Online Signing Event

Stop Timbavati Game Reserve from killing it's Rhino's via hunting from the rich

"In joining this event, for which we thank you, everyone agrees to sign and share this vitally important petition. If you do not sign, please do not join. http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Stop_Timbavati_Game_Reserve_from_killing_its_Rhinos_via_hunting_from_the_rich/?wWjIGab
Africa is in a severe poaching crises against our Rhino and other Wildlife... since January last year... 816 Rhino have been poached by unscrupulous criminals and their KINGPINS that have no regard for life of any sorts... We need to preserve our heritage... not have it destroyed by those who have more money than they know what to do with.... WE NEED TO STOP THIS WHOLESALE MASSACRE... the rhino are on the endangered species list... we need all the help we can get to stop this type of legal slaughter of endangered species...

Signed WS

I am a little confused by this petition and where it originated. I have been to the Timbavati Game Reserve several times. Although a private reserve, it is part of the Greater Kruger Park. There are no fences between it and the Kruger and all the animals including rhino move freely between Timbavati and the rest of the Kruger as well as all the other private reserves such as Balule, Klaserie, and Sabi etc. As far as I am aware the Timbavati does not "own" any rhino and therefore could not authorise any hunting, the rhino are all part of the Kruger National Park which as everybody knows is suffering very badly from poaching.
Could someone explain to me where this has come from!!!!!

Signed and shared, thanks WS.

Lai

Safariman here is the issue:

The chairperson of Timbavati, Tom Hancock, has published an open letter of the view of the game reserve’s board and its justification for allowing hunting.

You can read it here

The issue you raise about who actually owns the game, is another question but this debate is about the rights and wrongs of trophy hunting.

I would be interested to here the opinions people here have about the open letter.

Chris

Thanks Safariman, and Chris for your contributions.
First Safariman, as you, I was surprised to hear this news as we have followed Chad Cockings Timbavati blog for sometime, and have never heard of this before, in fact if I remember right he stopped posting photos of Rhino to prevent poachers getting their location to protect them. I think the wording of Timbavati's Rhinos is confusing. I think it would have been better if they had put The Hunting of Rhino on their Reserve. Really no one owns wildlife. I picked the petition up from a group on FB called African Wildlife Dairy.
Chris I've only had a quick chance to look at the open letter, I will have to look at it in more detail later, thanks for the link. My first initial reaction is that they talk about sustainable hunting, given the numbers of Rhinos being poached, how can it be sustainable to trophy hunt them. They say that by allowing trophy hunting the price of Rhino horn will fall, affecting the profits of poaching them, but if it's trophy hunting surely the hunters will be keeping the Rhino head as tropies, so the horn will not be sold on , and not affect the price. As I said I need to look at the open letter more, and may have got the wrong end of the stick, but that's my first reaction from a quick look through. If you have any more information on this or Rhino information on your site please feel free to post the link to it

WS

Thanks Chris. An interesting statement from Timbavati which sets out the case for sustainable hunting, however as W S says it won't influence the price of rhino horn unless the horn is put onto the market. Which raises the question again of rhino horn farming rather than hunting which has been debated before. SA has always taken a very pragmatic stance towards wildlife and it's conservation as against the northern hemisphere view which is nearly always based on emotion while ignoring the practicalities. As we have removed most of our own wildlife we feel we have to interfere in other countries to somehow compensate. I have yet to see a petition or outcry against stag trophy hunting in the UK which again is done on a sustainable basis and supported by some very high up people!!!
Personally I am against hunting but that does not mean that all hunting is wrong, it is just my viewpoint.

Safariman

OK, it's getting late and that's a very long letter and to be honest it all sounds a bit backward to me. On the one hand it sounds as if they are saying they are not "Trophy Hunting" but are hunting for "Sustainable" reasons but then they imply that hunting to obtain money to support wildlife for a "Non profit" is ok, so are they saying it's ok to trophy hunt as long as the reserve owner isn't making a profit himself?
I can see that from sustainable hunting no horn should then go on the market which is a good thing, however, I do not agree that anyone with enough cash should be allowed to be part of a sustainable hunt because I am sure they are not doing it for conservation reasons, I would hazard a guess that for them it's trophy hunting/the pleasure of killing a large beast, whether they keep the horn or not may not be of importance to them, its the killing of a large innocent beast that counts.
Do I think Timbavati are doing it purely for sustainable reasons, not really, they may not make out of the dead Rhino per se but their profit comes from hunters staying on their reserve, so yes, they do actually make a profit.
I could have it wrong but I think Timbavati could be trying to justify their Trophy Hunting by implying they are "purely for the benefit of the wildlife" a little bit of a smoke screen. I am open to corrections if I am wrong.

Do I believe in Trophy Hunting, hell no.

Do I believe in Sustainable Hunting, only if a species was becoming so huge it was going to decimate another species or they were becoming detremental to their own kind.

Do I believe anyone could/should take part in a sustainable hunt, no I don't because again it comes back to trophy hunting without taking home the trophy, I believe if it has to happen then it has to be trained and employed rangers.

Do these Rhino have a home, according to the letter they are looked upon as "No fixed Abode" so is that a polite way of saying they are not mine they are yours, no they are not mine they are yours, a good way of saying I am not shooting my animals on my land I am shooting your animals on my land as that then is not illegal.

I may be getting this all wrong but I think Timbavati are making a plea for innocence on all accounts but they may be a wee bit guilty.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

littlewid-x-

Hunting is not something I like or would do, but I can see cases where it is an option in to allow it. It's a very imotive issue, and I have seen a Guy who owns a private reserve on TV who actualy made a very good case for allowing hunting in that to get more land to return it to a natural wildlife habitat he needed money to buy it, and also stock it with lots of different species, and that benifits the biodiversity of the area. He would allow hunting, for people who were willing to pay mega bucks, but on the condition that he chose the animal, and would choose ones that were sick injured or to old to reproduce. I know its playing god but, he did make sense in that it was building an ever bigger area that had been left empty of nearly all wildlife for different reasons. Whether that applies to Timbavati I'm not sure.
With regard to Stag Hunting Safariman, there was a big outcry when the Emporer of Exmoor was shot, and I can see another on the way with the recent news on how many Deer will have to be culled to make life sustainable for them in the UK, but thats something thats going to have to be done
WS

Thanks Chris for the link to the statement from Tom Hancock. I have read it and will read it again but for myself I cannot agree with hunting.

Simple anecdotal evidence from the Timbavati illustrates the point: it takes approximately 18,000 guest nights in lodges (or one guest staying for 50 years) to generate the same revenue that the Timbavati Association receives from one hunter shooting one rhino.

If you are a critic of rhino hunting, ask yourself “What have I done to save the rhino today?” and compare your answer to what the Timbavati does every day, all day.

That goes against all my beliefs personally.

Lai

Hi everybody – this type of issue always results in these types of divergent views.

Personally I am not a hunter and I don’t think I will ever be.

Believe me – the issue around the solutions to rhino poaching gets very complex.

Tom Hancock’s open letter will have a degree of self-interest involved it was obviously well thought through.

I grew up as a wildlife enthusiast and instinctively despised hunters as a result. As I became older I realized I had to better understand the merits of hunting when I encountered people with a huge passion for our wildlife (that dedicated their entire lives and careers to wildlife education) being avid hunters. The statistical evidence that they provide to support their arguments have a lot of indisputable merit.

The most important thing I believe is to put emotion aside and base your opinion the factual information available.

I still need to get my own head around this issue to develop a really informed opinion. I think I should create a page on my site to get a debate going to a wider audience.


Chris

Your right it is very complex Chris, and you cant just say ban all hunting, as much as many of us would like to. Without looking into all the consequences. I can except hunting for food, I can understand the reason of hunting for profit, although I dont agree with it, but humans are the only animals that hunt, and kill for pleasure, and thats beyond me. Good idea to put a page on your site. The more people in the world who are aware of these issues the better. Put the link on here Chris when you've done it
WS

Latest news on Rhino Poaching in Kruger, and South Africa from Widlife Extra
South Africa alone - Time to rebuild the fences?07/03/2013 10:04:20

Fence between Kruger National Park and South Africa to be rebuilt?
March 2013. While more than 2 000 representative of 178 signatory states to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) gather in Thailand to determine the future of threatened species, the carnage in Africa continues as South Africa reveals it has lost another 24 rhino in a week.

The latest rhino poaching statistics indicate that the Kruger National Park remains the hardest hit, with 107 rhinos being poached since the beginning of the year. Twelve rhino have been poached in KwaZulu-Natal and North West provinces each, while eight have been poached in Limpopo and seven in Mpumalanga.

Table shows the number of rhinos killed per day on average in South Africa

2010 2011 2012 2013
0.9123 1.227 1.83 2.62
In 2013 rhino poaching in South Africa is running considerably ahead of 2012, which was the worst year on record by far. At that current rate, South Africa can expect to loose around 950 rhinos this year! However the poaching rate is increasing all the time, so it may well top the 1000 mark before the year is out.

Rebuild the fence between Kruger National Parks and Mozambique
"The SANParks Board has recommended to the Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs' that the boundary fence between South Africa and Mozambique be reconstructed," said SANParks CEO David Mabunda.

Minister Edna Molewa said the reintroduction of the border fence was strictly dependant on an analysis of the rhino poaching situation in the Kruger National Park, and a lack of positive results emanating from the creation of a buffer zone within the Limpopo Transfrontier Park region bordering Mozambique.
When you look at the number being Poached, and add Trophy kills it must eventualy impact on the overall numbers of Rhino, and the money they say that is being made, is spent on anti-poaching measures its clear its not working,
WS

Yes WS - the fence is one of the many proposals being debated.

Some of the others involve-

-Strong differences of opinion between people calling for legalized trade in rhino horn (to turn it into a commodity) and those against it.
-Addressing the issue of educating the end user in Asia (for example through a joint African Asian Rhino Summit to build better relationships between Asian countries and South Africa.)
-To establish a database of all rhino horn DNA samples.
-The South African Government to close down access to hunting permits of rhino to individuals that come from countries with weak CITES control.
-Deploying the South African National Defense Force in key positions across South Africa to provide protection to rhinos.
-Establish environmental courts to improve the rate of successful prosecution of couriers, and buyers.

Your table about the statistics did not quite display correctly. They are-

Year ended 2012 - 668
Year ended 2011 - 448
Year ended 2010 - 333
Year ended 2009 - 122

These statistics are the facts despite numerous people putting in a huge effort in this space at the moment.

We will have to be smart to win this battle.

Chris

The statistics I posted Chris are daily averages of Rhinos poached they do work out over a year.
The big problem as I see it, is that there all sorts of different ideas from Governments, and NGO's on how to deal with the poaching problem, and they are all in some way doing their own things to combat it. What is really needed is, an umbrella organisation to co-ordinate all the actions, and efforts into a masterplan for it to be effective, every one, organisation, and Government working together, but I cant see that happening. Rhino farming to me means perpetuating the use of Rhino Horn, which goes against the idea of education in Asia against using it. The idea of stopping hunters from Countries with weak CITES control is laughable. As far as I'm concerned CITIES is a flawed organisation that puts wildlife affecting business concerns over business affecting wildlife issues. It's a weak organisation, that any Country ignores if it suits them. I think its more than a battle, we are in a war, we may be winning the odd few battles, but its the war we need to win to save iconic animals like the Rhino
What really hs annoyed me is Timbavatis Chairmans coment, and I qoute "If you are a critic of rhino hunting, ask yourself “What have I done to save the rhino today?” and compare your answer to what the Timbavati does every day, all day". Well we are only a small site, but in two days we have had over 70 visits to his page, apart from people who have clicked on the direct link to the petition on the home page, apart from all the other topics on here about poaching over the last few years. So every day we are doing something for the Rhinos interests not our own
WS

Signed

Thanks Cheethalover well done
WS