Kruger animal numbers looking good despite snares, poaching

Experts say the Kruger National Park ecosystem is doing good things, despite pressure from snares and poaching.

State veterinarian at the department of agriculture, forestry and fisheries Dr Louis van Schalkwyk said there wasn’t a more horrible injury for an animal than from a snare. “It lasts long and damages badly if it doesn’t kill,” he said.

Kruger snares

Van Schalkwyk said carnivores were not target species and were often strong enough to break the snare and escape.

“Hyenas coincidently end up in snares because they are always roaming,” he said.

“Because they are very tough animals they either bite through the wire or break it off. Most of the wounds they get is when trying to get out of snare. What kills the animal eventually is not the suffocation but infection.

ALSO READ: K9 heroes: Dogs’ vital role in Kruger Park’s poaching crackdown

“Wild dogs are snare magnets because they run chaotically and get caught in the snare lines; lions often get caught in the thicker cables but get loose and are generally less affected because they are stronger,” he said.

Van Schalkwyk said elephants usually managed to break the thick cables but also got deep cuts in escaping.

A South African National Parks’ ecologist, Dr Sam Ferreira, said snares were placed in hotspot areas. Currently there were two areas of importance, the north of the park and the southeastern part, at Pretoriuskop.

“The poaching trends over Covid were difficult to tell because the park relies on tourists to report incidents.

“There was some expectation that we may see increases in snaring because people were in difficult situations.

ALSO READ: Calls mount for wildlife poaching to be made a scheduled offence

“There was even a report about the reduction of rhino poaching during Covid. So it’s not a simple matter of more reports of snares,” he said.

Ferreira said more snares were removed during clean-ups in the dry season than in the wetter seasons.

“The snares are not getting fewer but snaring is not everywhere, it’s concentrated,” he said.

Animal population

The elephant population at the Kruger was roughly 30 000 and has increased in contrast to the rest of Africa.

“South Africa now proudly has more elephants than Kenya,” he said. “Some people worry about the increase because (of) the ecological impact,” he said.

ALSO READ: No improvement: Rhino population struggles to recover from poaching

Ferreira said the population of spotted hyenas had doubled to 7 000 compared to 15 years ago. Buffalo and giraffe populations had also increased. The lion population currently stood at about 2 000.

“The system is busy doing good things, despite the localised pressure you are seeing from snares,” he said.

“On a broad spectrum, our animals are doing well, except for our rhinos – and this is in the face of poaching.

“In the past three years, our black rhinos maintained their population. It’s a low population of roughly 210,” he said.

The mortality, or death rate, of black rhinos was the same as the numbers recruited or born.

ALSO READ: Kruger Park records ‘steady decline’ in rhino poaching

“In white rhino, we haven’t seen that at all. Over the past decade, the total death rates have been higher than the recruitment rates,” he said.

Poaching

Ferreira said the park had recorded the lowest rate of poaching last year, but the drought had affected the mating rate of white rhinos.

“In the drought of 2015, we saw rhinos die more than expected, but a year later, we saw substantially fewer cows born because during the drought the females couldn’t get enough grass to get a good enough body condition to get pregnant.

ALSO READ: Hawks investigate R9m rhino horn stockpile theft

“After the rain, all the cows got pregnant together and the birth rates increased,” he said.

Head of the department of justice and criminology at the University of Limpopo Professor Jaco Barkhuizen said some people poached for food and others for financial gain.

“A small minority poach for survival but the majority of poaching is money-driven,” he said.