Souvenirs that endanger SA wildlife

April 21 2008 at 01:03PM

Elephant hair bracelets, shark tooth earrings and lampshades crafted from porcupine quills are all novel souvenirs increasingly being snapped up by tourists.

But the trade in these keepsakes is deadly for South Africa's wildlife. Now the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw) is hoping its "Think Twice - Don't Buy Wildlife Souvenirs" campaign will encourage international visitors to halt the "rampant killing of wildlife" for curios.

The conservation group is targeting tourists passing through South Africa's airports, where it will air the 30-second infomercial, which begins with an image of dead wildlife circulating on a luggage carousel.

Already launched at Cape Town International Airport, the infomercial will run next month across plasma screens at OR Tambo and Durban airports during the annual tourism indaba.

Christina Pretorius, spokesperson for Ifaw in Southern Africa, said: "We're targeting these inbound visitors because they're the people who are going to take these items home.

"They pay a few hundred rands for a porcupine quill lampshade, or just a few rands for a bundle of quills to stick in their hair or a vase."

But the cost to animals like the porcupine is drawing more and more alarm. Ifaw says the species is "literally being slaughtered" to support surging demand from the retail, decor, tourism and hospitality industries.

"The number of porcupines being killed is running into many thousands every year," Pretorius said.

"Porcupine lampshades need 140 quills, which indicates that eight porcupines were killed to make it."

"At this rate, we'll really see the end of the species.

It's the country's farms, where porcupines, viewed as vermin, are being indiscriminately exterminated. These farms are supplying the tourism and decor markets.

In 2006, during an Ifaw investigation into the porcupine quill trade, investigators were offered a staggering consignment of 80 000 quills by one supplier in Beaufort West with a promise to provide "unlimited" supplies of quills.

It found farm labourers eat the porcupine meat, while the quills are sorted into bundles to be collected by dealers. The report found a striking increase in the number of porcupine quills and quill products on display in retail, tourism and decor outlets "produced on a large scale to supply Afrocentrism".

Christy Bragg, a University of Cape Town researcher who is completing her PhD on the ecology of porcupines in the Nieuwoudtville region in the Northern Cape, said: "Porcupines will become endangered if we don't regulate the [quill] industry. I want to find ways to stop the damage from porcupines so that farmers don't hate them so much."

Quills sells from around R2 a quill in a retail outlet to around R6 for a bundle of 12, through a dealer, which are usually sold in large amounts of up to 20 000 quills, says the report, adding that the retail industry has misled the public into believing the quills are obtained ethically.

Porcupines are ecosystem engineers, said Bragg.

"More geophytes occur here (Nieuwoudtville) than anywhere else in the world, and porcupines, in various ways, encourage and promote the bio-diversity of geophytes. They help the environment. But people see them as good eating, as problem animals, and as lampshades."

The porcupine is one of Africa's most charismatic animals, Bragg declared. "Unfortunately too few people know this."

The deaths of tens of thousands of starving swallows in Limpopo last month may have been triggered by climate change, according to a local bird expert. Last week locals across parts of Limpopo had been alarmed at the sudden deaths of the tiny birds, a week before they were due to begin their epic migration to Europe on March 23, the equinox.

But on March 17, a sudden cold snap arrived, which "caught the birds off guard", according to Gerhard Verdoorn, the executive director of Birdlife SA.

"It must be tens of thousands that died," said Verdoorn, adding that it was too wet and cold for the birds to find insects.


This article was originally published on page 7 of Pretoria News on April 21, 2008