Fiona Macleod
Criminal charges will soon be laid against animal dealer Riccardo Ghiazza, who recently kidnapped 30 baby elephants from the Tuli bushlands in southern Botswana.
Ghiazza is holding the elephants near Hartebeespoort Dam, with the intention of selling them to zoos and animal trainers.
Rick Allen, manager of the wildlife unit of the National Council of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NSPCA), says he will institute charges of cruelty under the Animal Protection Act.
If convicted, Ghiazza faces a maximum fine of R4 000 – and more importantly, says Allen, he will be prevented from owning animals ever again.
Allen says it is up to the court to decide what should happen to the 30 babies, aged between four and 10 years. He will recommend they be returned to the Tuli, though this option would have to be supported by experts.
He has sent videos of the holding conditions to elephant behaviouralists in East Africa.
Armed with a search warrant earlier this month, he managed to get footage of the babies, whom he says appeared to be ”extremely stressed”. Ghiazza obtained a high court interdict preventing Allen from giving the images to the media, but an outraged photographer has managed to photograph some of the elephants with the ropes around their knees, chains on their hind legs and one young female charging at her handlers, who warded her off with a large sjambok and sticks.
Allen was due to meet South African National Parks representatives late this week to discuss the case. So far the NSPCA is the only local animal welfare group to take a strong stand on it.
He and conservationist Gareth Patterson, who was based in the Tuli for more than a decade and is an outspoken critic of the elephant kidnapping, have not only been threatened with legal action by Ghiazza, but have received a number of anonymous death threats.
Ghiazza and Chris Mostert, who transported the babies and is holding some of them at his farm in Mpumalanga, had arranged with the Tuli landowners’ association to take out another 20 elephants. These plans now appear to have been put on hold.