Fiona Macleod
A Pretoria businessman is suing conservation authorities for about R7- million after he discovered that buffalo he bought at a public auction are infected with a disease that is fatal to cattle.
At least 150 cattle have died in the past two weeks at a farm in Dundee, KwaZulu-Natal, where the buffalo are being kept.
The buffalo have corridor disease, which is tick-borne. It is not fatal to buffalo, but is deadly when transmitted to cattle. If cattle and buffalo are kept apart, it soon reaches the end of a cycle and dies out.
Strict regulations governing the movement of buffalo are aimed at preventing the spread of this disease, as well as the more serious foot-and- mouth disease, to domestic animals.
The disease has been prevalent in the Kruger National Park and KwaZulu-Natal since its discovery in the 1950s. But it has been fairly successfully contained and outbreaks are usually the result of the smuggling of wild animals.
Hendrik Graphorn, the businessman at the centre of the legal wrangle, bought six buffalo at the KwaZulu-Natal Conservation Service’s annual auction last June.
His plan was to go into business with some veterinarians from Onderstepoort veterinary institute, breeding buffalo with in-vitro fertilisation and selling them.
The precondition was that the buffalo should be free of disease. “Clean” buffalo can fetch a high price – up to R120 000 each.
“I was in dire financial straits and the bank was threatening me with sequestration. This project would have pulled me out of the mud,” Graphorn says.
He paid R106 000 each for his six buffalo, including a huge bull. He was given clearance to take them to a farm in Cullinan, near Pretoria, but shortly after their arrival, they escaped from their boma.
Graphorn maintains they were deliberately released by someone trying to sabotage his project. He points out he’s a newcomer to the business and believes his plans are being blocked by “black boots” who want to keep control of the lucrative game-trading industry.
Gauteng conservation authorities captured five of the buffalo and impounded them on the Rustenburg farm of Nico Roux, a game-capture and transport expert. The sixth buffalo was left in the Cullinan area – and is still roaming free there.
Graphorn says he was never given a reason why his buffalo were impounded by the Gauteng authorities. He had to pay R100 000 into a special trust fund to get them released. He then took them down to Dundee, where they were kept on the farm of Gert Ehlers, an award- winning conservationist. Then the cattle starting dying.
Graphorn is suing Roux and the Gauteng authorities for R7-million for his expenses so far and projected loss of income.
The lone buffalo left roaming in Cullinan may provide the key to a number of puzzles. If it is carrying corridor disease, this will indicate the buffalo were infected when Graphorn bought them.
If this is the case, he will also sue the KwaZulu-Natal authorities – and so will the owners of other buffalo bought at the auction, who say their claims are worth millions.
If it is not infected, he says his other five must have picked up the disease at Roux’s place in Rustenburg.