Poaching Horror

This young female hippo was caught in a snare on Saturday on the banks of the Kavango River just opposite Shamvura Camp, approximately 110 km east of Rundi On Sunday she was slaughtered and chopped up in pieces by a group of poachers that removed the meat.

A young hippo female spent most of the day on Saturday trapped in a snare waiting to be chopped up for the pot. She was spotted by a group of tourists in the snare, but the Namibian police and the Ministry of Environment and Tourism said their hands were tied as the animal was snared on the north bank of the Kanvango River.

Angolan police and their Namibian counterparts seemed disinterested in her plight as they claimed that they could do nothing until permission to act was received from their peers. As the animal was snared on the Angola side of the river a local resident Mr. Mark Paxton said that it was a matter for high ranking officials.

Mr. Paxton of the Shamvura camp approximately 110km east of Rundu and just across the river from an Angolan settlements Shamanputa and Mdunsha in the Matondoti area controlled by chief Likanda, said that the Hase family of Okahandja was booked into his camp and witnesses the entire incident.

The young female hippo is part of a group totally about 15-16 hippo that returned to the river in 2000 and formed a new breeding herd. A report about this group of hippo and their role in nature along with the Namibian Kavango’s was published in the Flamingo Magazine about 3 months ago.

Mr. Paxton said that this time the poachers’ victim was the unfortunately young hippo female that was trapped with a steel cable snare to a large tree where she stood chocking while the police and conservation government officials were debating how to handle the situation. By Sunday the animal was killed, chopped into pieces and removed and only the marks of the struggle as she tried desperately to free herself remained on the tree. A couple of months ago three elephant were shot in the area and crocodiles are regularly caught in snares, killed and eaten.

Mr. Paxton is convinced that the hippo’s meat will also be sold on the Namibian side of the river after being taken across with mokoros. He also said that not a finger will be lifted by the authorities to arrest the poachers or those who cruelly slaughtered the animals so they could gain from their actions financially.

Mr. Paxton is very worried about the effects of poaching on tourists’ en die impact on conservation and the environment. His frustrations is that there is simply no opportunity to even ask the Namibian authorities to act on the matter as they would simply say that it is a matter for the Angola authorities.

Of the bilateral and cooperation agreements between the two countries in relation to crime and conservation there is little evidence he said.

Gert Jacobie