Wildlife poisoning in the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area: A baseline study

The baseline study covered poison incidents that occurred in the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area (GLTFCA) from January 1, 2008 to July 18, 2019. The cases and statistics presented in this report are not the official poison statistics for the GLTFCA as such statistics do not exist. Conservation officials in Gonarezhou National Park (GNP), Kruger National Park (KNP) and Limpopo National Park (LNP) provided poison incidents that were on record. In addition, poison incidence data was received from the African Wildlife Poisoning Database, Moholoholo Rehabilitation Centre, Maunge PNR, Wildlife Poisoning Prevention & Conflict Resolution, the Greater Limpopo Carnivore Programme and Karingari.

The poison data was supplemented with fieldwork. Several qualitative research methods, such as a literature and desktop review, semi-structured interviews, group discussions, focus groups, participation in meetings, and participant observation were employed for the fieldwork component of the study while limited quantitative analysis was undertaken on the poison incidence data. The primary research sites were the three parks. Secondary research sites included local communities, concessions, game and nature reserves, commercial farms, cities and small towns in and near the GLTFCA. The researcher also visited border posts, informal markets, hospitals and clinics, police stations and bus and taxi ranks. A total of 172 people were interviewed and another 51 research participants shared their knowledge and experiences during focus groups. Strict ethical guidelines governed the data collection process. A total number of 155 poisoning and attempted poisoning incidents were recorded in the GLTFCA. Of the three parks, the GNP registered the lowest number of incidents with 24 suspected and recorded poison incidents. Sixty incidents were recorded in the Mozambican section of the GLTFCA. With 71 suspected and recorded poison incidents, the Greater Kruger landscape in South Africa registered the most poison incidents. Of these 71 poison incidents, 39 incidents occurred inside the boundaries of the KNP. The overall death toll through poisoning was 2 082 individual animals, which includes one domestic goat and three domestic dogs that were found at poisoning sites. Twenty individuals (most of them vultures) made a recovery after rehabilitation procedures, thus a total number of 2 062 wild and domestic animals were affected by poisoning. The primary targets of poisoning in the project area were elephants and lions. While vultures and other birds were the worst impacted by poisoning, they appear not to have been the primary targets. In all the cases where elephants had been poisoned, the tusks were removed, suggesting that these were cases of poison poaching for ivory. Lions were the primary victims of predator poisonings: 43 lions were poisoned between 2008 and 2019. The majority of these poisoning incidents were linked to human-wildlife conflict scenarios and happened in the Mozambican part of the GLTFCA. In five cases, body parts were removed. The available data suggests that the frequency of wildlife poisoning incidents has increased since 2010. GNP saw a spike in 2014 with incidents ebbing off since then. The trends in and around KNP and LNP suggest that wildlife poisoning continues to pose a serious threat to conservation endeavours. Data for KNP is particularly worrying with wildlife poisoning incidents growing at a slow pace initially (2008-2015) but peaking in 2016 and 2018 to ten incidents per year. Since the beginning of 2019, seven separate poisoning incidents have been recorded, suggesting that 2019 may end with the highest number of poisoning events in recent history. The increase of recorded poisoning incidents over time may well be linked to better detection rates and record-keeping.

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• Wildlife poisoning in the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area: A baseline study