By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Forestry, Fisheries and Environment Minister Barbara Creecy says 231 rhinos were killed in South Africa in the first half of the year, representing an 11% decrease when compared to the same period last year.
Creecy said the figures had shown a continuing trend of poaching moving away from the Kruger National Park to provincial and private reserves.
Asked if the decrease in Kruger went hand-in-hand with depleting animal numbers, Creecy said it was “no secret” that the rhino population there “has been severely battered through almost 20 years of poaching.”
“This is why you see a displacement to other areas,” she told a press conference, adding that however she attributed the overall downward trend in poaching to the “incredible work” of rangers and law enforcement agencies.
Creecy declined to say how many rhinos were left in the park — a tourist magnet bordering Mozambique — as she did not wish to provide criminals with “intelligence”.
Kruger’s estimated tally in 2021 was 2,800 rhinos, around 70 percent down compared to 10,000 in 2008, according to statistics from the national parks authority, SANParks.
The eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal has been particularly affected, with 143 rhinos killed there in the first half of 2023, 10 more than in the same period in 2022.
Home to nearly 80 percent of the world’s rhinoceroses, South Africa is a poaching hotspot, driven by demand from Asia, where horns are used in traditional medicine for their supposed therapeutic effect.
In recent years, the government has tightened security in Kruger and stepped up efforts to tackle the illegal trade in wildlife parts.
As of 2023, new SANParks employees have to take a lie detector test amid concerns that some workers might be in cahoots with poachers.
The National Prosecuting Authority had also designated a prosecutor to facilitate rhino poaching cases in KwaZulu-Natal and prioritise and expedite them in the court process, Creecy said.
She added that discussions around rhino dehorning were underway with Ezemvelo, and that the department was looking into “mobilising financial support in that regard”.
Creecy said, in the first six months of this year, 31 people had been convicted of poaching-related crimes.
She said research was also being done around legislative amendments to address the challenge relating to the opposing of bail due to the fact that rhino poaching is not listed as a Scheduled Offence.