South African breeders buck the system. The sale of wildlife to Angolan parks has sparked a row over the spread of species to areas in which they do not occur naturally. Conservationists are infuriated about a consignment of more than 200 wild animals that are due to be shipped from South Africa to national parks in Angola. Their chief worry is that most of the animals do not naturally occur in Angola. Of the 215 buck waiting in bomas in North West province to be flown to Angola’s Kissama National Park, only 12 eland could possibly qualify as indigenous to the area. Conservationists said this week the move goes against biodiversity policies for national parks adopted by most Southern African countries, in addition to guidelines provided by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Several members of the organisation’s antelope specialist group said the Angolan government would be better advised to focus on repopulating its parks with indigenous local species. “It’s like the Kruger National Park announcing that they plan to bring in lechwe or sitatunga from Botswana,” said scientist Petri Viljoen, a South African member of the antelope specialist group. Live cargo The animals are destined for Kissama, also known as the Quiçama National Park, about 70km away from Angola’s capital, Luanda. Included in the shipment are common impala, kudu, oryx, red hartebeest, plains zebra, blesbuck, blue wildebeest, common waterbuck and nyala. South Africa’s environment department said it is aware of the planned export of the animals, but that it is not part of an intergovernmental exchange or donation programme. According to the exporter, Miguel Ferreira of Exotic Game Breeders, they will be kept in a fenced-off area at Kissama and used to stock Angola’s nine national parks and other nature reserves. “The objective of this legal importation is for the development of an intensive wildlife breeding programme to reverse the process of annihilation of wildlife as a result of the war and replenish all parks and nature reserves throughout Angola, taking obviously into consideration the animal species that occurred in those areas in the past,” Ferreira said this week. Several biodiversity specialists have pointed out, however, that with the exception of the eland, all the buck species are extralimital (not indigenous) to Kissama and most parts of Angola. A subspecies of eland historically occurred in the park, though it is not certain whether the 12 being shipped out are from the same subspecies. Species such as nyala and blesbuck are alien to Angola, the specialists said, and could become invasive. There is also a risk the animals will simply die off if they are unable to adapt to Angolan conditions. Another concern is that the animals are being moved in midsummer, the worst time for translocating wildlife because of the heat and females lambing. Operation Noah’s Ark Similar controversies raged around Operation Noah’s Ark, a much-publicised wildlife translocation project at Kissama between 2001 and 2008. It resulted in at least 55 elephant, 140 eland, 11 giraffe, 50 kudu, 45 wildebeest and 45 zebra being transported to the park and enclosed in another fenced-off 10 000-hectare camp. Ecologists in Angola said this camp has become overstocked, raising further questions about why the new shipment of animals from South Africa is necessary. “This new shipment of South African animals just adds to the unhappy situation of turning Kissama National Park into a zoo. The government would be better advised to spend their money on breeding up iconic Angolan species such as red buffalo, sable and roan,” said one scientist. He did not want to be named because he advises the environment ministry in Angola. The Angolan ministry did not respond to questions about the shipment. via save our rhino
Posted on: Fri, 12 Dec 2014 10:39:36 +0000
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