SIZWE SAMAYENDE, Nelspruit | Monday
MPUMALANGA’s international safari parks are under threat following an order that they shoot all lions and other game infected by tuberculosis.
The private 15_000 hectare Ligwalagwala Conservancy near Malelane has already been forced to kill 12 infected lions and claims to have lost 80% of its tourists as a result.
The lions were shot on instructions of the Mpumalanga Parks Board in September but surrounding game reserve operators have refused to follow suit.
“The only real drawing power for many of these reserves is the Big Five. Tourists simply will not travel thousands of miles from America or Europe if they are not given the chance to see lions,” said wildlife documentary maker and local resident Greg Nelson.
“But TB will not be wiped out even if all the local lions are killed. Lions get TB from the animals they prey on.”
TB is endemic to buffalo and wildebeest in the area, and a visiting doctor recently detected TB in a warthog.
“You’d have to kill all carriers to wipe the disease out, so are they saying that we have to shoot all game in the Underberg?” said Nelson.
Gazebo game farm manager Louise Marais confirmed her reserve was ordered to kill 12 infected lions last year.
“Lions are expensive assets and we simply couldn’t just kill them, so when there was no other option we obtained a permit to allow American hunters to cull the animals,” said Marais.
“We mitigated some of our losses, but now we’ve lost 80% of our tourists because no-one is interested in visiting a reserve that can’t promise lions.”
Mpumalanga’s veterinary services department admitted it does not know the source of the disease but speculates that it could be coming from the Kruger National Park, where it was identified in 1990.
Deputy director for animal health in Mpumalanga Lowveld region, Dr Ben du Plessis, said game farm owners would have to cull their infected lions because there is no treatment for bovine-TB.
“The disease cannot be treated and the way to solve it is to destroy the animals,” said du Plessis.
That idea has however been considered “heavy-handed” by Johan Moller, an owner of Lowhill Game Lodge in the conservancy. Moller’s 15 lions are infected but he is adamant that he will not cull them.
“Why should I kill mine when those in the Kruger Park are not killed?” he said. – African Eye News Service