Marloth Park: War of conflicting views erupts over prospect of culling animals

A war of words and conflicting views recently erupted in Marloth Park, a holiday town adjacent to the Kruger National Park, over the seemingly bleak future of starving animals.

Lowvelder recently reported on the NSPCA’s threats to apply for an interdict to force the authorities to bring animal numbers down to a feasible and controllable level. Animals in the settlement are dying in droves mainly due to starvation, injuries sustained during fighting over food and health issues such as TB.

In a letter written to the Nkomazi Local Municipality (NLM), Dawid Rudolph, animal health technician for the veterinary services of the Mpumalanga Department of Agriculture, warned that the animal population must urgently be kept to a minimum.

His remarks are part of a postmortem report he compiled after dissecting an impala carcass. He reported muscle wasting on the animal caused by the onset of oedema cachexia as a direct result of long-term malnutrition.

“Although the stomach was full of food, the body was struggling to recover. This indicated that the onset of cachexia was advanced and that the nutritional values in the food are very low.”

Animal numbers had previously been controlled via culling. This control method, however, ground to a halt more than decade ago when a blanket interdict was granted to the Marloth Park Ratepayers Association (MPRA) under the chairpersonship of Cindy Benson.

At the time the interdict was granted on the argument that no shooting was allowed in a residential area.

Shortly after the NSPCA’s plans came to light, a petition was launched by Sonica Coetzee. More than 600 people signed it. However, just as quickly as the petition was launched, the comments were turned off. Coetzee said she started the petition after “the NSPCA during a telephonic conversation told Cindy Benson that they want to remove all animals from Marloth Park.”

She said the comments on the petition were closed after some “keyboard warriors” responses had become unpleasant. The petition caused a flurry of comments in which questions such as the trustworthiness of the effort was questioned. Brian Isham wrote on Facebook that the details of signatories were hidden, which raised the question of who was actually signing it.

Tony Berlowitz, the attorney acting on behalf of the NSPCA, said on Monday, besides two responses, not one of the other eleven respondents to whom the letter was sent had reacted.

The NSPCA letter warned, among others, the NLM and the Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Agency (MTPA) that the municipality must immediately proceed to euthanise animals. “The reduction of overpopulated species (must) take place as a matter of urgency and before the summer season and excess breeding,” Berlowitz’s letter reads.

He said the NSPCA is in the final stages of preparing court papers to apply for an urgent interdict.

Benson, in a written response to questions by Lowvelder, shifted the blame for the culling crisis to the door of the municipality. “The lack of game removal is not due to the fact that the MPRA has an interdict to stop culling between our houses, but due to the fact that the municipality was reluctant to catch the animals in bomas and move them to Lionspruit where they can be shot.”

This statement was refuted by the NLM. “The fact of the matter is that MPRA has an interdict, and we cannot start culling (shooting) as long as this document is valid,”

Cyril Ripinga, spokesperson for the NLM, said: “We already issued a tender for the removal of animals and the service provider was appointed.” Ripinga said the service provider will, however, not cull the animals in Marloth Park, but capture them. The animals will then be moved to Lionspruit, a separate game reserve bordering on Marloth Park.

In the meantime, Deidré Joubert of the Wild and Free Rehabilitation Centre said they had noticed a concerning trend in Marloth Park. “Due to the supplementary feeding being put out, visitors and game viewers allow their guests to climb out of vehicles to get closer to the feeding spots. These are wild animals, and it’s only a matter of time before someone gets hurt.”

Denis Goffinet of the Marloth Park Property Owners Association (MPPOA) said: “The NSPCA welcomed the MPPOA’s stance on the matter (to cull and control animal numbers).”