000
Ellen Elmendorp
Television news viewers were charmed last week by the story about Tammy, the Western Cape police’s perlemoen-sniffing dog. But Tammy’s fame has taken an ugly turn with the news that perlemoen poachers would like to see her knocked off, and have taken out a R50 000 contract on the lively Border collie’s head.
Tammy’s keeper and trainer, Sergeant John Hennop from Gordon Bay’s police, is quite aware of this – ”they tried once but it didn’t work” – and keeps her close at all times. Not only to protect her from bullets, but also because the moment poachers see her, they know trouble is coming.
Says Hennop: ”When the dog was new, the fishermen thought it was a drug bust and when we came to inspect, they threw all their dagga in the water. Fishing is a hard, low-life job, they need the drugs.”
But the police are not that interested in the small poachers, who don’t make the huge profits that come the middlemen’s way.
Since January last year, Tammy has uncovered about R1,9-million in smuggled perlemoen and crayfish. She is better suited for the job than German Shepherds because she is small and can get in most places.
And she is quite tough, able to find illegal shellfish when working in sub-zero temperatures in the refrigerated warehouses. Rotten sausages, fish, rooi els, nothing will hide the smell of perlemoen and crayfish from her.
She will only think of working when she wears her own police uniform, a small jacket with ”Police” written on it. The first time she worked she found 300kg of perlemoen.
Another time she uncovered 1,5 tons over three days at Johannesburg International airport. Her reward: a game with a tennis ball.
The perlemoen gets smuggled out in batches of 300kg to 500kg. Most of it is exported to Far Eastern countries who regard it as an aphrodisiac. Says Hennop: ”Unfortunately we don’t get the money, it goes to the government. All the perlemoen goes on tender, the commercial guys buy and the money goes back into the fisheries.”
The fishing communities protect each other. Livelihood from fishing goes back generations and the fishermen feel that the sea where they live belongs to them, not only for commercial reasons.
Hennop: ”We try to educate the fishermen. They catch the perlemoen when they’re too small so they can’t reproduce. It seems that the market is looking for the small ones.
”It is a little war. When we try to arrest them and it gets ugly, we use force: tear gas, stun grenades. The poachers carry guns and sometimes we have to fight our way out of a situation because they can get aggressive and outnumber us.
”There is so much money in the business, they are not worried about bail. When five divers needed R30 000 bail, it was paid straight away. Four years ago, we saw the problem and didn’t think we would ever use a dog. And look where we are now.”
He throws the tennis ball. A happy Tammy catches it in the air.