MARLOTH PARK – Nkomazi Rangers in Marloth Park have started culling warthogs. This is part of the game-management plan of the Marloth Park Property Owners Association (MPPOA), the Nkomazi Local Municipality (NLM) and the Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Agency (MTPA).
A total of 150 warthog need to be culled. This is an emotional issue for residents, and one of them uploaded a photo on Facebook of one of the animals being shot. Tame and used to humans, it stood only a few metres from the shooter, making no attempt to flee.
Mr Jan Muller of the MTPA says that people should understand that it is very difficult to capture warthog. “It can get quite chaotic when you want to catch warthog and their culling in the town is not because officials are reneging on the agreement not to shoot animals in the town, but it is the only way to get rid of the quota of warthog.
As for the rest of the animals to be removed, two bomas will be constructed on May 18, if all things go according to plan and all the necessary permits have been issued,” Muller said.
The agency is responsible for the capture, transport and export permits, while the state veterinary services supply the disease-control permits, because Marloth Park is situated behind the red line indicating the foot-and-mouth disease area.
If some of the captured animals are to be exported to Mozambique, its government will also have to issue import permits. “I am hopeful that there won’t be a delay in acquiring the permits, because the construction of the bomas will only take place when all the permits have been issued.”
The construction of the bomas for game capture was supposed to be done early in April already and because of the delay, the trustees of the Marloth Wildlife Fund agreed that there was a need to start feeding the animals in town.
The Wildlife Fund started putting food at the boma sites in mid-April. “We want to thank all the residents and visitors to Marloth Park for their donations of more than R8 000. The goodwill that we experienced was overwhelming,” the chairman of the Marloth Wildlife Fund, Ms Jayne Barlow, told Lowvelder.
The organisation also conveyed messages of thanks to Obaro in Komatipoort which supported the feeding programme by giving a generous discount on game feed.
Barlow also thanked Molatek, the animal-feed division at TSB, for its donation, as well as Wildlife Pharmaceuticals, the company appointed to do the game capture, for another truck load of feed which arrived a week ago.
Barlow also wanted to thank NLM for providing transport to collect the donated feeding blocks. “Last but not the least, we would also like to thank property owners and visitors to Marloth who volunteered to help us distribute the feed to our animals.”
The donation by Molatek will also be used to feed the remaining animals during winter once the game capture has been completed.
