that easing lockdown should increase rhino poaching...aren't poachers there illegally anyway? -O-


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Re: Rhino Poaching 2017-2020

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Before, the park was empty and they would stick out like lanterns. Now they can mix with the visitors.


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Re: Rhino Poaching 2017-2020

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Rhino poaching stats 2020 – more shades of grey

Posted on August 3, 2020 by STROOP in the OPINION EDITORIAL post series.

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Written by Susan Scott – STROOP director. Research provided by Bonné de Bod – STROOP presenter & producer.

‘STROOP – journey into the rhino horn war’ has garnered international acclaim for its groundbreaking work documenting illegal wildlife trafficking in Asia and the poaching war in South Africa.

“Rhino poaching decreases by more than half in first half of 2020” read the misleading headline on the government’s press release issued on Friday.

Let’s take a closer look at this situation, much as we did concerning the 2019 poaching figures in our story Latest Rhino Poaching Stats: Shades of Grey. In that story, we focussed on the lower poaching stats being primarily a function of fewer rhinos surviving the ongoing poaching onslaught and the devastating drought that was ravaging Southern Africa at the time. This time we call for perspective because of another contributing factor: COVID-19.

The above government headline really should have added “due to Covid-19’s harsh lockdown” – the route taken by the UK’s Guardian Newspaper when they covered the same topic. Because they did not attribute the reduction to the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns, our local mainstream media reported the success in combating poaching with headlines proclaiming various iterations of “South Africa has cut rhino poaching by half”. One can hardly blame them, given that the Environment, Forestry and Fisheries Minister, Barbara Creecy’s first statement in the release was “After a decade of implementing various strategies… efforts are paying off,” even adding, “we have been able to arrest the escalation.”

The fact is that the closure of provincial and international borders and lack of international air travel has meant that people have had limited ability to move around and the horn cannot get to the demand countries in Asia – dominating factors in the reduction of poaching.

Imagine being told by the BBC in April that crime that month was down in countries around the planet due to the efficacy of those governments’ enforcement policies, and not due to the onset of Covid-19 lockdowns? The BBC article in question rightfully attributed the drop in crime globally due to the pandemic. The pandemic had a dramatic impact – from social distancing El Salvadorian gang members to officials in cities across America who noted upwards of 50% declines in crime during the lockdown. And so too here with our rhinos, because, as the BBC observed, “the result of fewer people in public is less crime.”

To be fair, back in May, the Minister did note that the lockdown was having a tremendous impact on curbing poaching. And she did add further down in the detail of Friday’s release that the restricted movement from the Covid-19 law enforcement measures have had a striking impact, especially as “the decrease in rhino poaching can also be attributed to the disruption of the supply chain resulting from the national travel restrictions.” – so why not include that vital factor in the headline?

To the numbers:

166 rhinos have been poached during the first half of 2020, compared to 316 at the same time last year. Of the rhinos killed this year, nearly three-quarters happened before the lockdown. In fact, in the month of April, no rhinos were killed in the Intensive Protection Zone in Kruger for the first time in almost ten years.

Further proof of the success of the lockdown is the reduction in the number of arrests and firearms confiscated in the park for 2020 (2019 figures in brackets): Arrests 38 (122) and firearms seized 23 (61). The report did not provide the number of incursions as it did in the past, so we have to assume from the arrest numbers that there is much-reduced traffic inside the park.

We can also see that the swing in who owns South Africa’s rhinos continues to pivot, with positive gains towards privately owned rhinos; the private sector losing only 16 rhinos compared to the state’s 150 rhinos. The department claimed a year ago that private rhino populations had increased by a third while Kruger’s rhinos had declined by half. Private rhino owners have been successful in protecting rhinos since they were so badly hit several years ago. Smaller areas are easier to confine, plus being able to close down areas with neighbourhood security patrols and roadblocks while working with SAPS has been a significant crime deterrent. We’ve seen these efforts in effect – they have worked well – and their results are strikingly similar to the nationwide Covid-19 lockdown.

Private owners have told us that the harsh lockdown was a godsend for their security (though naturally not so for their tourism revenue). With the defense force and police services patrolling the public roads and maintaining roadblocks, poaching gangs could not travel with their tools of the trade: axes, pangas and stolen hunting rifles with home-made silencers.

In Kruger during the lockdown, the gates were closed to all visitors. And this is without a doubt the driving factor in the reduction in poaching numbers. There is a popular perception that poachers crawl in under fences to access the park, and while that does happen, the reality is that poachers often employ the easy route of driving in undetected as a day visitor. To be clear, poachers are dropped off inside the park from a comfortable vehicle, having entered the park as visitors. And, just as chilling, spotters drive around in visitor vehicles and send rhino locations to the syndicates they work for.

Those on the inside maintain that rangers are highly effective in preventing breaches over the international border and across park boundaries and that access gates are most certainly the security weakness of the park. And the lockdown clearly proves that. Many have said that corruption, sloppy work, lack of proper co-ordination of the access and exit data are all factors resulting in the majority of current poaching events, and this needs to be tackled, urgently. The lockdown has shown us the park’s Achilles heel.

Stop Rhino Poaching’s Elise Serfontein said in an interview with The Citizen that “Kruger remains the epicentre for rhino killings in South Africa, with most rhinos being shot by poachers arriving via the gates. Fundamental issues such as known internal collusion and access control for drop-off poaching remain a systematic threat.”

She added further: “Government needs to consider perhaps redefining their measures of success and introduce some additional factors. When rangers are still run off their feet chasing multiple groups of poachers every day, or finding multiple carcasses, as has been the case since the lockdown restrictions were eased, then it’s pretty clear that things aren’t that much better”. She also explains that what is needed to reduce poaching is the reduction in park incursions (by foot and by vehicle), successful long term convictions of kingpins and reinstating interventions that have been broken, for example, the closure of both the Skukuza Regional Court and RhODIS (the Rhino DNA database).

Sadly, the Minister has confirmed that the figures are on the increase again, after the Kruger gates were again opened to the public.


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Re: Rhino Poaching 2017-2020

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https://reviewonline.co.za/439697/two-r ... halaborwa/

Another shocking poaching story... :evil: :evil: :evil:


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Re: Rhino Poaching 2017-2020

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:evil: :evil:


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Re: Rhino Poaching 2017-2020

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Two rhinos killed in two days on game farm near Phalaborwa
[PHOTOS NOT FOR SENSITIVE VIEWERS] A manhunt for the poachers has been launched by police in Lulekani.
6 hours ago



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Photo: SAPS Limpopo

LIMPOPO – Two rhinos have been shot and killed in two separate incidents at a game farm near Swelane village on 24 and 25 August.

According to a statement by Police Spokesperson, Col Moatshe Ngoepe, farm workers were patrolling on Monday afternoon when they found a dead rhino.


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Photo: SAPS Limpopo

“It seems the poachers were disturbed and as a result, failed to remove the horns from the animal,” Ngoepe said.



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Photo: SAPS Limpopo

He added that police were called to another crime scene in the same area, the following day. “On arrival, one rhino was found killed and its horns removed. The suspects in both incidents are still unknown and no arrests have been made yet,” Ngoepe said.


A manhunt has since been launched by police in Lulekani, outside Phalaborwa, for the poachers.

“Anyone with information that can lead to the apprehension of the suspects involved may contact Capt Peter Meyer at 082 319 9460; the crime stop number at 086 001 0111 or their nearest police station.”


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Re: Rhino Poaching 2017-2020

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Poachers on the run after rhino slaughtered on Limpopo game farm
Police launch manhunt after attack on a Limpopo game farm
14 November 2020 - 12:27
Graeme Hosken Senior reporter

A rhino killed for its horn on a game farm in Lephalale, Limpopo. Police are on the hunt for the poachers who hacked off and stole the rhino's horn
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Image: Supplied

Police are on the hunt for poachers who shot and killed a rhino in Limpopo.

The slaughtered rhino was found on a Lephalale game farm by a farmworker while on patrol.

Limpopo police spokesperson Col Moatshe Ngoepe, said that an unknown number of poachers had shot the rhino before they hacked off its horn.

“At this stage the identity and whereabouts of the poachers are unknown. Ballistic tests will be done to determine what weapon was used to kill the rhino and to see if the weapon and poachers can be linked to any other poaching incidents or other crimes.”

He appealed to anyone with information on the alleged poachers identities or whereabouts to contact Warrant Officer Van Heerden on 082 414 2337 or Warrant Officer Van de Venter on 082 872 174.

TimesLIVE

https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/sout ... game-farm/


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Re: Rhino Poaching 2017-2020

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:evil: :evil: :evil:


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