Now, 100 years later, on the farm Buffelsdrift, a unique barn restoration project is nearing completion. Six years ago when the author acquired the small farm outside Ladismith, the barn was in an advanced state of disrepair. Decades of water damage from a bad roof had literally cut rafters in half and had split a mud wall to the ground. But, despite the condition, the decision was taken to restore the barn and create a unique accommodation cottage specifically suited as a Karoo honeymoon suite. The project has taken a year of painstaking work, thinking through ways and means of achieving modifications while retaining the unique Karoo style.  When finished the barn will have a stone walled kitchen with a old stone water tank being converted into a fire place. The back side of the fire place also provides a unique fireplace into the shower in the bathroom (This was an unavoidable romantic feature added for unique appeal) The original barn door area now sports a huge fireplace the size of the barn doors. The mantelpiece is a hand hewn tree stump which was originally used as the main beam of the cow feeding trough. The “riempie” tie holes for tethering the cows are clearly visible in the beam which oozes antiquity and character. Above the reed ceiling is a mezzanine level which was originaly used as an onion drying floor. Now, restored with a beautiful reed ceiling it is suitable for additional sleeping space.

In the dining room, a genuine antique Queen Anne stove creates a cosy environment along with the original mud and stone walls. The bathroom features a Victorian Bath with original brass taps, a stone basin unit and the unique walk in shower with the unique stone hearth. Over the last year of restoration, Barney the pet Barn Owl has taken a liking to sleeping in the kitchen (while unoccupied) A breading pair of Barn Owls also frequent the old blue gum tree adjacent to the barn providing a constant Barn Owl screech on many a evening. Inevitably the barn has been named “Barn Owl Cottage”.

The menu of available accommodation countrywide is varied and impressive, but few, if any will compare to the uniqueness, earthyness, retro-style and historical relevance of this cottage. For those wanting a night or two to remember, then this is it. You might forget about the time you stayed in that “other place, you remember”, but you will never forget staying in Barn Owl Cottage. It’ll be a memory for life.

The droves of cars streaming into Cape Town, Durban
and other coastal towns attests to South Africa’s traditional
Easter season preferences. This on the other hand may be just
the reason why the Karoo could be the ideal place for a really
good Easter long weekend break break.

From a weather point of view, the Karoo
offers an almost guaranteed period of sunshine. On the
contrary,be prepared for temperatures well into the 30′s. If you
are a sun lover and just crave the heat of the day on you back,
then the Karoo is the place. The biggest plus of all; with all
the crowds fighting for parking at 4th Beach Clifton and
Durban’s Ishaka Waterworld, the Karoo offers a park anywhere, go
anywhere and don’t even worry to lock. There’s no-one for miles
and with zero crime, the net result is a real mental and
physical break. The comment that the Karoo is boring comes to mind. Is it really?

The Karoo is a 4×4 challenge, a hikers dream, a birders paradise, a botanists adventure, a game
drive speciality, a food and wine connouseur’s delight and heaven for those who just want
to chill, read a book and catch up on a years lost sleep in the city.
Easter in the Karoo may be just what you need and are looking for.

The South African Leopard faces one of its greatest threats, illegal skin trade.  

Leopards may be a symbol of power and strength but they are vulnerable to human greed. To Skin a Cat is a film that exposes the loss of leopard populations to an illegal skin trade. It is also the story of one team’s mission to save these beloved big cats by introducing a high-quality imitation skin to the market. After 8 intense months of filming that saw a new fur-making machine arrive from China, the first designs of the fur completed and a contested Shembe succession, we are on the brink of multiple breakthroughs. To ensure we can capture the exciting next chapter of this incredible story we need to raise R150,000 in the next 8 weeks…

Go to their website and make a donation http://www.toskinacat.org/

Further reading: Africa Freak; Jon Morgan Guiding; Bush Warriors

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South Africa is known as the Rainbow Nation and Outa Lappies is definitely one of the bright colours in our national colidoscope.

Outa Lappies (Jan Schoeman), the karoo philosopher-artist whose father taught him to ‘make something out of nothing’ if he wanted to get anywhere in this world, made himself a home at Prince Albert, at the little house at the station on the N1. His father also taught him that actions speak louder than words and so he encouraged people to discover what was really important in life and creating art from odds and ends others had thrown away. He made his mark on the South African art scene with his embroidered ‘lappies’ which ultimately earned him his name. Another reason for his being called Outa Lappies is that he wears clothes stitched together from “lappies” – colourful patchwork decorated with woollen embroidery. For the Millennium, Tannie Louisa Jooste, who lives in Noordend stitched a special patchwork and hessian suit for him, complete with 2000 embroidered here and there.

His ‘karretjies’, his ‘light house’ lanterns and more recently, the hands he made from recycled tin and glass all became hallmarks distinguishing him as one of South Africa’s truly unique indigenous artists.

Jan Schoeman has become a Karoo legend. He will always be known as Outa Lappies – the patchwork philosopher, “green peace activist” and artist of the Karoo who lived at the Prince Albert Road Station – encouraging the local children to plant sunflower seeds and “make something outa nothing.” His art work can be bought in Prince Albert at The Lazy Lizard, Bric-a-Brac Browserie and from Bodo Toelstede +27 (0)23 5411 330.

Outa Lappies (Jan Schoeman), died on 7 July 2011.

The Prince Albert Cultural Foundation plans to create a museum at Outa Lappies’ last home, the little house at the station on the N1, recording his life and work. Donations may be sent to the PA Educational & Heritage Trust, Account number 9079310467, at ABSA Prince Albert branch code 334-708. Kindly use the reference OUTA.

Picture courtesy of Reinwald Dedekind

Feature picture courtesy of Gudrun Toelstede

To get more information go to Cape Info

For further reading : Hunger Season; Homeless Talk; Green It Web; The South Africa Guide; Ally Celebrity Biographies

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Black Footed Cat

South Africa has seven species of indigenous wild cats. South African big cats like lion, cheetah and leopard receive a greater share of attention through tourism and conservation simply because they are more easily sighted than their smaller cousins and are generally regarded as being far more spectacular. The small cats are however just as important as they form an essential link in the environmental food chain and deserve the same status as the larger cats.

The Cat Conservation Trust run by Richard and Marion Holmes is a non-profit trust that aims to create public awareness of the plight of the small cats through research and education.

They keep 4 cat species : The most endangered being the Small Spotted Cat or Black-footed Cat, African Wild Cat, Caracal and Serval. This is an ongoing project run by their non-profit Cat Conservation Trust, in order to raise sponsors and get donations towards the running costs.

Their cats are all wild and are left to be as natural as possible to have them ready for release into the wild, which is their main goal.

African Wild Cat

Karoo Pred-a-Tours, owned by Richard & Marion Holmes, breed the small cats in captivity for selective release into suitable wild habitats and to inform the public about the important role these animals play in bio-diversity conservation. The biggest threat to African Wild Cat conservation is widespread hybridisation with domestic cats, which foray into almost all African Wild Cat ranges.

Sightings of Black-Footed Cats should be reported to ethologist Beryl Wilson of the McGregor Museum in Kimberley, South Africa, who is compiling a species distribution map.

Caracal

Report the information to:

Beryl Wilson
Zoology Department, McGregor Museum
P.O. Box 316, Kimberley, 8300, South Africa

Tel: +27(0) 53 839 2727
Fax: +27(0) 53 842 1433
Email: berylwa@museumsnc.co.za

Cat Conservation Trust cat enclosures are situated on Clifton farm near Cradock in the Eastern Cape, South Africa.

Serval

The farm, Clifton, belongs to Richard and Marion Holmes current world leaders in Black-Footed Cat breeding success. Support this non-profit trust by visiting their site and make a donation, also have a look at their accommodation on our route N9 page.

Tel: +27(0)48 881 2814
Email: info@karoocats.org
Fax: +27(0)86 661  4145

More reading: Silvermere; Heart of Green; Impressive Animals; Snow Leopard Blog

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Where to stay in the Karoo is easily solved for the many  visitors to this region each year.

For more info: Agora Hotels and Travel; Best Vacation Places; Karoo Adventures;
Ravenna Mountain Retreat; The Gremlin

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Pre-dating the Triassic period 248 million years ago, through the Cretaceous period 65 million years ago to the present, there is only one living organism which has survived.

With their distinctive shape and poise, cycads exude a commanding presence. They are the oldest living seed plants on earth – their evolution can be traced back to the Palaeozoic era, maybe 400-million years ago. They pre-date angio-sperms (modern trees) by more than 100-million years and reached their greatest abundance during the Jurassic period. Over that vast timespan, they developed the sort of defences that have made them survivors into the modern age. Along the way they made a few friends and came to an accommodation with some enemies. Apart from their scaly trunks and spiky topknots as defence, cycads cooked up some venal poisons to ensure they’re left alone. These substances – found only in cycads – go under the tongue-tangling name methylazoxymethanol glycosides (MAM-glycosides for short). This combination of compounds kills nerves (it’s a neurotoxin), causes gene mutations and damages the DNA in insect and mammal cells (it breaks the DNA strands). It can even alter your chromosomes. Basically, eat it and it can trash your brain, collapse your liver and you can end up with liver or stomach cancer in a matter of weeks. This is a tree with a kick.

Leopard Magpie Moth

Even plants with nuclear defences, however, need to be pollinated and have their seeds dispersed. And – with a few million years in which to experiment – it would be surprising
if there weren’t a few beasties which developed a taste for poison. One of these is the delightfully named and highly coloured leopard magpie moth. It lays its eggs on cycad leaves and the caterpillars, when they hatch, chew away on the
deadly leaves, all the while sequestering the poisons in their body. After a few moults, the caterpillars burrow into the ground,
weave a cocoon, and finally emerge as a moth so deadly from
its poison store that if you eat it you’re history. Birds learn the hard way, but they do learn and the moths are generally left in peace. How the poisons don’t kill the insect is still a mystery for science to solve.

Weevil

For wacky design, however, the prize goes to snouted weevils, some of which look like an oddly armoured knight with his jousting lance welded to his helmet, but have more incommon with a Black and Decker hand drill. Among the weevils are those with extraordinary snouts that are used to drill into the seed core of the cones into which they then lay their eggs. Others have shorter snouts because, being smaller and flatter, they can creep into the cone when it opens slightly during pollination and therefore have less distance to drill. Both types pollinate the plant. When the young hatch, they eat their way out of their poisoned chalice and, ever after, are themselves inedible. But here’s the genius of the thing. There comes a time when seeds need to be distributed. But who’d do the job if they’d get poisoned in the process? So, at a certain time of the year, the cycad emits intriguing aromas, neutralizes poison in its cones and offers tasty seeds to birds for distribution. You’d think that, considering how poisonous cycads are, humans would leave them well alone. But they don’t.

In South Africa they’re being plundered to extinction and last year the International Union for Conservation of Nature or IUCN declared them the most threatened organism on the planet. Being endangered is a self-fulfilling prophesy – it ups your value and the subsequent plunder increases your rarity. In the 1980′s a survey of a particular species recorded 700 in Limpopo; a recent survey found only 100. At least two species in the province have disappeared altogether. In the Eastern Cape poachers have reduced the numbers of wild cycad by half, and at last count there were only 50 left. In an effort to trace stolen plants, electronic identification chips were inserted into them. But it hasn’t worked. So much money is being made that poachers have worked out a way to replace the chips with their own, making it difficult to prove they were stolen. In the United States, collectors have been known to pay up to $20 000 for an Albany cycad. With that kind of money being offered, thieves can afford to be high tech – and daring. When the last wild cycad is dug up and tossed into the back of a poacher’s bakkie, we will have killed off a creature that has survived for hundreds of millions of years and two mass extinctions. It will be a terrible indictment of our  species.
For hungry birds which rely on cycads for food, snouted weevils and the leopard magpie moth, it will be a disaster.

For more information, see the comprehensive book Cycad World of Innovation by Adolf Fanfoni. To order it, email info@cycadwofi.com or check out www.cycadwofi.com.

More reading Canarius Blog; Garden Wise; The Scenic South

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The Hantam National Botanical Garden, recently became South Africa’s 9th National Botanical Garden, and the only one in the Northern Cape. A visit to this newly established garden is really worth it especially now with the onset of spring. Situated just outside Nieuwoudtville, the Garden is one of the world’s very special biodiversity treasures and the first National Botanical Garden in the Northern Cape, South Africa.  Contact information: Tel: +27 27 218 1200 Fax: +27 27 218 1201 Email: Hantam@sanbi.org.za

The Cederberg Area. The wild flowers of the Cederberg are some of the finest in the world. The Cederberg doesn’t just have the vast carpets of flowers which adorn the coffee table books. It also has the largest variety of wild flower species, many growing nowhere else in the world. This is due to the different topography, from the dry Karoo-like landscapes through to the wetter vlei areas of the Oliphants River and the Sandveld en route to Lamberts Bay.  Enjoy a flower tour on a farm such as Elandsberg Eco-reserve; visit the Ramskop Nature Reserve and botanical garden and see the Clanwilliam Flower Show in late August. Visit www.clanwilliamwildflowershow.co.za

The Karoo Desert National Botanical Garden is a truly unique garden.  It cultivates and displays a wide variety of desert and semi-desert plants. The 154 hectare Garden lies at the foot of the Hexriver Mountain range, 120 km north of Cape Town.  There are three hiking trails in the natural area.  The most popular time to visit the Garden is during spring, when the annuals and vygies (mesembs) are in flower. Contact information: Tel: +27 23 347 0785 Fax: +27 23 342 8719 Email: Karoo-Desert-NBG@sanbi.org.za

The West Coast National Park is ideal for those who don’t want to travel far from Cape Town. Travelling within the park you will experience the beauty of the Langebaan Lagoon and the world famous Postberg Reserve with its views of wild spring flowers as well as indigenous game and prolific bird life. The town of Darling nearby is worth a stop and look at the flower reserves near the town and then you can continue onto the historic mission station at Mamre with its beautiful church and school. Visit http://www.cedarberg-travel.com/south-africa/cape-town/spring-flower-day-tour for more info on this trip.

More sites : The South Africa Guide; The Lovely Plants; SANParks Blog; Camera Lucid Photography

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Fracking in the Karoo became an emotive quip which soon gained enough support to temporarily

Quietly, almost behind the scenes another, almost greater development is gaining momentum. This time, with an almost squeaky clean media profile and high level support both nationally and internationally. Almost everyone is applauding the possibilities of South Africa winning the bid against Australia for the SKA (Square Kilometer Array) telescope. At face value, and from what we’ve been told, the SKA promises to transform many facets of South African life, and so it will. Many jobs will be created. Supersonic broadband will at last be at our disposal and South Africa will be at the cutting edge of astrological science. All this and much much more can only be good news for everyone…. or is it ?

Until now most people envisage a rather large telescope being built near Carnarvon and that
this telescope will utilize roughly one Square Kilometer of land space, hence the name Square
Kilometer Array (SKA). To clear up the exact extent of the telescope, Ivo Vegter, a columnist
for The Daily Maverick contacted Adrian Tiplady, who selects sites for the Square Kilometre
Array radio telescope project. The topic of discussion was the likely negative impact of gas
drilling, using hydraulic fracturing (fracking), on the billion-dollar SKA project South
Africa is bidding to host in the Karoo . The following is an extract of an article by Ivo
Vegter posted in the Daily Maverick.

In an email from Adrian Tiplady, he confirmed that the SKA will consist of not one but about
1,500 big dishes in the core area north-west of Carnarvon, with another 1,500 radiating from
there in a great big five-armed spiral. Each clump of receivers occupies a site of between two
and four hectares.

(It should be noted, since Peter Rose, a professor of microbiology who spoke at the debate
seemed to believe otherwise, that the “square kilometre” in the name refers to the total
collecting area of the telescopes, not to the geographical extent of the site.)

The core area of the SKA will look like this:

This covers about the same area as the Jonah Gas Field in Wyoming. Still, it merits no more than a dot in the middle of nowhere, on a map:

By “the middle of nowhere”, I (Ivo Vegter) don’t mean to denigrate what surely is splendid
scenery under that red dot in the middle of, well, nowhere. I mean that the entire region
marked out on the map above is protected by law.

You may not enter or reside in this region without permission from the management authority.
You may not do most things compatible with civilised life – such as erect lights, fly an
aeroplane, drive a truck, construct a road, build a house, or broadcast a radio signal – in
this region without permission. Even such farm-like activities as combine harvesting and
arc-welding will be severely restricted or prohibited.

But we’re getting side-tracked. In this core area – like in the five-armed spiral that will
extend throughout the Karoo and even beyond – there will be a variety of radio telescopes,
listening to radio frequencies from as low as 70 MHz (VHF) upwards.

The following images are artist impressions of the equipment that will be built in the Karoo.
These images are not from an extreme environmental group trying to drum up opposition to the
project, but from the SKA website, where they are posted as promotional material.

This is what they call the sparse aperture array:

Those little things look positively harmless compared to the massively imposing structures of
the dense aperture array:

These are the radio telescope dishes we’re mostly familiar with:

Here is where we notice a slight problem. Didn’t the artist forget something? Where are the
site buildings? The access roads? Where is the impact on the Karoo?

Each of these telescopes has to be built. Like gas well drilling, this operation will take a
few weeks per site, and involve heavy machinery.

Each telescope is a substantial engineering project in its own right.

Once finished, the telescopes are connected by access roads and various pipes and cables to
the control and data network.

Here’s what a completed cluster of telescopes looks like. This is not an artist’s impression,
but an actual photograph of the KAT7 precursor array, located outside Carnarvon. Notice the
bakkie, the site offices and the truck, to get an idea of the size of these things.

So, with this new information about what the SKA will really look like, I took the liberty of
creating my own artist’s impression.

Recognise it?

Now I like to be consistent. I don’t oppose either project. I don’t believe either will
“destroy the timeless Karoo”.

However, what I would like to know is why the Treasure the Karoo Action Group, and all the
other people so vehemently opposed to shale gas drilling, are not leading a loud campaign
against the Square Kilometre Array.

Honest activists should just say that the government should ban fossil fuels, “because the age
of fossil fuels is over”.

Smart activists would put their money where their mouths are, start alternative energy
companies, and clean the floor with the short-sighted idiots at Big Oil.

Another reason for the inconsistency on the SKA’s environmental impact is that astronomy is
not an easy target for whipping up public anger.

Deal admitted that the Treasure the Karoo Action Group campaign was characterised by overly
emotive rhetoric, excusing it by saying this was necessary to raise the issue to public
prominence. While this view is common, it is not only false, but dangerous.

Whipping up anger leads to death threats, and threats to have farms burnt down
if the owners do not join their neighbours in their opposition to gas drilling. Given the
record of deception, fear-mongering, and conflicts of interest on the part of the organised
opposition to fracking, is it any wonder that they’re not consistent enough to call for a ban
on the Square Kilometre Array? Ivo Vegter, a columnist for The Daily Maverick”

Karoo Places.com invites alternative views on the SKA bid and will publish these without
predjudice in order to ensure the ongoing conservation of the Karoo. In a nutshell, if fracking
poses a serious threat to the Karoo, should the SKA bid not be seen as an equal or even greater
threat given the extent of the scenario sketched above.

We welcome your views.

Further reading: Thought Leader; Engineering News; Shout-Africa

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Rhino conservation in the Karoo happens on a small scale if at all.

Is it even more bizarre than we thought ?

A statement to police that led to the arrest of the leader of an alleged Thai rhino poaching syndicate exposes the sleaze in the officially sanctioned shooting of this endangered species, with prostitutes used in “canned hunts”.

Evidence of the syndicate’s modus operandi emerged this week from a statement made to the police that led to the recent arrest of its leader, Chemlong Lemtongthai (43). The syndicate is alleged to have traded at least 40 rhino horns and placed an “order” for 50 more to be supplied in the next few months.

The evidence brings to light a growing trend among organised syndicates that are using hunting permits to export illegal rhino horns to the Far East. Almost a quarter of the 222 rhinos killed in South Africa this year have been “hunts” authorised by provincial conservation authorities.

A statement made to the police by John Olivier, who worked with the syndicate, led to the arrest of Lemtongthai and five Thai “hunters” in Edenvale on July 9. He described how Lemtongthai and his sidekick, Punpitak Chunchom, paid millions of rands in cash for live rhinos.

Olivier claims in his statement to the police that Marnus Steyl, a wildlife trader based in Brits, North West, bought the rhinos from auctions and private owners.

Steyl is then alleged to have moved the rhinos to a farm in North West and soon after that they would be “hunted”, in contravention of regulations that the animals must be given time to acclimatise.

“Once the rhinos were established on Steyl’s farm he would call Lemtongthai and tell him how many animals were in place for a ‘hunt’ … [If] Steyl had supplied three rhinos Lemtongthai would call Chunchom and tell him that he needed three ‘hunters’ and Chunchom would know that he needed to find three Thai nationals to hunt the rhinos,” Olivier said in the statement.

Usually friends were called in, or Thai women working as strippers and prostitutes were paid R5 000 to do the job. They were provided by a Midrand, Gauteng, woman wanted in Thailand for human trafficking. Their passports and fingerprints were needed to complete the necessary hunting permits and Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species paperwork.

Olivier claims in the statement that “once the fingerprinting is done, the ladies are taken out to Steyl’s farm, where they are made comfortable and then introduced to the professional hunter.

“[He] would show them the rifle and even take the girls to a quiet spot where they could let off one or two shots so that they can later say that they have at least fired the weapon.”

An official from North West Parks would be called out to witness the “hunt”, measure the horn, scan the microchip and put the details in the professional hunting register. “I believe he would also get a kickback for being so cooperative,” Olivier’s statement said.

After the rhino was dehorned and the carcass chopped up for delivery to a butcher in Vryburg, where the meat was sold off in boerewors and burgers, the horn was taken to a taxidermist who mounted it on a shield to look like a hunting trophy.

“The trophy is just a cover for getting the horn out of South Africa and into Asia. Once in Asia, it obviously would enter the black market as rhino horn for ‘medicinal purposes’. The person allegedly ‘hunting’ the rhino would never see the animal or its horn again.”

Lemtongthai argued with some of the rhino traders about the prices they were charging upfront, saying he would prefer to pay after the horns had been weighed, Olivier’s statement said.

He felt he had paid too much for two rhinos shot in September or October last year — about R575 000 for one and R450 000 for the second — and told Olivier that in future it would be done in a different way. “I remember his actual words: ‘We shoot, we cut, we weigh, then pay.’”

Olivier said in the statement that Lemtongthai paid R65 000 a kilogram for the horns and sold them for $55 000 (R380 000) a kilogram. With the average horn weighing 5kg, he had made more than R60-million in profit on the 40 rhinos shot to date.

The airline manager said he decided to expose the syndicate after discovering an order to Steyl for 50 more rhinos from Lemtongthai’s company, Xaysavang Trading Export-Import Company.

“The receipt of this order made me realise he is just hellbent on killing as many rhinos as possible, for no other reason than harvesting the horn,” Olivier said.

Xaysavang Trading Export-Import Company is based in Laos, a tiny country bordered by China, Thailand, Burma, Vietnam and Cambodia. It openly sells monkeys to a Chinese laboratory for use in experiments and in July 2009 was linked to the illegal sale of ivory and 18kg of rhino horn in Kenya.

According to forensic investigator Paul O’Sullivan, who assisted in Lemtongthai’s arrest, he is number two in the syndicate, which is headed by a Vietnamese resident, Vixay Keovang, also known as Vixay Xaysavang.

Before it moved into rhino poaching in South Africa the company traded in large quantities of lion carcasses and bones supplied by breeders in the North West and the Free State. Days before Lemtongthai’s arrest, Chunchom, his man on the ground in South Africa, was deported for the illegal possession of lion claws and teeth.

Steyl and the professional hunters have not been charged. Steyl did not respond to questions from the Mail & Guardian.

State okayed ‘hunts’
Recent figures indicate that at least 60 of the 222 rhinos killed in South Africa this year were “hunts” authorised by provincial conservation bodies.

The department of environmental affairs did not answer the M&G’s questions about the number of permits that had been issued for rhino hunts this year.

When the M&G first reported, in July 2008, that wildlife traffickers were laundering hunting permits to smuggle horns to the Far East, figures available showed that 205 rhino hunting permits had been issued in 2006.

Hawks spokesperson McIntosh Polela said this week that the National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure, a collaborative task team set up in May to deal with rhino poaching, had so far focused on the Kruger National Park because of the high density of its rhino population and because it made up 80% of poaching incidents. The Kruger would remain the focus “until we get things under control”, but the task team was spreading out to provinces affected by rhino poaching activities.

Cases included those of Chemlong Lemtongthai, the alleged leader of a Thai syndicate, and an alleged Limpopo syndicate headed by hunter Dawie Groenewald, Polela said.

Groenewald and 10 others were arrested last September. They face charges that include fraud, corruption, assault, defeating the ends of justice and contravening the Organised Crime Act.

Despite the charges, Limpopo conservation officials have issued Groenewald with 12 rhino hunting permits in recent months and at least 17 transport permits.

The permits came to light after the Democratic Alliance’s Limpopo leader, Desiree van der Walt, posed questions to Pitsi Moloto, the province’s environment minister. Moloto said the magistrate had prohibited Groenewald from engaging in any activity related to rhinos on his farm, but that “the period set by the magistrate expired and he was allowed to conduct his business as usual”.

Last week Groenewald offered to buy nine white rhinos from a private sanctuary in Limpopo. He backed down in the face of an outcry from conservationists and the rhinos were sold to Mpumalanga game rancher John Hume. Paul O’Sullivan, an investigator who worked with the anti-poaching task team to expose Lemtongthai and the Xaysavang Trading Export-Import Company, admitted that a link existed between Groenewald and the Thai syndicate.

In response to questions about whether Groenewald was supplying rhinos for the Thai syndicate’s “canned hunts” O’Sullivan said: “Yes, he’s at it as well, just with another syndicate that also traces back to Lemtongthai’s boss.”

Groenewald’s lawyer, Thomas Grobler, said Groenewald denied any connection with Lemtongthai, the Xaysavang Trading Export-Import Company, or its owner, Vixay Xaysavang. Polela also said there was no indication of a link.

Go to HORN on Facebook and support this cause

For further reading : Endangered Wildlife Trust; My Dream Course; Jon Morgan Guiding;
Science Blog; Africa Freak

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