The role of the NSPCA or SPCA is to ensure re-capture methods are humane and welfare is considered. Photo: Supplied
One morning in 2015, Karen Trendler sat in front of her computer and started to trawl websites selling tiger cubs. Four hours later, by 12.30pm, she had secured one.
“It was just to show how easy it is for a member of the public to purchase a tiger,” recalled Trendler, a conservation specialist, who was working with a journalist on an investigation. “We went right the way through to saying ‘yes we will [buy]’ and we’ll transfer the funds.”
The cub would have been delivered to her home in Westcliff, Johannesburg. “Obviously, we didn’t transfer the funds because we didn’t want to be part of it … And who would we have reported that owner to? He was doing something legal.”
On Monday, surveillance footage reportedly captured a young female tiger roaming the driveway of an office complex in Edenvale in Ekurhuleni. Last month, another female tiger, Sheba, escaped from her enclosure on a smallholding in Walkerville, Joburg. She severely mauled a man, William Mokoena, and killed two dogs and a pig, before she was shot dead. The tigers were privately owned pets who escaped.
Trendler, who formerly ran the wildlife trade and trafficking unit of the National Council of SPCAs (NSPCA), said the keeping of tigers and exotic animals is largely unregulated, has grown and is closely linked to the captive lion breeding industry.
With captive-bred lions, for example, each province has certain fencing requirements. “The fact that the tigers are totally unregulated means that you can keep them in your backyard in Benoni with a precast fence or an ordinary garden fence.”
As tigers are not regulated, “there’s no way of knowing how many there are, where they are, or of being able to do an inspection — until something happens … National policy says it’s okay to keep tigers, that ‘we’re not concerned about it’. Then with the municipalities and the provinces, the legislation is fragmented and different across the different provinces.”
Kelly Marnewick, a senior lecturer in the department of nature conservation at the Tshwane University of Technology, said: “Tigers are exotic. You don’t need any permits to keep them, the same as you wouldn’t need any permits to keep a goldfish or an African grey parrot. Anyone can own a tiger … It’s problematic because not only is it a human safety risk, particularly in urban areas, but it also becomes a welfare risk to the animals.”
Albi Modise, spokesperson for the department of forestry, fisheries and environment (DFFE) said tigers are an alien species.
“The regulations require listing of such species and for the applicant to apply for a permit to introduce and keep [them]. The issuing of permits for enclosures for wild species is the responsibility of respective provincial and/or municipal authorities.”
The keeping of non-indigenous species and generally keeping animals as pets is regulated by provinces and by by-laws, where they exist.
Douglas Wolhuter, manager of the NSPCA’s wildlife protection unit, said in its last inspection listing in 2021, it located at least 16 premises in residential areas that housed tigers. On average, there are five to six complaints about tigers annually, “however these are on the rise as people become more aware of the tiger problem”.
It’s relatively easy to own a tiger as the only permit requirement in the East Rand is an import permit when bringing one from another province. “However, tigers sourced within Gauteng would be exempt from this requirement. There is a deficiency in terms of the wild animal definition in that it excludes exotic animals.”
Most tigers on the East Rand are sourced through a breeding facility in North West “and as such, the predator industry plays a large role”. Apart from Gauteng, other provinces which have “lax laws” are North West, Mpumalanga and Limpopo, however it is municipal by-laws that are the “primary failing as the by-laws allow for exotics”.
For Marnewick, the less people “glamourise and glorify” owning a tiger, the better. “Owners need to be held more accountable for damage caused when their animals escape.”
The role of the NSPCA or SPCA is to ensure re-capture methods are humane and welfare is considered, said Wolhuter.
“The animals are inevitably killed when there is a great risk to people or their property. That’s when a decision has to be made between darting, trapping or a death shot.”
In 2021, DFFE Minister Barbara Creecy announced a high-level panel had recommended South Africa no longer captive-breed lions, keep lions in captivity or use captive lions or their derivatives commercially.
Writing in The Conversation, NGO World Animal Protection said it had received reports that some lion farm owners appear to be shifting from lions to tigers and ligers, which are lion-tiger hybrids. “This may be in response to South Africa’s recent announcement of its decision to end lion farming.”
Trendler concurred. “We’re now looking at winding down … the lion industry, well, they’re just going to move to tigers. There already are a lot of tigers in that industry, they’re unregulated and they’re not going to have the hype around them that the lions have, so we’re just going to see a swing. We’re already seeing it.”
A report last year by Four Paws found 359 tigers and 93 tiger parts were exported from South Africa between 2011 and 2020, mainly to Vietnam, China and Thailand, “which all have high demand for tiger parts used in traditional medicine and luxury items”.
Hundreds of private facilities breed lions, tigers, leopards and jaguars and, in some cases, cross-breed them for commercial purposes. The lack of effective controls on record-keeping and regulation, and the level of overt breeding and commercial trade, has made it impossible to estimate the true number of animals, it said.
Fiona Miles, Four Paws director in South Africa, said it was urging the DFFE to include all big cats, including non-indigenous species, which are also being “intensively bred”, in the phase-out of the lion breeding industry.
As news broke of the tiger in Edenvale on Monday, Wendy Willson the legal and operations lead at the Johannesburg Wildlife Veterinary Hospital had her hands full with the case of a man selling poached animals on the side of the road in Tarlton.
“Everyone thinks the illegal animal trade is something that happens only with tigers and tiger kings in a world removed from everyday life, but the trade is real, it’s everywhere and it’s violent,” said Willson.
Since the hospital’s inception in 2017, it has recorded an approximate 200% to 1 000% increase in the illegal pet trade in indigenous species, including Southern African pythons, chameleons, monitors, tortoises, meerkats, serval, monkeys, baboons, mongooses, badgers, owls and jackals. “We are literally haemorrhaging our indigenous animals out of this country and it’s not been taken seriously.”
A wild animal cannot have all its needs for health and welfare met in captivity but many individuals and collectors want to own wildlife simply for the “ego boost” it provides.
She told of a rattlesnake found abandoned in a warehouse in Roodepoort last year. “Nobody actually knew it was a rattlesnake. When people went in there to start cleaning, they found this rattlesnake in a broken enclosure, completely dehydrated and starving to death.
“But it’s a rattlesnake — there is no anti-venom for [it] and some completely innocent person is at huge risk because someone took a decision to own a rattlesnake and then leave this incredibly dangerous animal.”
Willson said legislation and policies have to be tightened to protect animals and people.
Wolhuter said venomous snakes such as cottonmouths, for which there is no anti-venom available, and chinchillas are in high demand as pets “yet no home environment can match that of what these creatures truly need to thrive”.
“Yellow neck slider turtles and other species of fish are also hazardous to the local indigenous species in South Africa as are some species of exotic snakes.”
After Sheba’s escape, Creecy instructed the biodiversity and conservation group, which represents provinces and municipalities, to discuss a regulatory framework to govern exotic animals in captivity, Modise said. They met last Thursday.
“DFFE and provinces have agreed to establish a task team, together with the SA Local Government Association, to audit facilities where such exotic species and other dangerous animals … are kept in captivity with a view to developing a national regulatory framework.”
Trendler said: “Once they start regulating [tigers] they then have to police and enforce, and we’ve heard some of the provinces say they don’t have a capacity to enforce. And again, how do you suddenly say to every tiger owner, that you’re not allowed to keep them or breed them?
“This is exactly the same way the lion industry is saying, ‘You gave us permits to conduct this business, now you’re telling us we can’t do it. We’ve invested money, we have staff, we have animals. If you take away our permits we’re going to sue you for loss of income.’
“So, there could be legal challenges when they try to regulate it.”