Poaching now seen as ‘khaki-collared crime’

December 14 2011 at 08:50am

Melanie Gosling

A NEW expression has entered the South African lexicon: khaki-collared crime.

The phrase was coined to describe the involvement of game park staff, game capture experts and wildlife vets in the highly lucrative crime of rhino poaching.

In an ironic twist, some of those drawn to work in wildlife conservation have now become destroyers who use scheduled immobilising drugs, sophisticated dart guns, night-vision equipment and helicopters to kill rhinos for their horn – nothing more than a bunch of compressed hair but worth its weight in gold to those who believe in its mythical medicinal qualities.

Jo Shaw, an ecologist at the Endangered Wildlife Trust in Joburg, found this week’s attack on two rhinos at Fairy Glen Game Farm near Worcester particularly chilling because the Western Cape had not been targeted by poachers before and because the drug M99 was used to immobilise the two animals before their horns were hacked off.

“M99 is a restricted drug available to people within the industry, people who have the knowledge and wherewithal to do this. There is definitely rot within the industry, and vets have been charged. You need to be a vet to use M99.

“People are calling it ‘khaki-collared crime’. It’s not just someone who lives near the reserve and sneaked in. Indications are these people have know-how,” Shaw said.

The condition of the male Fairy Glen rhino had improved yesterday while the female remained critical.

Last year, two vets from Nylstroom – Karel Toet and Manie du Plessis – were arrested on suspicion of belonging to a rhino poaching ring, while Douw Grobler, one of the country’s top wildlife vets and game capture experts, was arrested a few weeks ago for allegedly distributing M99 illegally.

“They’re using drugs not because it’s humane but because it’s quieter,” said Shaw.

“In Limpopo and North West, unmarked helicopters have been involved. We imagine they take the horn away in the helicopters and get it out of the country somewhere. Most of the rhino poaching this year has been in Kruger Park, where they come across the Mozambique border.

“A number of Vietnamese citizens have been caught with horn, and 33 horns were seized in a container in Hong Kong. Indications are that the demand comes from Vietnam, but we’re not entirely sure why.”

Shaw said there was a rumour that a Vietnamese government minister claimed to have been cured by cancer after taking rhino horn, sparking a surge in demand. However, trying to pin down that rumour has not yielded results.

Rhino horn was used medicinally in China for thousands of years, but more recently it was being sold as a “detoxicant”.

“It’s being used by high-flying people in Vietnam in the belief that it clears the cells and body of toxins. Whether this is being used as a marketing ploy, I don’t know, but it is being prescribed by certain doctors in Vietnam.”

Although international trade in rhino horn was banned, street markets in Vietnam openly sold rhino horn bowls, designed with serrations on the inside for grinding the horn before it is mixed with water and drunk.

Paul Gildenhuys of CapeNature, who is the Western Cape representative on the National Wildlife Crime Reaction Unit, said southern Africa was being targeted as home to 90 percent of the remaining rhinos.

Most of those caught smuggling rhino horn recently had been Vietnamese.

“They’re involved in it all round, some during illegal hunting, some just as couriers. The trade is all linked in some way to organised crime in gold, diamonds, drugs and weapons.

“Like abalone poaching, you’ll never stop it because of the money involved,” said Gildenhuys.