Until 17 November 2011 the ride was scheduled to take place at Steyl Safaris in Winburg. The problem with this venue was that Marnus Steyl, the owner, had been implicated in canned rhino hunting for a Thai rhino horn syndicate. He was arrested and released on R100,000 bail on Tuesday 8 November.
28 Feb, 2017: The latest data on rhino poaching in South Africa has been released. South Africa's Department of Environmental Affairs indicates 1,054 rhino were poached throughout 2016. Another slight decline, however poaching in the flagship Kruger National Park has only decreased to 662, from 826 the previous year.
Ruthless rhino poaching syndicate rounded up by Hawks
21 Jan, 2016: The latest data on rhino poaching in South Africa has been released. The official statistics state that 1,175 rhino were illegally killed throughout 2015. Similar to last year, 826 rhino were killed in Kruger National Park. Although this marks the first year of decline in overall rhino poaching in the country since 2007, it is only a decrease of 37 since 2014. The year 2007 saw only 13 rhino killed throughout the country.
23 January, 2015: A quiet new year for Red Hawk Adventures, but an important time for the world's conservation efforts. The end of the year brings the end of the major fundraising drives by wildlife, humanitarian, and other conservation groups working around the globe. On a related note South African National Parks (SAN Parks) has released the final data on elephant and rhino poaching for 2014. In that one year period 1,215 rhino and 2 elephants were poached with 386 arrests made, up from 2013's numbers of 1,004 rhino killed and 343 arrests of suspected poachers.
In many cases poaching in Africa targets elephants for their ivory tusks, rhinoceros for their horn, and leopards for their beautiful skins. These animals are illegally killed all across Africa, on private reserves and in public National Parks, and their resources sold on the black market to distant countries. The animals' bodies are left to rot in the fields. The money made from these animals doesn't go to the public which pays for the parks, nor does it go to the private game reserves which serve tourists and private investors alike. Much of the money goes to criminal syndicates and warlords only interested in destabilizing regions and entire governments and acquiring as much power for themselves as they can at the expense of the developed world. These criminal syndicates then sell their ivory and rhino horn to Asian criminal syndicates for even greater profits where the ivory is eventually sold to wealthy, highly connected individuals and where rhino horn is used in traditional medicines.
The sale of ivory is banned in many western countries, but demand from Asia for animal parts remain a primary motivating factor in poaching in Africa, India, and the South Pacific. And this poaching is responsible for what will be the inevitable extinction of rhinoceros in just a few years. Ivory tusks are seen as a status symbol by many people, including westerners. However demand for ivory by a growing upper-middle class in Asia is straining the economies of other nations and damaging ecosystems that many Asians may not be aware exist. Poaching also directly puts human lives in danger as poachers become increasingly violent in their bid to kill as many rhino as possible.
Terror Cells: It is believed major poaching syndicates are in league with terror groups using funds from rhino horns and ivory to help fund their activities. If you think dealing with poachers is bad, think about it being tied in with terrorists.
With the white rhinos of South Africa faced with the rapidly escalating threat of poaching at a rate of about four per day, likeminded locals and people across the Atlantic have decided to take action.
The Ministry reported that Etosha National Park is being targeted for poaching, with 46 rhinos poached in the park in 2022 alone. The total tally also includes 15 rhinos poached on rhino custodianship farms, and 25 on white rhino private farms.
However, as increased security and plummeting rhino numbers have made poaching more challenging in Kruger, there has been a concerning shift in focus to KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, where nearly 200 rhinos have been killed this year alone (mainly in Hluhluwe iMfolozi National Park), and to Namibia and Botswana.
Although the reduced poaching statistics are due primarily to there being fewer wild rhinos remaining, there is no question that the back-breaking work of passionate and dedicated SANParks employees is also a factor, and those that have contributed should be lauded for their efforts
Tsavo National Park has a rich, and at times tumultuous, history. In 1898, two maneless lions terrorised workers constructing the railway from Mombasa to Nairobi, where it crossed the Tsavo River, devouring at least 28 people before they were shot (providing the subject for the film The Ghost and the Darkness). After the park was proclaimed in 1946, elephant population levels increased so much that scientists called for culling. The population later stabilised when at least 6,000 elephants later died in the park during a severe drought in the early 1970s. The death toll was mostly made up of mother elephants and calves confined to the vicinity of the Galana River, where food had run out. This was followed by rampant poaching, which reduced the elephant population in the park from around 25,000 to not much more than 5,000 animals. By 1989, black rhinos were almost eliminated by poaching. Since then, the vegetation has been recovering, while the elephant population has increased to around 12,000 animals. By 1995, when I first visited the park, signs of the past damage by elephants were not very apparent, apart from the absence of baobab trees. But it was challenging to make a fair assessment back then from the confines of a motor vehicle. 2ff7e9595c
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