Hunters block Creecy’s wildlife management reforms

Wide-ranging legislation attempting to bring recommendations to life of the high-level panel on the management, breeding, hunting, trade and handling of elephant, lion, leopard and rhinoceros were withdrawn this week by the Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Barbara Creecy.

The minister withdrew the legislation after seeking legal advice “on the coming into effect of the revised threatened or protected species (TOPS) regulations and species list after the Wildlife Ranching South Africa (WRSA) and the Professional Hunters Association of South Africa (Phasa) launched an urgent interdict application in the Gauteng High Court”.

Wildlife management legislation withdrawn

This was despite receiving a 700-page report from the high-level panel, and then taking “advice on these new regulations in the light of the high-level panel recommendations and the white paper policy process”.

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These included the national norms and standards for the management of elephants, norms and standards for the trophy hunting of leopard and repealing the notice amending the alien and invasive species list and list of critically endangered, endangered, vulnerable and protected species.

The withdrawal of the notices was published in the Government Gazette on 31 March, the day before the regulations were to come into effect. This means the previous editions of TOPS and the National Environment Biodiversity Act (Nemba) will remain in effect.

WRSA chairman Gerhard Heyneke said the list of protected species – which included bontebok, mountain zebra, oribi and rhinoceros – had been expanded to include blesbok, wildebeest (gnu) and sable antelope.

The new animals were placed on the list to prevent inbreeding, which Heyneke said was impossible to prevent.

“The import and export of animals to neighbouring countries would have had to be accompanied by a DNA certificate and there are huge costs attached to this,” Heyneke said in an interview with Landbou Radio.

Regulations on private ranches

Heyneke said it didn’t make sense such regulations would apply to the private sector but not to protected areas.

“There is no evidence, also from the [DFFE] side, inbreeding is happening on such a large scale it has any influence whatsoever,” he said.

According to ecologist Dr Gayle Pedersen, this is not exactly true.

“What Heyneke is saying is a cop-out, one of the things with inbreeding is you won’t know until it’s too late because it takes generations to show,” Pedersen said.

“One of the symptoms of inbreeding is susceptibility to disease and if animals are so inbred, if something affects one, it will affect the entire population because there will be no immunity, something we’ve recently seen with Covid. Heyneke’s remarks show a lack of understanding of the dangers involved.”

The legislation was being imposed on breeders and ranchers specifically, said Pederson, because they were the ones specifically breeding animals to be moved around.

“So, there is a responsibility on their part to make sure they don’t keep sending the same bloodline to the same reserve, almost like managing species as a meta-population as we do with rhino and cheetah, for example,” Pedersen noted.

A simple way of doing this would be through the use of a stock book, where details of animals could be easily recorded and transfers to other ranches properly managed.

DNA testing was becoming more popular as testing centres became more widely available.

“Turnaround time [for results] was one of the big complaints when there were only few laboratories available, but the longer the technology is used and the more people start collaborating with overseas researchers and scientists, the more affordable it is becoming,” Pedersen said, adding protected areas had the advantage of not being as densely populated and herds would be thinned out by predators.

‘Hamstrung by government’

Phasa CEO Dries van Coller said the industry was already being “hamstrung by the inability of various national and provincial departments to administrate the myriad of environmental regulations”.

“State departments already do not have the capacity or funding to administer the wildlife industry properly,” Van Coller said.

“There is simply no money in some provinces to cover the costs associated with statutory oversight work.

“The system is stalling due to the departments not having enough people and money to do their job.

“Now we see a minister who wants to impose even more conditions on an already over-regulated industry despite having a predecessor who admitted to Parliament in October 2015 that the departments will not have the capacity to administrate the new TOPS regulations,” said Van Coller.

“On top of all this, we see the department refusing to talk to us when we raise concerns about how things are going.”

WRSA CEO Richard York said in the joint statement with Van Coller the urgent court “was only approached after the Department shut the door on industry during discussions held on 27 February”.

“Litigation was only initiated after the department made it clear that they would not be considering the game industry’s concerns,” York said.

Hunting amendments

When Creecy first announced the wide-ranging amendments in February, she noted “leopard hunting zones provide for a maximum of one leopard to be hunted per zone per annum”.

“To ensure that hunting is ecologically sustainable and does not disrupt the stability of the leopard population, the norms and standards require that only male leopard may be hunted, and that these are a minimum of seven years old,” Creecy said at the time.

“This will ensure these male leopards have had the opportunity to contribute their genetics to the population, enhancing the genetic integrity of the leopard population. The scientific authority will advise if hunting quotas will impact negatively on leopard population viability.”

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As far as the management of elephants was concerned, Creecy said the norms and standards would provide “for the issuing authority to appoint a panel of specialists to assist with the evaluation of the management plan, which will ensure plans are effectively scrutinised and improved”.

The biggest problem for York was the increase in regulation over privately held game which “refuses to include the number of animals held in private ranches when determining whether a species requires protection”.

“In effect, the conservation of TOPS species significantly harms the species under the TOPS regulations,” York said.

The DFFE said it was still committed in reforming the legislative framework in relation to threatened or protected terrestrial and freshwater species.

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