Relentless poaching in the Kruger National Park (KNP) has left more than 80 vultures dead in the park
The vultures were feeding on a dead buffalo that was laced with poison by poachers after trapping it with snares.
Park ranger Joe Nkuna, could not believe his eyes when he got to the scene to investigate the cause of deaths.
Nkuna was speaking to a media contingent that had been visiting the park this week, to witness the impact of poaching.
When the KNP received a call from Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre about a tracked vulture which wasn’t moving, Nkuna, who has worked in the park for 29 years, assigned his team of rangers to track the GPS location where the gruesome discovery was made.
“When they got here they found a snared Buffalo and the poachers were able to harvest some meat from the buffalo and then the leftovers were laced with poison.
“From there the vultures came to clean up the buffalo carcass. But instead of cleaning up the carcass cleaned them up…so when we got here there were dead vultures all over. So they had to radio me and I drove up and called the police to come and attend the crime scene…It was terrible and was not healthy,” Nkuna said
He said the park lost about 86 vultures, a Black Back jackal, two eagles and a hyena but had no idea as to whether the poachers were able to harvest some of the vultures or some parts from the hyena, because it was completely decomposed.
“After discovering that and after the investigations we were given the go ahead to burn the remains of the animals but we had lost a lot,” Nkuna said.
Before going to the scene South African National Parks regional rangers Don English and section ranger Richard Sowry, told the media about the implications and impact of poaching in the park.
They said last year alone, they spent about R250 million to deter poaching because it was a threat to the park.
“If you poison a carcass, anything that goes to the carcass is going to be affected. If you put a snare, anything that walks will be affected,” said English.
He said the poaching was caused by poverty in the villages around the park because of unemployment, and crime.
He said park officials had roped in the community to curb poaching.
"We have lost close to 2,000 vultures in the past few years. It has seriously impacted on the ecology of vultures." English said.
The poaching of in the park threatens the well-being of the park that brings millions of rand through tourism into the national fiscus yearly.
Sowry said poaching in the park had become an everyday problem that was threatening its very existence: “Poachers use all forms of methods including poisoning, which could be the worst kind because of the ripple effect it causes.”
He added that the poaching was unsustainable and had accumulative damage to the economy.
“If we don’t deal with poaching, it could spell the end of the park. Economically, socially and ecologically, there will be consequences … Humans seem to think that there would not be adverse problems from it … We all see the problems because we are all connected ecologically,” Sowry said.
Saturday Star