A prominent member of the National Parks Board has been implicated in `canned’ lion hunting, reports Ellen Bartlett
THE game reserves named in the controversial television documentary on “canned” lion hunting in South Africa are not the only places where professional hunters are willing to bend the rules to help an inexperienced – or inept – hunter bag his trophy.
British TV’s The Cook Report team went to the Kapama Game Reserve, near Hoedspruit in the Northern Province, where they were told lions are “drawn in” using bait. In a conversation taped without his knowledge, the reserve’s professional hunter, Keith Boehme, also told the team that, if necessary, a lion could be shot from a hide.
Kapama Game Reserve is owned by Johan Roode, a prominent member of the National Parks Board and a founder of the trust which raises money for the South African Police Service’s cash-strapped Endangered Species Protection Unit. Roode, who is executive chairman of Genfood, could not be reached for comment at the time of going to press.
Kapama this week hosted the annual Interpol conference of wildlife law-enforcement specialists, held in South Africa for the first time.
The British-made documentary has stirred heated debate on hunting practices, with the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw) calling this week for an immediate moratorium on lion hunting in South Africa.
The Ministry of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, which had distanced itself from the matter, has issued a statement in which it pledges with provincial MECs to “root out those responsible” and to “stamp out illegal and inhumane hunting methods”.
The Cook Report team did not hunt at Kapama because the lions designated for hunting there this year had been spoken for. But Boehme assured The Cook Report producer Howard Foster that in a future hunt, their client – whom they had described as fat and unfit – could be accommodated: “He just has to do a little bit, get the lion on to the bait, make a half-hearted attempt to track the damn thing, or just shoot it from a blind [hide].
“So even the weakest of clients can still be satisfied and still at least have it done, you know, semi-ethically …” Foster read the transcript of the conversation to the Mail & Guardian.
Boehme said he did not “recall saying that at all”, though he acknowledged saying if the condition of their client necessitated it, he would let him shoot the lion from a hide, a practice he noted was not illegal.
As for baiting, he said, it is “common practice” and “as far as I know it is within the law … Wherever you go, the professional hunter will put out a bait … You hang a carcass in a tree in an area in which you think there are lions; you have to then physically track him and go and find where he is.”
According to the law of the former Transvaal province, which still applies in Northern Province, any luring of a wild animal “by bait, whether alive or dead, or anything else on account of the edibility, smell or taste thereof” is illegal.
Northern Province MEC for Agriculture, Land and Environmental Affairs, Tienie Burgers, confirmed “baiting is not allowed”. Those found contravening the conditions of their hunting permit could have the permit revoked. They could also be arrested, he said, though any action taken against Kapama, he noted, “is on the premise that the allegation is true”.
Burgers suggested this is a good time to examine hunting practices generally. “It is important that one should sit around a table and discuss it rationally and take an informed decision,” he said.
That is not likely to satisfy Ifaw, or Gareth Patterson, the lion devotee and protg of the late George Adamson, who brought “canned” lion hunting to the attention of The Cook Report.
“The only way to salvage our international image and to protect the animals is to call an immedediate halt to [lion hunting] pending an investigation,” Ifaw’s Africa head, Dave Barritt, said this week.
Patterson is calling for further investigations of lion-breeding farms; for the Kruger National Park to secure its western borders to prevent the escape of lions; for an end to all “captive and semi- captive breeding” of lions; and for South Africa’s lion population to be relocated to reserves no smaller than 20 000ha.
The Mpumalanga Parks Board has had the most radical response to the hunting scandal, announcing this week its “intention” to “no longer permit the captive breeding of any wild cat unless it could be proven that it formed part of a recognised research institution or project”. The board also plans to stop the hunting of captive-bred cats.
The National Parks Board has reacted with more circumspection. The park’s anti- poaching and investigations unit said in a report prepared for the board the contentions of The Cook Report that lions were lured from the park “were a gross misinterpretation of the facts”.
“The fact that the Kruger National Park was even mentioned in this incident indicates some other hidden agenda. With the upcoming Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species question involving our elephant and rhino management, focus of attention on alleged illegal activities relating to the park can be expected to escalate,” the report said.