Canning Kruger's Elephants

Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg)

July 9, 2004
Fiona Macleod

Professional hunters are capitalising on the Kruger National Park's growing elephant population by selling "canned" elephant hunts to wealthy American clients.

Police and conservation officials are investigating the "hunting" of a Kruger bull within hours of its delivery to a safari outfit in North West province. Sedated and disoriented after being plucked out of the wild and transported hundreds of kilometres, the bull was reportedly shot by a Texan oil magnate.

Three other bulls have been delivered to the Orion Safari Lodge and farm near Rustenburg in the past fortnight, where New York hotel and casino tycoon Donald Trump is among the clients expected soon.

They may arrive to find their intended trophies have fled the "postage-stamp size" property where they will be hunted. Two of the bulls have already escaped and one travelled about 200km northwards before both were recaptured and returned to the property.

The hunters charge their clients up to $50 000 (about R303 500) to shoot a mature Kruger elephant. Their own costs involved in buying the elephants and moving them to the hunting destination are unlikely to amount to more than R100 000.

"Taking an animal like this out of the Kruger park, transporting it hundreds of kilometres and then shooting it within hours is immoral and unacceptable," says a conservation official who did not want to be named.

"If it is an issue of too many elephants, then they should rather be honest and cull the elephants on their home ground. But, of course, there is not as much money to be made in culling. This is a false pretence. It is not the way South Africa should handle its wildlife."

The four bulls were bought by hunting outfitter Hugo Ras from the Sabi Sands game reserve on the western boundary of the Kruger. Home to luxury tourism lodges such as Mala Mala, Sabi Sabi and Londolozi, the reserve says it has an overpopulation of elephants coming from the Kruger.

Sabi Sands has sold about 80 elephants to private buyers in the past two years and plans to sell off more family groups. Controversies around culling Kruger's elephants, which was stopped in 1995, have resurfaced recently as scientists say there are too many elephants in the world-famous park.

Gavin Hulett, warden at Sabi Sands, says it was a condition of the sale to Ras that the elephants would not be hunted. But it is clear Ras did not feel obliged to abide by this condition - he obtained a hunting permit from the North West authorities even before the bulls arrived at the Orion premises.

Ras has also recently acquired a small family group of seven elephants, which he bought from insurance tycoon Douw Steyn's reserve in Limpopo. Breeding herds of elephants need about 1 500ha per elephant - Orion, which Ras is in the process of buying from fellow professional hunter Johan Botha, covers about 4 500ha and now has 10 elephants.

Ras admitted to the Mail & Guardian this week that the elephant bull was shot within hours of being offloaded. He said it had broken out of a camp and was causing mayhem.

"I am no elephant killer. I am a farmer dealing in wildlife," he said.

Ras has faced a number of charges of illegal hunting in Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal. Limpopo officials say they are investigating him in connection with further irregularities in that province.

They are also trying to find out the fate of four lions Ras has moved to Orion. The lions were wild-caught at a reserve in Limpopo and the condition of their sale to Ras was that they must be free-ranging.

For years American hunters have been complaining about corruption and a lack of ethics in the South African hunting industry, including "canned" lion hunts. These complaints led to Safari Club International (SCI), the biggest hunting organisation in the United States, opening an office in South Africa nine years ago, says Linda Venter, SCI's Africa office manager.

SCI still outlaws records of lion-hunting trophies from South Africa as a result of the scandal surrounding canned lion hunting. SCI will be part of a high-level annual Africa Wildlife Consultative Forum discussing hunting and other conservation-related issues at Sun City early next week.

It will not be surprising if canned elephant hunting in South Africa becomes part of those discussions.