Caitlin Davies in Maun
IN what appears to be an effort by the Botswana government to create more rangeland for cattle in northern Botswana, thousands of buffalo are being herded south into the Okavango Delta to make way for a massive cattle stocking exercise, following last year’s slaughter by the government of 250 000 cattle in the area due to lung disease.
The idea is to separate cattle from buffalo, believed to carry foot-and-mouth disease.
The animals are being herded by helicopter through gaps in the fence. The fence, which runs from east to west and is just north of the delta, is still under construction.
Critics claim the fence is slap in the middle of what may well be a major migratory route for buffalo and other animals and will seriously reduce the amount of rangeland available for wildlife.
“It’s not an easy project,” says Peter Perlstein of Wildlife Helicopters, a private company hired by the government to herd the buffalo. “It’s not like herding cows.”
Buffalo, Perlstein says, are larger and more aggressive than cows, and will only follow a bull. They are also far more sensitve than cattle.
Perlstein’s role is to look for groups of buffalo which are very close to the fence, and then slowly work them into small pockets of about 300 and herd them through the gaps.
In the last two weeks he’s helped to move 1 800 buffalo down into the delta, and another herding exercise is expected to begin again in March.
“I think it’s a credible thing that the government considers it worth the expense to move as any animals as possible into the delta,” says Perlstein. “You can’t just sit back and do nothing.”
Perlstein agrees buffalo won’t be able to move back north after the fence is done, but says the animals are now in ideal conditions with water and grazing.
But Yssie du Plessis of the environmental group Okavango People’s Wildlife Trust is less optimistic. He says it’s not only buffalo that will be restricted but zebra, wildebeest, sable antelope and the endangered roan antelope.
In addition, he believes the fence will result in widespread wildlife deaths.
“That will definitely be a scandal,” says the director of the Hotel and Tourism Association of Botswana, Modise Mothoagae.
Dr Karen Ross, director of another local environmental organisation, Conservation International, agrees that in theory the animals are being “relocated to a nice place”, but says they are also losing a large proportion of their seasonal range.
Though she believes animals won’t die in their thousands, their figures could eventually go down as their rangeland is reduced.
“It’s almost impossible to evaluate fences from an office,” says Janis Lorentz from the Maun branch of the Kalahari Conservation Society.
“It looks like buffalo have been taken care of, I don’t know about the other animals.” – Okavango Observer