26 May 2022

Okavango Sub-district has recorded about 430 cases of human/wildlife conflict this quarter.

Okavango Sub-district Council chairperson, Mr Mpoke Karapo stated Tuesday at a council meeting that 40 of the cases involve elephants.

He said at least two people lost their lives to problem animals in the sub-district this quarter.

The two deaths, he said, resulted from a crocodile and elephant attacks at Sekodomboro and Seronga respectively.

Mr Karapo said compensation for the victims was yet to be done as the Department of Wildlife and National Parks was awaiting post mortem from the Botswana Police Service laboratory.

He said the wildlife department managed compensation for 711 victims of problem animals amounting to about P1 472 625.

Under the current financial year, Mr Karapo said the sub-district was allocated P4 900 000, which was already depleted.

He, however, said the wildlife department continued with its efforts to address the human/wildlife conflict and had issued a hunting quota for this year as a tool to help address the problem.

He said the areas allocated quotas as stated in the last quarter were NG 1, NG 2, NG 7 and NG 11 for citizen hunting quota while NG3, NG4 and NG13 were allocated community hunting quota and NG 8 and NG 11 had been allocated special quota.

The hunting license raffle was done in March in Shakawe while hunting commenced April 5. ENDS