Park plans to sell rhinos to ease a cash crisis
Fiona Macleod
The Kruger National Park is urgently selling 21 white rhinos in an attempt to stave off a cash-flow crisis that has seen it overdrawn by millions of rands in the past month.
The sale includes eight rhino cows and their calves, who will be taken straight out of the bush. The remainder are four bulls and a seven-year-old cow that are being held in bomas to acclimatise them to captivity.
Members of the independent ethics committee appointed by South African National Parks (SANP) to advise it on conservation management are alarmed at the sale of the cows and their calves. They say it is wrong to sell wild-caught animals straight into captivity, particularly zoos, and are worried that the cows will be separated from their calves.
“It is ethically unacceptable to split up mothers and calves,” says Karen Trendler, director of the WildCare animal rehabilitation centre and a member of the SANP ethics committee. “Rhinos have a close bond with their mothers for up to two-and-a-half years.”
Trendler says wildlife outfits often prefer to buy youngsters because they are more adaptable and it is possible to fit more of them on to an aeroplane. Mothers and calves are also popular among wildlife traders because they get two animals for a lower price, and can make a profit by splitting them.
But rehabilitation outfits such as WildCare have to treat the youngsters when things go wrong. WildCare was called on to sort out problems with calves taken from their mothers soon after they were sold on auction by the Kruger last year.
“Separating the calves before they are weaned, which happens at about 18 months, is particularly stressful. The calves stop eating, develop diarrhoea and are prone to stomach ulcers,” says Trendler.
The sale of the 21 white rhinos could raise about R10-million for the cash-strapped park. Tenders for the sale were sent to the wildlife industry last week and closed this Thursday.
The sale could provide a lifeline for the park, at a time when it has a cash shortfall of millions due mainly to flood repairs and a trough in tourist numbers. In a memo leaked to the Mail & Guardian late last month, Kruger’s director David Mabunda stated the park was running a R16,5-million overdraft and faced further expenditure of R20,1-million in the short term.
But wildlife experts say the Kruger, world-renowned for its conservation expertise, cannot afford to wash its hands of its responsibility to its animals once they are sold. The issue is being brought to a head in relation to the sale of Kruger elephants to hunting outfits.
Northern Cape rancher Styger Joubert is taking legal action against the Kruger after he paid a deposit to buy five elephants late last year and his contract was allegedly cancelled when park authorities discovered he wanted to hunt them. The park’s standard contracts of sale do not stipu-late the animals it sells may not be hunted and in some instances they are shot almost immediately after arriving at their new destinations.
“Many members of the public feel the Kruger Park is a place of sanctuary for wildlife where this kind of thing should not happen and that the management has a responsibility to its animals from the cradle to the grave,” says Trendler.
Inquiries about the rhino sale sent to the Kruger park two days before deadline remained unanswered at the time the M&G went to press.