Africa Wild

ANALYSIS

Rhino poaching on the rise, KZN focus of carnage while private sector turns the tide


White rhino bull Seha, showing serious facial damage to his face, grazes in Bela Bela, South Africa on 24 January 2022, before his relocation to another nearby game reserve after recovering from serious facial wounds sustained when his horn was hacked off by poachers. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Kim Ludbrook)

By Ed Stoddard | 02 Aug 2022

In the first six months of 2022, 259 rhinos were known to have been poached in South Africa for their horns — 10 more than the 249 slain in the same period last year. Private reserves, which hold most of South Africa’s rhinos now, had fewer losses than last year, while KwaZulu-Natal has become the epicentre of the carnage.
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he rhino poaching rebound from the initial Covid clampdown remains in place. The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and Environment (DFFE) said in a statement on Monday that 259 rhinos were known to have been poached in the year to the end of June — 10 more than last year over the same timeframe.

“Recent trends in rhino poaching show a move away from the Kruger Park to private reserves and KwaZulu-Natal where the majority of rhinos have been killed this year,” Environment Minister Barbara Creecy was quoted as saying.

KZN is certainly becoming the new poaching hotspot as rhino numbers decline in the Kruger National Park. Of the 259 rhinos killed illicitly in the first half of this year, 133 were downed in KZN.

As Daily Maverick reported earlier this year, Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife is in a state of ongoing failure — meaning state failure — weakened by political patronage networks that have seen untrained ANC “military veterans” given jobs as rangers.

The province’s rhinos are among the casualties. KZN also seems gripped in a general spiral of lawlessness that criminal syndicates can exploit. The riots of July 2021 are a case in point, while the provincial ANC is firmly in the hands of the “RET” faction which is hardly focused on battling crime and corruption, to put it diplomatically.

The data also highlights that while there was indeed a poaching shift toward privately owned rhinos in the past couple of years, the tide is turning back on that front. This time last year, the DFFE said that “… losses in private parks constituted 15% of the total reported loss in 2019, 9% in 2020 and 30% so far in 2021”.

A 30% loss in the first six months of 2021 would have translated into 75 rhinos poached on private reserves and game farms. According to Pelham Jones, chair of the Private Rhino Owners Association (PROA), for all of last year, 124 privately owned rhinos were killed out of a nationwide total of 451, or 27.5%.

In the first six months of this year, the ratio is 49 out of 259, or 18.9%. So the toll is mounting in KZN’s state-run parks, notably the flagship Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park which, a century ago, was the last bastion for the white rhino.

Private sector tide turning

But the tide is turning again in the private sector, despite the mounting costs of security to protect the herds.

“The private sector is much more responsive to threatened risk… If you come and start to steal my personal assets, I’ll be pissed off at you,” Jones said.

PROA now estimates that its members own about 8,000 rhinos, or roughly 60% of a shrinking national herd. Poaching is clearly one of the key factors behind this state of affairs — far more rhinos are getting whacked on state land than private land. In such a situation, one population is going to grow while the other will fall. Its basic biology and maths.

More widely, it highlights the continued failure of the South African state, which lacks the capacity and resources to effectively stem the slaughter and remains riven by corruption. Growing poverty and unemployment in a barely growing economy provide a virtually bottomless pool of poachers, while Asian demand for rhino horn and its bogus properties shows few signs of abating.

Meanwhile, government policy remains muddled. A high-level government panel recommended the phasing out of so-called “captive breeding operations”, or CBOs — which would presumably have included John Hume’s breeding project which has 2,000 white rhinos — but a recently-released white paper did not even include the term CBO. It contained loads of other buzz terms, but little in the way of substance.

Hume’s project is now trying to sell about 100 rhinos a year for “rewilding” purposes, but the South African government could not afford the price tag, and sending the animals to state-run reserves would just be manna from heaven for poachers.

SA becoming a non-viable conservation option

One of the depressing things about the ongoing poaching crisis is that South Africa, outside the private sector, is simply becoming no longer a viable option for rhino conservation. South African rhinos have been translocated to places such as Rwanda, but the optics are terrible, as the Kigali regime is a sinister police state where human dissidents are at far more risk of coming to a sticky end.

Against this backdrop, circular and stale debates — such as whether to lift the decades-long ban on the trade in rhino horn — will persist. The relentless poaching in state parks suggests the ban is not working, but the South African government has signalled no intention of pushing to lift it.

One of the problems is that conservationists are divided among themselves, but all have the noble goal of preserving wildlife. When it comes to rhino conservation, private ownership at least seems to be working — the numbers speak for themselves.

Incentives, though, are lacking and will require some fresh thinking. DM/BM/OBP

it highlights the continued failure of the South African state, which lacks the capacity and resources to effectively stem the slaughter and remains riven by corruption

End of story...

As usual private citizens will have to make up for the failings of the ANC.

the reality is that KZN and in particular KZN wildlife is really in a bad way and these number just show a reflection of that with criminals taking advantage of the near total collapse ...

The political situation is a complete chaos

Rhino poaching declines in Africa, but white rhino in Kruger Park hardest hit


A black rhino. (Photo: EPA / Kim Ludbrook)

By Onke Ngcuka | 23 Aug 2022

Rhino poaching across Africa saw a significant decrease during strict Covid-19 lockdowns. But as the restrictions loosened, poachers intensified their onslaught on the threatened species, with South Africa hardest hit.
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Rhino poaching rates across the African continent have decreased by more than half compared with peak rates in 2015, with 90% of the reported poaching cases being in South Africa.

That’s according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN’s) Species Survival Commission African Rhino Specialist Group following the release of a report by the group and the wildlife trade specialist NGO Traffic.

The report found that rhino poaching rates had continued to decline from a peak of 5.3% of their total population in 2015 to 2.3% in 2021. In numbers, at least 2,707 rhinos were poached across Africa between 2018 and 2021. These numbers included the near-threatened (on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species) white rhino and the rarer critically endangered black rhino.

Kruger Park

In South Africa, the poaching mainly affected the white rhinos of the Kruger National Park, where the bulk of the world’s white rhino population is found. The white rhino population has since declined by almost 12% across the continent, from 18,067 to 15,942, the IUCN specialist group reported.

Black rhinos, on the other hand, have increased by about 12%, from 5,495 to 6,195. Four range states are responsible for conserving the rare African black rhino, with Namibia responsible for 34.8% (2,156 out of 6,195), South Africa 33.2% (2,056), Kenya 15.1% (938) and Zimbabwe 9.9% (616), the report said.

“The overall decline in poaching of rhinos is encouraging, yet this remains an acute threat to the survival of these iconic animals,” said Dr Sam Ferreira, a scientific officer with the IUCN SSC African Rhino Specialist Group.

“To support the growth of rhino numbers, it is essential to continue active population management and anti-poaching activities for all subspecies across different range states.”

Ninety percent of poaching cases are in SA

According to the report, the continent has about 22,137 rhinos, while there were 23,432 rhinos globally by the end of 2021. Meanwhile, 2,707 poaching incidents of the black and white rhino were recorded in Africa between 2018 and 2021, the report said. Ninety percent of the cases were in South Africa, particularly the Kruger National Park, which holds the largest population of white rhinos globally.

“It’s not surprising that South Africa was most affected by this illegal trade [of rhino horn], as the country contains more than half of the rhinoceroses that occur in Africa,” the report stated.

The African rhino population had seen a 1.6% decline per annum from 2018 to 2021 and a 3.9% decline in poaching rates. To increase African rhino numbers, the poaching rate needs to be kept below 3.6%, the report recommended.

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Earlier this month, the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) said poaching numbers had climbed after a steady decline over the years, with the increase due to an uptick of poaching in private reserves.

A previous decline in poaching had been attributed to the Covid-19 lockdowns which, due to limited mobility, saw a sharp decrease in rhino poaching numbers globally and locally, compared with previous years. South Africa experienced 394 rhino poaching incidents in 2020, with the Kruger National Park seeing a reduction of almost 80% in cases during this time. This number climbed to 451 the following year, the report found.

“Better reporting of seizure data will help us better quantify the extent of horns entering illegal trade for future reports. Although we cannot say with exact certainty what impact Covid-19 restrictions have had on rhino horn trade, 2020 did represent an abnormal year with low levels of reported illegal activity, law enforcement and government reporting. The continued and consistent monitoring of illegal trade is vital,” said Sabri Zain, Traffic’s director of policy.

Increased anti-poaching efforts

Declining poaching numbers in the Kruger National Park, which had 82 poaching incidents this year alone, according to a DFFE report, have been credited to increased anti-poaching efforts that have seen tightened measures and stronger partnerships between the private and public sectors.

However, the increasing demand for rhino horn as a wealth and status symbol, mainly in Asia, continues to threaten these efforts. Between 575 and 923 African rhino horns entered the illegal trade market each year from 2018 to 2020, the report found. In 2016 and 2017, this number stood at 2,378 African rhino horns per year.

“Transnational organised crime networks and the corruption they create continue to threaten rhinos. These networks are a risk to the safety and security of wildlife, and the people living around them and those working to conserve them.

“We know these challenges are global in nature and transnational collaboration and cooperation are required to overcome them, such as has been proven through multi-agency wildlife crime units.

“We must continue targeted efforts to build resilience to corruption, and to address the problem at the source in the form of illegal demand for rhino horn,” said Dr Margaret Kinnaird, the wildlife practice leader at WWF. DM/OBP

KZN numbers update 12 September