SanWild's objectives are a combination of acquiring habitat and saving individual wild
animals in need of help. All land acquired through our fundraising efforts will fall
under the auspices of the SanWild Wildlife Trust and will thus be protected in perpetuity.
Our goal is to establish a 15 000 hectare sanctuary and our vision is to ultimately
incorporate adjoining farmlands to form an ecologically viable wildlife reserve to protect
a unique wilderness area.
In recent years, South Africa created an industry based on wild animals which when it began had the best intentions in the world – to conserve, protect and increase dwindling wildlife populations. The industry grew rapidly and the good intent on which it was based – to breed and supply excess wild animals to protected and conservation areas and eco tourism ventures – began to tilt as wild animals became commercially valuable and were supplied to a growing hunting industry. More and more people became involved in the wild animal business and a huge gap opened between the eco tourism and hunting industries as the latter became entrenched with unethical and inhumane conduct. Wild animals increasingly became commodities to be captured, transported, sold, hunted or exported. It became more and more evident that the South African game industry is spiralling out of control. Many thousands of wild animals were being captured and sold for one reason or another every year and the industry proved to be growing at an average annual rate of 5.6% since 1993 and is currently still one of the fastest expanding sectors in the South African economy. More than $1.5 billion has been invested by private landowners in game farms, the breeding of valuable species and hunting ranches occupying over 11 million hectares. A range of specialist services including insurance brokering, game capture units, auctioneers, specialist game breeders, agricultural and veterinary support services, wildlife consultants and helicopter services have been established to support the industry. It is estimated that together these services generate a turnover that annually exceeds $100-million. Although the lure of financial gain is the overriding incentive the industry has gained support for its activities under the banner of sustainable utilization and no matter how unethical and inhumane some practices have become (i.e. the hunting of captive bred lions and other species on areas from where there is no escaping), the industry’s ways are widely accepted in South Africa. Unfortunately the dark side of this industry has begun to undermine South Africa’s credible standing as a leading country concerning the conservation of wildlife in Africa. During game capture operations the social structures of antelope species are disregarded as game capturers routinely separate breeding groups. Large male animals are sold exclusively to hunting concerns while female and young animals are sold to newly establish game farms or to existing hunting ranches wanting to breed up their future hunting stock. Live game auctions regularly feature male trophy animals that are sold for record-breaking prices. Many of these poor unfortunate creatures are shot within hours of arriving at their new destinations in bomas or as they leave the game capture trucks. Many game capture units will advertise the sale of only trophy animals which are separated from breeding groups or are captured in bachelor herds.
For many young and often unweaned animals the road ahead is pretty bleak. Captured with the rest of their group while very small and forced into capture bomas, loading areas and game trucks, many young animals are fatally injured during the random separation of family units. If they survive the journey they may be too young to keep up with their panicked mothers and die a slow, lonely death at their new destination. Hunting seasons leave many unweaned and orphaned calves to die a terribly slow death from starvation. Young animals have recently also become a much sought–after commodity in the money-making business and are sold privately or at live game auctions to private individuals or local animal traders who have tapped into a growing export market, especially in China and other far Eastern countries. Being small and young, they can be tamed down more easily, take up less space and can therefore be exported with much less difficulty than adult animals. Younger animals are cute and have a longer lifespan that the rest of their family units and because this makes them more desirable to zoos and safari parks, or as exotic pets, they are deliberately separated from their family units. Although they may have been spared death from starvation on a South African farm, they instead face a bleak and miserable lifetime of captivity in countries far from the continent of their birth.
At SanWild we know that the only way to conserve and protect the wild animals that are dear to us is to ensure that enough protected land is available for them – not only for individual rehabilitated animals that have become the injured or orphaned casualties of the game industry, but also to allow for all species to be protected and safe for persecution. This includes species of the game farmer’s enemy – the predator, be it the jackal, caracal, cheetah or African wild dog. It is only when all the components of a system can function naturally that conservation is given real meaning. SanWild's objectives are a combination of acquiring habitat and saving individual wild animals in need of help. All land acquired through our fundraising efforts will fall under the auspices of the SanWild Wildlife Trust and will thus be protected in perpetuity. Our goal is to establish a 15 000 hectare sanctuary and our vision is to ultimately incorporate adjoining farmlands to form an ecologically viable wildlife reserve to protect a unique wilderness area. ^ To The Top ^ |
