Rhino Relocations

[Richprins]

They are not meeting tomorrow to discuss rhino...that has been "handled"...

There is panic going on...very demoralising for the people on the ground...

[Toko]

Q&A: Can Airlifting Rhinos Out of South Africa Save the Species?

In 2015 an organization called Rhinos Without Borders will move a hundred rhinos from South Africa to Botswana.

By Christina Russo for National Geographic, PUBLISHED AUGUST 1

Over the past three decades National Geographic Explorers-in-Residence Dereck and Beverly Joubert, who are based in Botswana's Okavango Delta, have focused their movie and still cameras on animals ranging from elephants and zebras to lions and leopards.

In 2009 the Jouberts, with the help of the National Geographic Society, formed the Big Cats Initiative to halt the decline of lions, leopards, cheetahs, tigers, and other animals. Now the Jouberts have launched a new initiative, Rhinos Without Borders, to help save Africa's rhinos.

Beginning in January 2015, they will move a hundred rhinos from South Africa to Botswana.

South Africa holds upwards of 80 percent of the no more than 26,000 rhinos left on the continent, a large share of them in Kruger National Park.

Poaching of rhinos for their horn has reached catastrophic levels. According to the Oxpeckers Center for Investigative Environmental Journalism, 1,004 rhinos were killed in South Africa last year. So far this year the number has climbed to 618, with the toll in Kruger at 400.

Moving rhinos, which can weigh more than three tons, from one country to another is a costly, logistically challenging endeavor. But the Jouberts say that relocating even only a hundred of South Africa's rhinos is an urgent and necessary strategy to sustain a species they believe will be lost within five to ten years if the illegal killing continues at the present rate.

You've filmed rhino relocations [see a clip of the Jouberts' film Rhino Rescue] in the past, but this is the first time you've been at the helm of a project of this nature. Why did you decide to take this on?

When you mention rhinos in conservation circles, there's always the same response: People just hang their head and say, What a disaster! The poaching levels are so high—last year South Africa lost 1,004 rhinos. Ten years ago we lost four rhinos. The 1,004 from last year, by the way, are the ones that we know of. But what happens in remote areas—even in Kruger—is that rhinos have been poached but aren't always found. The carcasses are possibly eaten by vultures before anyone gets there. So I think we can add at least 10 percent to that number.

A lot of good people and a lot of money are involved in trying to protect them, but we're still losing them at an increasing rate. So we said, Here's one option: Botswana wants rhinos. And Botswana has the lowest poaching rate in all of Africa.

It's as much a story of moving a hundred rhinos as it is about spreading the risk. One of the worst things we can do is continue to keep the entire pool of assets in one place. This relocation project will be making it harder for poachers to come in and hit a hundred rhinos.

We've always felt that we must be optimistic somewhat. We absolutely just cannot give up. If this works out, we can quite possibly do this throughout Africa.

Have rhino relocations been successful before, and do you have a model you're using? For example, Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya says it is the largest black rhino sanctuary in East Africa, after a historic relocation project in 2007.

Rhinos are moved a lot in southern Africa. There's a whole game-capture industry in South Africa. There are very professional teams that move rhinos from parks to private land, from private sellers to buyers. Each year there are game sales and auctions, and there are always rhinos for sale. So the teams that are doing this relocation with Rhinos Without Borders are well-heeled.

As for cross-border relocations, I believe about 50 rhinos in the last ten years have been relocated from South Africa into Botswana.

What's the mortality rate with these moves?

Between 2 and 5 percent. We weigh that rate against the reality of letting the rhinos stay where they are and be poached. Every time you move rhinos, you tranquilize them, which is a risk. But there's been quite a lot of science around moving them. Veterinarians—they have it right down to a fine art at this point.

Will any of the rhinos come from Kruger?

We don't know yet how many will be coming—we hope some. We're in discussions with SANParks. Most rhinos in South Africa are in Kruger and KwaZulu-Natal National Park, as well as private land. We know at least 44 will not be coming from Kruger. At least 40 will come from other parks. SANParks also oversees lots of little parks, and some have rhinos. It would be foolish for us to give too much information because of the security concerns right now—we're all hearing that the poachers are getting way more advanced.

Why do you think Kruger is considering moving rhinos? Is this an indication that it can't combat poaching effectively?

What it does say is that a very good conservation strategy is to move rhinos away from the poaching. There's a concentration of rhinos in Kruger that are easy to get to, and there's also a very porous border with Mozambique. There's been a discussion of 250 rhinos being moved, or 500.

I want to add that the street value for rhino horn, if it's to be believed, is $65,000 a kilo [2.2 pounds]. Which means it's really worthwhile to take a risk killing a rhino in South Africa. Chances are, if you're a poacher there, you won't be shot or killed.

Did you bring this idea to the Botswana government, or did they approach you?

We approached them, about a year ago.

Are you purchasing the hundred rhinos, or are they being provided as part of a collective effort to save the animals?

Largely they're being donated to the Botswana government. We'll have to purchase some. We want to leave cash behind to aid antipoaching efforts in the source country. But $45,000 is the average cost to move a rhino from South Africa to Botswana.

There's a tourism component to this, correct?

Right. Although we're leading the charge, we don't want this to be a Joubert project. This is an unbranded effort and the launching of a campaign that says we can save the rhinos. Two tourism companies, Great Plains Conservation and &Beyond, are behind this. [Great Plains Conservation was co-founded by the Jouberts; Dereck is CEO.] We reached out to &Beyond because they've recently moved rhinos.

The tourism components are that people who donate above a certain level can participate in this. Also, if you stay at Great Plains, you can participate in the tracking of the rhinos once they've been released.

You plan to begin moving rhinos in January 2015. What are the biggest challenges, and how long do you anticipate it'll take to move them all?

Cost is one, and we're still in the phase of fund-raising. It costs us about $45,000 to move a single rhino. The other is the rhinos' security. Putting a hundred rhinos in one location—Botswana—is a security risk. We're adapting the project so we don't move a hundred at one time. They'll be going to a variety of secret locations in Botswana. We'll move them over a period of four or five months.

They're going into the wild in these locations?

Yes. Our ambition is to repopulate the rhino in Botswana.

Please describe the moving process.

A rhino is identified, and a helicopter comes in, and the animal is darted from the air with M99 [a sedative]. Then you get blood samples and as much information while it's sedated. When that's finished, you apply an antidote called M55, then you cover the rhino's eyes with a towel—it's still groggy. The rhino is then roped up and walked into the back of a container, optimally without any stress.

The rhino is loaded onto a truck and driven to a quarantine boma [enclosure]. Then it goes through a six-week quarantine period. At this point the rhinos are almost hand-reared—you virtually feed them by hand.

The next stage is you sedate them and put them onto aircraft to Botswana. Trucks distribute them to another enclosure. They're assessed for their health, and if they're doing well, they're set free.

How much of a concern is the move's disruption to rhino families?

Rhinos don't have a big herd structure. The biggest group we've seen is 14. More frequently it's a solitary female and a calf, and males come through occasionally. Because they don't form into bonded kinship groups, this makes it easier in the translocation. As long as you're not separating females and offspring, you aren't disrupting a family.

How are candidates for moving identified?

The source crews—the people we'll get the rhinos from—will identify them months in advance. There'll be a logbook on each animal. You want to choose healthy animals, with as little stress as possible to the populations you leave behind.

Rhinos close to giving birth—we absolutely don't want to risk that. And males that are really old. It's going to be a cross-section mix of animals, Some big, some small, some pregnant, some not. Certainly we want to avoid moving females that have offspring by their side.

Once the rhinos arrive in Botswana, how do you know they'll be safe?

Botswana has one of the most robust antipoaching efforts in Africa. Well trained, experienced, and they've been doing this for the last 14 or 15 years, if not more. It's the extension of the Botswana Defense Force—well funded and armed.

What's great about Botswana is that culturally and practically they're not arrogant. They realize they have to keep updating their equipment, so there's a real drive to make sure these forces are ready for poachers. There will be a ramped-up effort, the specifics of which I'm not going to tell you. But these rhinos are going to be protected.

Why do you think Botswana's poaching rate is the lowest in Africa?

We have the Botswana Defense Force in charge of antipoaching, and they have a "shoot to kill" policy. If you track elephant poaching statistics, we know we have some of the lowest elephant poaching in the world. We have few porous borders. We also have a big, wide wilderness area. If you look at poaching incidents, many are in small, contained areas. Furthermore, we virtually have no road access. It's easy in South Africa for poachers to drive a tar road, pick a spot to cut a fence, walk through it, and kill a rhino. That's almost impossible in Botswana.

Finally, we have one of the lowest corruption rates. In Africa there's a saying: One rhino horn takes at least one corrupt official.

What about the issue of trophy hunting?

I don't think many of your readers would realize that while the rhinos are getting slaughtered left, right, and center, South Africa still allows rhino trophy hunting.

Animals on the decline shouldn't be trophy hunted—this is our belief, including with the Big Cats Initiative. Also, trophy hunting makes the local population feel a sense of displacement about their wildlife. They think, Why should our animals go to wealthy Westerners and not to us?

Trophy hunting was recently banned in Botswana.

Yes. Botswana canceled all lion hunting in 2004, and leopard hunting in 2011. And now in 2014, the rhino.

Can you talk about the debate over legalizing rhino horn?

There's a big move afoot on this, with some saying that we have this poaching problem because horn is a precious resource. Some are saying, Let's farm our rhinos, and let's cut the horn off, sell it, and then we can reduce the illegal demand, and then poaching will stop. That is a flawed argument. Not to mention, I don't know any farmer in the world who wants to bring his prices down.

You're perhaps best known for your work with big cats. How do you link that work to rhinos?

We believe very strongly there's a battle for Africa at play. And it'll be fought on three fronts: the elephant, cats, and the rhino. We're losing five lions a day, four or five elephants an hour, and a rhino every seven and a half hours.

If you take those three iconic species off the menu, that translates into an $80 billion revenue stream you'll lose. If you lose these animals, there'll be a collapse of both the ecosystem and the economy. So we realized we can't take on big cats without taking on the protection of the others as well.

A huge part of this has to be creating awareness—in Africa, Asia, and the West-blogging, going on news, pushing big media campaigns.

Also, from our side, we've spent our lives exploring Africa, making films, and having a fantastic time in the bush of Botswana, and we've tried to find ways to give back all the while. The rhinos are at this crisis point, and we'd like to give back to Botswana, which is where we've made our home.

[Toko]

New home for 500 Kruger rhinos
8.8.2014 12.26 pm

Cabinet has approved “recommended strategic interventions to secure the rhino population”,” the Department of Environmental Affairs (DoE) said on Friday.

The “intervention” DoE is talking about was a proposal by SANparks management of species division to move 500 rhino off Kruger National Park and into safer areas.
Despite the 700 rangers in the park, combined with the South African National Defence Force and specialist operators of the police, poachers have still managed to slaughter more than 400 rhino for their horn in Kruger alone.
The last official number was 400, released in July on World Ranger Day.
According to SANparks, there was a 44% annual growth of poaching between 2010 and 2013, of which Kruger accounted for 61.3%
The recommendation to move the animals has been a long time time coming.
“Rangers and scientific services did not just wake up one day and say that today we are going to remove 500 rhino from Kruger National Park,” said SANparks spokesperson Ike Phaahla.
“It had to be informed by several factors such as the density of the population and the way that they are breeding but obviously the park is under siege now from poachers.
“A proposal was made to the board to remove the species from the park,” Phaahla said.
Once the board finished its deliberations made a recommendation to Minister of Environmental Affairs, Edna Molewa.
From her desk it went to the portfolio committee in cabinet which ratified the decision.
“Only then can the animals be moved. Remember, these are South African assets,” said Phaala.
Nationally, 618 rhino have been poached.

[Toko]

Hundreds of Kruger rhino to be moved - report
2014-08-10 11:16

Pretoria - Minister of Environment Affairs Edna Molewa is expected to announce on Tuesday the evacuation of hundreds of rhino from the Kruger National Park in a bid to save them from poachers.

According to the Sunday Times, the plan has been endorsed by Cabinet, despite continual denials from SANParks about the move.

It is expected that about 500 rhino will be moved. Of these, 260 will be sold to private buyers and another 250 will be taken to a safe location.

In March, SANParks said there had been a 70% increase on average every year in rhino poaching. In line with this, government viewed rhino poaching as a matter of urgency in order to ensure the species did not become extinct.

More than 500 rhino were killed in the first six months of this year, as poachers became increasingly sophisticated, using semi-automatic rifles.

Rhino poaching jumped from 13 animals being killed in 2007 to the slaughter of 1 004 last year - mostly in the park, which shares a border with Mozambique.

Despite increased policing - including army patrols along the border - rhino killings have risen steadily every year.

Last year the Kruger acquired a military aircraft equipped with sophisticated surveillance technology to detect poachers.

Elephant poaching

Meanwhile, rangers in the Kruger said recently they were preparing to face a new onslaught against the park's elephants. In May, a bull elephant was found shot dead with its tusks hacked off - an ominous sign that the poaching ravaging elephant populations to the north and east had made its way over the border.

"We are ready. We have the resources to tackle this head on," said Markus Hofmeyer, head of veterinary services at SANParks, which manages the Kruger National Park.

"The fight against rhino poaching has equipped us with the necessary skills."

The WWF last month raised the alarm over plummeting elephant populations in Mozambique after an aerial survey showed ivory poaching was decimating herds in the country.

Elephant poaching is also rife further north in Kenya, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.

Rhino horn and elephant tusks are sold on the lucrative black market, mostly in Asia.

But elephant poaching should not reach the same crisis level as that of rhino, as ivory sells for much less than rhino horn, said Hofmeyer.

"The killing of elephants would require much bigger weapons and the animal generally makes a lot of noise, attracting attention," he said.

The Kruger Park has around 16 200 elephants, according to 2012 figures.

[Lisbeth]

260 will be sold to private buyers and another 250 will be taken to a safe location.

What is intended by "private buyers" ? They are certainly not going to buy 260 rhinos, if there is not a gain somewhere I am sure that the number of 260 is not going to grow And what is "A safe location" not plural All together in one place Abroad?

[Richprins]

“Rangers and scientific services did not just wake up one day and say that today we are going to remove 500 rhino from Kruger National Park,” said SANparks spokesperson Ike Phaahla.
“It had to be informed by several factors such as the density of the population and the way that they are breeding but obviously the park is under siege now from poachers.

This does not make sense...Kruger has been selling rhino unabatedly every year for the last decade or so, poaching or not, and in numbers approaching those poached!

"Game sales" has been part of SP's budgeted annual income, running into many millions. I think this is a cynical excuse to blame poaching for continued sales, and repeat that if the gesture were so conservation-oriented, ALL captured rhino should be relocated for free, with the recipients just doing the transporting!

SP has received BILLIONs over the last 18 months from private donors alone!

[H. erectus]

Remember, these are South African assets

All idle chit chat in hindsight of a rhino's bum!!!

[Toko]

“Rangers and scientific services did not just wake up one day and say that today we are going to remove 500 rhino from Kruger National Park,” said SANparks spokesperson Ike Phaahla.
“It had to be informed by several factors such as the density of the population and the way that they are breeding but obviously the park is under siege now from poachers.

This does not make sense...Kruger has been selling rhino unabatedly every year for the last decade or so, poaching or not, and in numbers approaching those poached!

"Game sales" has been part of SP's budgeted annual income, running into many millions. I think this is a cynical excuse to blame poaching for continued sales, and repeat that if the gesture were so conservation-oriented, ALL captured rhino should be relocated for free, with the recipients just doing the transporting!

SP has received BILLIONs over the last 18 months from private donors alone!

Sam M. Ferreira, 2012 Anthropogenic Influences on Conservation Values of White Rhinoceros

Park managers introduced 351 white rhinos between 1960 and 1972 and started to remove rhinos for donations to other conservation areas and zoological gardens during the mid 1980s (Fig. 3A). Since the late 1990s, a large fraction of the white rhinos removed was sold to generate conservation revenue. By the end of 2010, a total of 1402 white rhinos have been removed from the Park.

What, however, is the difference between management removals and rhinos removed by poachers given that management removals influenced white rhino population dynamics substantially more than poaching did since 1998? Between 2011 and 2012, we predicted that the number of rhinos poachers will be killing equals the number of rhinos defined for removal by management wishing to mimic the outcomes of impeded ecological processes. One can argue that poachers are essentially doing management! Managers, however, remove those rhinos and use them as propagules for establishment of other rhino populations within their historical distribution range where they have been extinct for some time [55], [56]. Such management removals thus make significant contributions to the recovery of the species as a whole. The entire white rhino world population has grown to more than 20000 white rhinos because of such approaches since the 1960 s initiated and advocated by the then Natal Parks Board [50]. In recent times, white rhinos from Kruger National Park are the primary sources of most privately-owned rhinos within the white rhino historical distribution. Privately-owned white rhinos comprised about 24.1% of all white rhinos in South Africa during 2010 [57]. Such restoration opportunities are lost when poachers do management!

In the second instance, managers sell white rhinos as live entities and use revenue generated to enhance protected areas [15]. SANParks, managers of Kruger, make use of game sales to augment a Parks Development Fund that support conservation infrastructure, management and research (SANParks, personal communications). Revenue generating opportunities are thus also lost when poachers do management!

In addition, poaching is not toned by ecological management models such as that used by SANParks or adaptive feedback loops [58]. Our analyses suggest frightening trends of continued increases in white rhino poaching pressure, a trend noticed world-wide for just about any natural resource that has relatively high financial value [1], [59]. Poaching predicted for 2012 has already removed opportunities to contribute to range expansion and gain financially for Kruger National Park. We predicted that by 2016 the population itself will be declining if present trends in poaching continue. In 2009 and 2010, management in Kruger adapted and earmarked rhinos for removal after poaching effects have been accounted for as it is relatively easy to apply adaptive management to local aspects under the control of managers.

[Toko]

Cabinet gives nod to evacuating Kruger National Park rhinos
Pearlie Joubert | 11 August, 2014 13:12

The evacuation of hundreds of rhinos from the Kruger National Park has received cabinet support - even as the national parks board continues to insist there are no such plans.

Minister of Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa is expected to announce on Tuesday the removal of rhinos from the Kruger, taking them out of the poachers' firing line.

Yesterday, however, SANParks spokesman Isaac Phaahla said there was "no cabinet approval".

Asked whether there had been a SANParks board proposal to Molewa for the removal of rhinos , Phaahla said, "No."

Nevertheless, a Department of Environmental Affairs statement carries the announcement of the cabinet "approving the recommended strategic interventions to secure the rhino population". One of the interventions is the removal of rhinos from the park.

A Sunday Times report in July that broke the news of the rhino removal was denied at the time by SANParks, with the chairman, Kuseni Dlamini, calling it "grossly misleading".

Of the rhinos to be moved, 260 will be sold to private buyers and another 250 taken to a safe location.

The decision to move the animals comes against a background of increased poaching of rhinos in the Kruger. The Sunday Times has established that in July the Kruger Park lost 59 rhinos and another seven in the first five days of August.

A report to the SANParks board on March 26 said there had been an average escalation of 70% a year in rhino poaching. This added urgency to the decision to move some of the rhinos to ensure that the species did not become extinct. The report said that more anti-poaching efforts would not be enough to save the rhinos.

It said "most concerning was that recorded birth rates equalled [rhino] death rates". It listed three elements to manage the threat against the animals:

To create an intensive protection zone in the Kruger;

To reduce the demand for rhino horn; and

To provide horn for the market. This was vigorously advocated by private rhino owners, and now also by the state.

The report also detailed plans to set up rhino sanctuaries by removing rhinos from high density areas in the Kruger to stimulate their birth rate.

This comes as a group of concerned citizens, a Cape Town aviation company and the DA called for an investigation into SANParks's anti-poaching strategies, or offered help.

The public protector, Thuli Madonsela, was asked by a Johannesburg attorney, Christopher Bean, to investigate SANParks and the Department of Environmental Affairs for "maladministration in the combating of rhino poaching in the Kruger".

Bean said in his letter that it was urgent that Madonsela investigate SANParks and the department because both entities were in favour of selling South Africa's rhino horn stockpile, amounting to 20 tons and worth about R10-billion.

Bean said such a sale would conflict "with their fiduciary and constitutional obligation" to preserve rhinos.

Cape Town aviation firm Advanced Aviation Logistics has offered SANParks seven heavy-duty Russian helicopters - capable of moving three to four rhinos a day - to help with the evacuation of rhinos.

DA environment spokeswoman Terri Stander said the party would lodge a complaint with the public protector asking for an investigation into the failings behind rhino conservation.

joubertp@sundaytimes.co.za

[Richprins]

Minister of Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa is expected to announce on Tuesday the removal of rhinos from the Kruger, taking them out of the poachers' firing line.

Yesterday, however, SANParks spokesman Isaac Phaahla said there was "no cabinet approval".

Asked whether there had been a SANParks board proposal to Molewa for the removal of rhinos , Phaahla said, "No."

Nevertheless, a Department of Environmental Affairs statement carries the announcement of the cabinet "approving the recommended strategic interventions to secure the rhino population". One of the interventions is the removal of rhinos from the park.

Really, as a citizen of a country that is in THE world spotlight regarding THE wildlife crime of the decade so far, I can only apologise on behalf of these management clowns, and my heart bleeds for those doing their best on the ground, and those trying to help!