Kruger Park confirms impala video incident was ‘above board’

A video showing a group of men in the Kruger National Park (KNP) loading a dead impala into their vehicle has caused major uproar in the wildlife community.

According to Yvonne Breytenbach, whose husband Martin took the video on Saturday, they came across the dead impala at around 12pm close to Satara, they told Lowvelder.

She said that they asked another visitor who was standing by the carcass what had happened. The visitor told them that the impala had just been killed by a leopard and that everyone was waiting for the leopard to return to claim its kill.

The Breytenbachs proceeded to switch off their engine and wait for the leopard to return.

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“Suddenly we saw a taxi passing all the cars which were waiting for the leopard. The taxi stopped next to the carcass of the impala. A man got out of the taxi and kicked the buck. At that point my husband started taking the video,” Yvonne explained.

She said that the men in the taxi then got out and loaded it into the vehicle.

“We are not sure what happened. I mean, you are not even allowed to get out of your car.”

They decided to post the video for more clarification.

SANParks posted on social media that “all is above board”.

According to KNP spokesperson Isaac Phaahla, the people in question were SANParks employees.

“Those are SANParks employees who are employed by Veterinary Wildlife Services. Part of their mandate is to remove carcasses they find on the road and hand it to their section ranger. In this instance, it was handed into the Satara section ranger,” Phaalha said.

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