Death sentence looms for roaming jumbo clan in KZN

Time is running out for a herd of about 45 rogue elephants that will be killed if they don’t find a new home soon.

Ezemvelo KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife is hunting for someone with plenty of space and resources to adopt the animals, which have been wreaking havoc for several years after they began roaming beyond the boundaries of  Mawana Game Reserve near Nongoma in northern KwaZulu-Natal.

The wildlife authority has applied to the department of forestry, fisheries & the environment (DFFE) for a permit allowing it to kill the animals, which pose a danger to the kwaMpumpula community in KwaCeza on the border of the game reserve. But it faces strong pressure from international non-governmental organisations that are demanding the animals be allowed to live. 

A member of the community, Lungelo Buthelezi, 21, was disabled by an elephant in March while he was herding cattle and the animals have destroyed crops and approached close to children.

Mawana’s then owner Kerneels van der Walt obtained permission 21 years ago to acquire 10 elephants and he added five more the following year, on condition a 54km fence was electrified.

Van der Walt died in 2018, leaving his son Johannes and daughter Una Coetzee as executors of his estate. But the reserve’s fences have failed to contain the elephants, leading to the present crisis.

Two weeks ago the Humane Society International/Africa (HSI/Africa), Wildlife Warriors Africa and other NGOs, as well as representatives from Mawana, used drones to shepherd the herd back into the reserve.

Coetzee said Mawana lost its enclosure certificate 12 years ago due to its failure to maintain the fence, which she said had been damaged by poachers. She said a drought between 2016 and 2019 as well as illegal hunters drove the animals out of the property.

Ezemvelo has issued several compliance notices to Mawana for failing to properly enclose the animals since 2018.

In 2020 the reserve’s owners were barred from culling or hunting animals until they fixed its fence, according to Vuyiswa Radebe, Ezemvelo’s head of biodiversity conservation operations.

Coetzee’s husband Beyers was himself killed by two of the elephants in February 2020 during an attempt to herd them back into Mawana.

Una said he had been working with a conservationist on a plan to solve the problem.

“The aim was to create a common ground for both the community and the elephants,” she said. “It would be an international reserve where people would visit, just like Hluhluwe. That way we could keep the elephants safe in an area they are familiar with and protect the community while also creating jobs.”

Every effort has been made by HSI/Africa and the relevant NGO consortium to have this proposal discussed and either modified or finalised. Since then, this proposal has been submitted multiple times and feedback has been requested from Ezemvelo, but no approval has been granted

—  Conservation NGOs

Una, facing an estimated bill of R10m to fence the property and damages claims from neighbouring communities, said she obtained a permit from Ezemvelo last year to cull “several hundred” animals on the reserve as a way of raising money.

But she said the money was used by another trustee to pay off historical legal debt.

Radebe conceded that Ezemvelo had failed to enforce its fencing compliance notices.

“We have a compensation fund where if wild animals go into people’s land and damage the stock we have to compensate them. In the 10-year period from 2014 to date, Ezemvelo has parted with almost R12.7m for compensation.”

Joseph Buthelezi, uncle of Lungelo, said his nephew had survived the attack in March by playing dead. The elephant involved covered him with leaves and tree branches and left. Lungelo crawled up a hill and hid while waiting for help.

Buthelezi said he was promised compensation but had not yet received any.

HSI/Africa and Elephants Alive say they submitted a proposal for humane solutions for the Mawana elephants in May and followed up several times since then, but Ezemvelo had failed to act.

The plan includes a temporary fencing solution, appointment and training of elephant shepherds and workshops. A consortium of other NGOs also submitted other short- to long-term solutions including permanent fencing.

“Every effort has been made by HSI/Africa and the relevant NGO consortium to have this proposal discussed and either modified or finalised. Since then, this proposal has been submitted multiple times and feedback has been requested from Ezemvelo, but no approval has been granted,” the NGOs said.

Audrey Delsink, senior wildlife director for HSI/Africa, said Ezemvelo should have addressed the proposal when it was first submitted more than five months ago.

HSI/Africa has asked Ezemvelo to confirm the elephants will not be killed pending efforts to save them by  NGOs and “participating stakeholders” and a planned meeting at the end of this month.

DFFE spokesperson Peter Mbelengwa said the department was “engaging with the provincial authority to find the most appropriate solutions for the animals and surroundings”.

Radebe said Ezemvelo had been legally advised the elephants no longer belonged to Mawana because they had escaped. “Nobody wants elephants, everyone is overstocked, yet when we cull them we get an uproar.”

Ezemvelo has since considered a number of options to deal with the matter including translocating them.

“We looked to Sadc countries but still nobody wanted them. Only Zambia was willing to take them but the cost of moving them there was too much. Ezemvelo doesn’t have that money.”

Radebe said Ezemvelo then applied for a permit to kill the animals.

“I thought our problems were solved. We had put the teams in place, the chopper was there, the veterinarian, ammunition… everyone,” she said.

However, the DFFE warned Ezemvelo that the permit it had — to kill “damage-causing” animals — was not valid and it needed a permit to kill “roaming” animals. This is yet to be granted.

Radebe said one option was to create a “harmonious living model” in which communities could be trained to track and report sightings and to sound alarms using radios and safeguard against animal-human interaction.

Mboneni Mnguni, a member of the ward committee, said the roaming elephants were a huge problem.

“We’re living in fear as a community and it’s about to get worse now that we’re entering the rainy season. We just want them to be taken someplace else or, if they don’t have means to do that, they must be killed. As long as they stop terrorising the community,” he said.

“We are disappointed that a democratic country has stricter laws to protect animals than those that advocates for our wellbeing.”