27 Jun 2013

Central District regional wildlife officer, Ms Onalenna Kgathi says this year’s hunting season which ends in September will be the last one and hunting shall be halted for an indefinite period.

In an interview on June 25, Ms Kgathi said although the 2012 wildlife population census has not been released, observation is that there has been a decline in wildlife population.

The move to ban hunting, she said was necessitated by the decline of wildlife population.

She said hunting was a contributory factor in the deterioration of wildlife thus the need to halt it until the time when wildlife would have satisfactorily recovered.

She cited a number of other human activities such as village expansion and building of ranches as some other contributing factors to the decline of animals.

“Ranches are normally built in wildlife habitats and consequently animals are displaced to areas where they might not find good pastures and die of drought,” she explained.

She said animals like antelopes are in most cases exposed to predators as most ranches are allocated in their habitat.

Ms Kgathi also said because ranches are bordered with wildlife some predators such as lions and leopards get into these ranches and kill the farmers’ livestock, something that forces the farmers to kill the predators in turn.

She said although developments are inevitable, her department has appealed to the land board to take into account the safety of the wild when they allocate plots for ranches as their fences are in some instances responsible for killing some animals.

Ms Kgathi also appealed to farmers who kill wild animal ostensibly for destroying their fields saying farmers should fence their farms to avoid easy entrance.

She added that the persistent killing of wildlife would greatly harm the tourist sector which is a major contributor to the country’s economy. ENDS