SA hunter pays N$1 million for rhino hunt

05.01.2012

JOHANNESBURG – A decision by the South African wildlife parks to auction the right to hunt white rhinoceros has stirred up controversy, with lobby groups warning that the species is already under pressure from poachers.

A businessman in the Kwazulu-Natal region recently paid N$960 150 for the licence to shoot a male rhinoceros in a reserve, after successfully bidding for the right from the regional nature conservation authority, Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife.

The authority’s chief Bandile Mkhize defended the decision to auction shooting rights, arguing that the decision to reduce rhino numbers was “based on sound ecological, demographic and genetic wildlife management grounds”.
“We feel more than justified that we have followed defendable principles and protocols,” he said.
Mkhize said reducing certain rhino males could actually enhance the population’s growth rates and help to further genetic conservation.

In addition, auctioning the right to shoot “generates substantial revenues and helps provide much needed additional funding and support to effective conservation management programme as well as providing incentives for rhino specific conservation”.

But while the proceeds from the auctioned hunt are to be reinvested in environment protection, anti-poaching lobby groups are up in arms against the move as they warn that poachers are already depleting South African wildlife reserves.

Simon Bloch, who represents a group of South African citizens outraged by poaching, warned that the wildlife protection authority’s move “sends the wrong message to the world”.

The group Stop Rhino Poaching estimates that 446 rhinos were killed in South Africa in 2011, a sharp jump from the 13 lost in 2007, 83 in 2008, 122 in 2009 and 333 in 2010.
The street value of rhinoceros horns has soared to about U$65 000 a kilogram, making it more expensive than gold, platinum and in many cases cocaine, as a belief - with no basis in science - has taken hold in recent years in parts of Asia that ingesting it can cure or prevent cancer.
South Africa, home to more than 20 000 rhinos, was losing about 15 animals a year a decade ago. But poaching increased dramatically from about 2007 as a growing affluent class in places such as Vietnam and Thailand began spending more on rhino horn for traditional medicine.
The number of rhinoceroses dying unnatural deaths in South Africa, either through illegal poaching or legal hunts, has reached a level likely to lead to population decline, according to a study by Richard Emslie, an expert in the field.

About half of poaching takes place in Kruger National Park, the country’s flagship park covering an area about the size of Israel, where soldiers and surveillance aircraft have been deployed in recent months to slow the carnage.
The park has been the focal point of an arms race as gangs of poachers sponsored by international crime syndicates have used high-powered weaponry, night vision goggles and helicopters to hunt the animals, investigators said.
Many poachers were trained by Mozambique’s military or police and are now living in squalor in the border region next to Kruger, South African investigators said.
Their cut of the rhino money is relatively small compared to other players in the international trade but is considered a fortune at home.

Rhino horn has been used for centuries in Chinese medicine, where it is ground into a powder and often mixed with hot water to treat a variety of maladies including rheumatism, gout, high fever and even devil possession.

In recent years, it has also taken on a reputation for being an aphrodisiac and cancer cure.

“Nothing is more tragic than to see this totally unnecessary and brutal killing of an animal for its horn, and the horn in turn has zero medicinal value,” said Pelham Jones, a leader of the South Africa Private Rhino Owners Association.

– Nampa-AFP-Reuters

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