Africa Wild

Three rhinos in just three days It's a lot for a park like Pilanesberg

It must be much more difficult for the poachers to get in and out though

Apparently, they have set up random road-blocks in the park, checking cars.

I don't think that poachers move with daylight The post does not say how the rhinos were killed. Shooting would be heard for sure. Anyway better than nothing

Here's a cute rhino newborn to kick off your weekend right

2018-04-06 11:30 - Gabi Zietsman

Instead of another poached rhino story, instead enjoy a newborn rhino frolicking in the Inverdoorn Game Reserve.

The Western Cape game reserve welcomed their new baby white rhino on Facebook, the second one born in three years, which came into the world on 25 March.

They don't know yet the sex of the baby, but will be sure to protect the little one with their Rhinoprotect team, which was founded by the owner of Inverdoorn, who rolled out the dye-infused treatment that discolours the rhino's horn and makes it unfit for human consumption.

The reserve also has an orphanage for rhinos who lost their mothers to poaching and the team works on the ground to protect rhinos from poachers as well as a marketing component to create awareness around the plight of the endangered species.

Their newborn is some much needed good news after Sudan, the world's last male northern white rhino, passed away earlier this year, a massive blow to the conservation of the species.

Last year saw a small decrease in the number of rhinos poached, with the total standing at 1 028, only 26 less than 2016. In 2017, 502 alleged rhino poachers and 16 alleged rhino horn traffickers were arrested in South Africa. This saw a marked decrease from 2016, which saw a total of 680 people arrested in connection with poaching.

Authorities have also seized 220 weapons from poachers, while 8 rhino horn seizures at OR Tambo were made.

By the end of February, KwaZulu-Natal already saw 18 rhinos poached in 2018.

If that sounds depressing, these photos will cheer you right up, but remember the fight is far from over:

So cute!

Have there been published any numbers for this year from Kruger ?

Not that I know of.

Exactly!

Excellent journalism by De Wet Potgieter, Editor of Lowvelder!

Under Siege – Part 1: KNP under threat from Moz crime syndicates
Mozambican crime syndicates operating from the eastern border of the Kruger National Park (KNP) have created an ungovernable enclave from where anti-poaching units and game rangers in the Transnational Park, as well as Mozambican police, constantly come under attack from well-equipped armed gangsters.
19 hours ago

MBOMBELA – As a result of this lawlessness on its doorstep, the KNP is increasingly coming under threat from rhino poachers invading from the Mozambican side. Some of these poachers, arrested on the South African side, simply jump bail and return to the criminal syndicates in the border villages.

According to a Lowvelder investigation, the cross-border Transnational Park that includes KNP and the Greater Lebombo Conservancy are under siege from the crime syndicates who barter rhino horn for heroin and other contraband smuggled from the Sàbiè/Moamba districts into South Africa.

The same smuggling routes are also used for human trafficking and human body parts, intelligence sources told Lowvelder.

“The only thing that stands between these gangs and total anarchy are the anti-poaching units,” Sandy McDonald, second-generation owner of the Sàbiè Game Park (SGP) in Mozambique, told the paper. But now, the anti-poaching units are more severely attacked to neutralise that final buffer between law and order and total anarchy in the region. The park forms part of the greater Transnational Park.


“It doesn’t really help much if anti-poaching in KNP and the Greater Lebombo Conservancy is jacked up, but we have an ungovernable enclave on its eastern border from where everything is planned and executed,” he added.

When asked if he thinks that the KNP is also under siege by the invading gangs, McDonald said, “I believe it’s a multi-pronged siege of Kruger, but certainly the Mozambican threat is one of the most prominent.”

“On the ground at SGP we have the recipe to ensure that the only rhino alive in Mozambique can be protected and breed, but we can’t go up against an ungovernable area or syndicates that operate with impunity,” he said.


He added that it is clear that the level-two and -three criminal syndicate leaders are from the local populace and well known to all, including the law-enforcement agencies, but, “there are far more powerful forces at play in the area and one can begin to speculate how this all links up”.

But this problem is not one of poaching of rhino and elephant only, but part of a far bigger issue, and that is that the state has essentially lost control of the area where criminal syndicates rule supreme.

McDonald believes that pressure should be put on doing tax audits of the known criminal-syndicate bosses in the area to identify the real culprit who pulls the strings.



The area has been traditionally a Renamo stronghold and throughout the civil war and afterwards remained so, but was never this aggressive toward the conservation areas and authorities. According to a well-placed source, the situation has been exacerbated by the fact that the trading of rhino horn and ivory is funding wide-scale corruption and fuelling a regime of terror that affects not only the wildlife custodians in the Transfrontier Conservation Area, but controls the once-friendly communities both through fear and money.

“SANParks or KNP has a working relationship with both SGP and the SAPS when it comes to sharing information around security and the sharing of information on anti-poaching activities. KNP will not allow criminals to use it as a conduit,” said Ike Phaahla of SANParks. “We have patrols throughout the park and security at our gates to monitor and report any activities that might be criminal.”

“The situation of criminality in the area is obviously of concern to SANParks, but we are not a law-enforcement agency and we are limited in what we can do to investigate beyond the KNP borders, hence our suggestion that you get more information from SGP and the SAPS. We will, however, investigate the allegations,” Phaahla added.

https://lowvelder.co.za/431336/under-siege1/

Under Siege – Part 2: Rhinoceros butchered while president preaches conservation
While president Filipe Nyusi of Mozambique visited Sàbiè Town on Saturday, with a message to the local communities to conserve the wildlife in their country, a marauding gang of poachers nearby hunted down one of the country’s prize 12-year-old rhino bulls and butchered the helpless endangered animal’s horn while it was still alive.
20 hours ago

MBOMBELA- The rhino was part of a viable breeding herd brought into Mozambique to restore the extinct species back into the neighbouring country. According to Sandy McDonald, second-generation owner of Sàbiè Game Park (SGP), the Mozambican president is very aware of the problems that they face in the area.

The poachers hacked the rhino’s carcass with axes so that hyenas and lions could devour the animal quicker in an effort to conceal their heinous deed.

“On his Saturday visit to the town he certainly did not mince his words when addressing the rally that was attended en masse. His message was clearly that the plundering of state assets, visibly wildlife, must stop and that these criminal actions must not stand in the way of development of the area and particularly the development of the core conservation areas,” he told Lowvelder.

“Paradoxically this rhino was shot on the same day that the president visited Sàbiè Town and was discovered on Tuesday,” he added.




The poachers axed the ear with the tracking device off and tried to conceal it nearby, but the game wardens found it as they scoured the area for clues.

In his speech, Nyusi told the meeting that most of the profit from poaching does not go to the poachers themselves, but to organised-crime networks.


McDonald said a new administrator, who has a reputation of being able to get a handle on these types of situations, has been placed in Moamba.

He added that the head of law enforcement of wildlife crime in Mozambique, Dr Carlos Lopes Pereira, “is a true warrior and tirelessly fights the scourge of rhino and elephant poaching and is available to us 24/7”.


Mozambique has in a very short space of time changed its wildlife laws and the new Conservation Areas Act is a sound document and has been well received in the international arena.

McDonald believes that the NGOs supporting anti-poaching and rhino/elephant conservation have to do more to lobby governments internationally, to give support to the Mozambique authorities’ conservation efforts. They need equipment and logistical support, some of which they are getting, but critically they need intelligence support in monitoring communications and money movements related to the main actors involved.


“This applies to SA also. If one’s neighbour’s house is on fire you’d best help him put it out before yours catches fire
as well,” said McDonald.