Rhino Relocations

[Richprins]

They are jostling to get money...that may be another excuse?

Or they don't know what is going on? That may be another excuse!

[Richprins]

By Paul Burkhardt Aug 12, 2014 2:26 PM

South Africa’s Cabinet has approved the relocation of rhinos from the country’s Kruger National Park to secret sites both within in the country and across its borders to combat a surge in poaching.

Discussions with Botswana and Zambia have started, Edna Molewa, the country’s minister of environmental affairs, told reporters in Pretoria, the South African capital, today.

South Africa, home to most of the world’s rhinos, is struggling to protect the pachyderms against poachers, many of whom stream across the border between Mozambique and Kruger armed with automatic rifles and night sights. So far this year 638 rhinos have been poached in South Africa, almost two thirds of those in Kruger, compared with a record 1,004 in all of last year.

“South Africa also recognizes international opportunities for establishing rhino strongholds in neighboring countries,” Molewa said.

Poaching has surged in South African game reserves and private game ranches and beyond as demand for the animals’ horns climbs in Asian nations including China and Vietnam because of a false belief that it can cure diseases including cancer.

As many as 500 rhinos could be safely moved from Kruger, a reserve the size of Israel, Sam Ferreira, a large mammal ecologist at South African National Parks, said at the briefing. Moving such a large number would be logistically difficult, he said.

In addition to protecting the animals from poachers relocations can boost populations as some are moved from areas where there are too many rhinos for the ecosystem to support and birth rates are declining, he said.




http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-1 ... ilize.html

[Richprins]

The South African National Parks (SANParks) moved 1450 rhino between 1997 and 2013, the minister revealed

This is spin..."moved" could mean anything, and avoids the destinction between white rhino and black.!

Kruger alone has SOLD around that number of white rhino alone since 2010! we asked for exact figures a long way back, but no dice...

One need only look at the income generated under "game sales" in SP's financial statements to extrapolate this, and they admitted to over 300 per year once.

[Lisbeth]

Would it not cost less to protect the whole circumsciption of the park?

Or is there a problem finding enough trustworthy citizens for the job?

[Flutterby]

Kruger rhinos to Northern Cape

by Fiona Macleod

The bulk of the rhinos South African National Parks (SANParks) wants to move out of the Kruger to protect them from poachers will go to private game reserves in the Northern Cape.

SANParks signed contracts with three hunting outfits based in Northern Cape reserves late last year for the translocation of 260 Kruger rhinos.

The estimated income from these sales, in addition to a further 20 rhinos to be sold on auction, was R80-million.

The main motivation behind the move was not the income, however, but the need to provide an alternative breeding population of rhinos in a safer environment than the besieged Kruger. At least 1 827 rhinos have been killed by poachers in the Kruger since 2010 – there have been two poaching incidents in the Northern Cape in the same period.

The outfits that contracted to buy 260 Kruger rhinos were Chapungu Safaris Africa, Wintershoek Safaris and Steyn Safaris.

Chapungu Safaris Africa owns two game farms, one in the Eastern Cape. The second, called Kalahari Oryx, spans 180 000 acres in the Northern Cape and is co-owned by retail magnate Christo Wiese.

The three outfits host photographs of rhino hunts on their websites. They are all members of local and international professional hunting organisations.

Strategic removals
The thinking behind these strategic removals of rhinos from the Kruger is to increase birth rates while decreasing mortality rates.

“The establishment of intensively protected rhino conservancies outside national parks under a poaching siege serves as a final strategic task to manage rhinos and improve their conservation status in the donor and recipient sites,” said SANParks scientists in a strategy document in April.

“These removed rhinos can serve as sources for new safe populations or as storage sites for surplus rhinos such as black rhino bulls.”

The scientists envisaged establishing “rhino conservancies” in alternative localities where poaching risks are low.

“Within such areas, SANParks and it collaborators manage rhino population structures to maximise population growth using husbandry approaches,” they said.

“This can range from free-ranging large areas where managers keep rhinos with increased protection but no supplementary feeding and limited manipulation of demographics for breeding purposes, to captive breeding facilities where rhinos live at high densities in small confined areas with supplementary feeding and intense protection and husbandry.”

Rhino strongholds
Controversy surrounding the sales contracts to the three hunting outfits led to the suspension of the SANParks head of conservation, Hector Magome, in early June. Magome is challenging the suspension and has taken it to arbitration.

In the meantime, the government did a 360-degree turnaround this week on earlier statements that no rhinos would be moved from the Kruger.

Environment Minister Edna announced at a press briefing on August 12 that strategic removals were one of the measures approved by the Cabinet for the management of rhino populations.

“South Africa is considering a range of rhino strongholds inclusive of South African national parks, provincial reserves, communal areas and private reserves. South Africa also recognises international opportunities for establishing rhino strongholds in neighbouring countries in Southern Africa,” Molewa said.

This approach would “allow the offsetting of poaching in the short to medium term, while also expanding rhino range and improving overall population size”.

The minister said the approach was in keeping with South Africa’s sustainable use policies, but she did not specify where the rhinos would be going.

[Flutterby]

A rather confusing article.

[Lisbeth]

To save the rhinos the send (sell ) the to Hunting Farms

Yes, Flutty very, very confusing and contradictory

Why is everything that Sanparks do always like that

[Richprins]

The main motivation behind the move was not the income, however, but the need to provide an alternative breeding population of rhinos in a safer environment than the besieged Kruger.

This is rubbish! It is about money, and good luck to the rhino. Northern Cape has never been a rhino area, so they will probably have to be fed. But indeed far removed, so some method involved!

There are rhino there, so not impossible! A spin/balancing act!

[Flutterby]

It almost seems as though they've given up on the Kruger rhinos...better keep them alive somewhere else!!

[Duke]

A new rhino poaching remedy to trigger alarm bells?

August 14, 2014

The announcement by South Africa Environment Minister Edna Molewa earlier this week that up to 500 rhino could be relocated from the world famous Kruger National Park to protect them from poachers was undermined by the revelation that the bulk of the animals would go to private game reserves.

Investigative journalism site Oxpeckers stated: “SANParks signed contracts with three hunting outfits based in Northern Cape reserves late last year for the translocation of 260 Kruger rhinos.

“The estimated income from these sales, in addition to a further 20 rhinos to be sold on auction, was R80-million.”

Once again, it would appear that a significantly lucrative strategy is being dressed up as a rhino conservation measure.

South Africa is already significantly out of step with world opinion as it hammers away at its bid to secure approval from CITES for a legal trade in rhino horn, all dressed up as a conservation measure.

While we appreciate the need to afford better protection for rhino – which may mean relocating them to more secure facilities – it is somewhat counter-intuitive that the facilities named are involved in the trophy hunting industry.

The fact that the relocation has been the centre of a controversy involving the head of SANParks, which has led to his suspension, should raise alarm bells. There are also legality issues relating to the removal and/or sale of state-owned rhinos to private concessions and these are being investigated.

The plight of the world’s rhino populations is numbing in its sheer scale and repetition; we are becoming immune to the terrible pictures of rhinos dying a slow and lingering death from wounds inflicted by poachers; we are becoming inured to the catalogue of individuals and criminals escaping the letter of the law because of political connections or financial clout.

And yes, the Dutch Lottery has awarded a staggering amount to Kruger National Park to tackle the problem … where has that money gone?

Political will starts in-country and is not measured by lip service. Catching, prosecuting and convicting poachers is all well and good, but it’s ultimately meaningless without also taking down the middle men, the pseudo hunters, the legal hunters facilitating the pseudo hunters, the corrupt officials and those whose abuse of the law allows them to wriggle out of prosecution.

It requires extreme courage to tackle the syndicates and vested interests that facilitate the on-going slaughter. It takes a lot of courage to stop turning a blind eye and to name and shame the individuals in the communities who are perpetuating the problem – because people in the community know who the criminals are and, as the adage goes, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.