http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Poaching-army-patrolling-Kruger-Park-20110413

Poaching - army patrolling Kruger Park

2011-04-13 22:15

Cape Town - Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said on Wednesday that soldiers were patrolling the Kruger National Park on the borders with Mozambique to stamp out rhino poaching.

Sisulu told a media briefing: "As of April 1 this year, we are deployed around the border area that would cover the Kruger Park.

"We're in a position now to assist them with the plight that has been bedevilling them for a very long time which is rhino poaching."

SANParks asked the military to step in to help stop the ongoing rhino bloodbath in the park which lost 146 animals last year.

Acting defence force chief Genera l Temba Matanzima said: "We've deployed a company there and we will be able to deal with the problem of poaching effectively."

The soldiers have not yet clashed with poachers who had killed 46 rhinos in the park this year out of a countrywide total of 71 by last month.

Home to more than 70% of the world's remaining rhinos, South Africa lost 333 rhinos last year and the surge - fuelled by use of rhino horn in Asian traditional medicine - has been blamed on organised syndicates.

The operation in Kruger is part of a move to give the army, rather than police, responsibility for border patrols.

- AFP