Top SANParks Officials Removed

[Richprins]

The story was carried in today's Sunday Times...maybe someone has a copy?

[Flutterby]

Found this on FB RP.

[Richprins]

That's it!

[Lisbeth]

Anybody surprised? I wish I were

[Richprins]

This is all perhaps the beginning of something, and one can't help feel it may not be all interconnected.

If Pathfinder were found to be connected with poaching themselves, SP would have stated so, and made an arrest somewhere. If SP had a problem with ex-police and army people being used by Pathfinder, why would they have hired them in the first place?

Personally it seems like a p'ing contest, re Pathfinder, with SAPS/Hawks/DEA not happy at being shown up as ineffectual by old pros...

Secondly the resignations/suspensions of office bearers smack of infighting, with the Board quite rightly questioning why rhino are still being sold from Kruger, amongst other things.

Here is where the real question is...why have SP top level kept insisting on rhino sales despite the obvious paradox!?

The number of rhino sent to China for farming remains uncertain, after initial replies in Parliament over a year ago.

[Lisbeth]

The number of rhino sent to China for farming remains uncertain, after initial replies in Parliament over a year ago.

Good point! We have never heard a word about that for ages

[Toko]

According to CITES database no rhino exported to China in 2013, last export of live rhino obviously in 2011

[Lisbeth]

Thank you to our encyclopedia

[Toko]

Private anti-poaching security firm booted out of Kruger. Published in: Legalbrief Environmental. Date: Tuesday 17 June 2014

The Times notes that a senior police officer described the shock decision to sack the company, Pathfinder, as a major blow to efforts to save the park's rhinos − which are being killed at a rate of three every day. 'Without these guys, we − the law enforcement bodies like the police and the Hawks and crime intelligence − are stuffed,' the officer is quoted in the report as saying. Pathfinder's contract with SA National Parks (SANParks), the body controlling the national parks, was prematurely cancelled last week amid speculation that the company's investigations posed a threat to people in high places. Pathfinder, made up largely of former defence force and police intelligence officers, was commissioned to work for SANParks until the end of February 2016. No one among the Kruger National Park staff could say why Pathfinder had been told to leave. 'We have no idea what's going on,' said a source in SANParks. 'But we all suspect that some mighty forces are at work. Somebody very influential and very senior and very political was very threatened by Pathfinder. I can only guess that Pathfinder was getting hot doing the work they were supposed to do.'

[Lisbeth]

Another mystery story