The Presiding Judge, High Court, Eastern Cape Division, Grahamstown: Urgent interdict to stop hunt of endangered species

PETITION TO THE PRESIDING JUDGE – HIGH COURT OF SOUTH AFRICA, EASTERN CAPE DIVISION

On Friday 3rd July the Daily Dispatch published an article referencing the case brought by Hilliside Safaris Ptd Ltd against Bayeti Conservancy Proprietary Limited, Lalibela Development No.3 & Lalibela Development No 4 regarding the upcoming hunt of a White Rhino, 2 lions and buffalo and the urgent interdict that is being sought to stop the hunting pending arbitration.

Over the last couple of years, petitions have been submitted to court to show the courts that the public are outraged about the current crisis that we find ourselves in with regard to the rhino poaching crisis and the ever decreasing rhino population due to both hunting and poaching.

The Department of Environmental Affairs has the responsibility to ensure that all hunting permits are issued with due care but it is our understanding that pseudo hunting is still very much a reality in South Africa despite the new TOPS regulations regarding the issuing of hunting permits.

Furthermore, many local and international tourists are becoming increasingly more aware of the crisis we face in South Africa with poaching and pseudo hunting and are reluctant to support establishments that allow hunting of any nature and in particular the hunting of any endangered animal or one of the Big 5.

This was evident this morning (03 July 2015) when members of the public posted comments on the Lalibela facebook page expressing their disgust and distaste about the news of the rhino hunt. Lalibela have since shut down their facebook page as they are well aware that this type of bad publicity is not good for any ecotourism business. It is understood that the Tourism Grading Council of South Africa (TGCSA) have also recently queried the Conservancy about trophy hunting following complaints from patrons.

From the court documents it is clear Lalibela/John X Safaris were trying to keep this trophy hunt out of the public arena because they knew what financial damage this could cause to their tourism business. We are outraged that John X Safaris has argued that the White Rhino Bull must be hunted because he “could” hurt the female should he try to breed with her as he is very large.

According to the court documents he has already sired a baby with this female very recently and in the process never caused her any harm. It is apparent from the information given in the court documents that perhaps John X Safaris were not forthcoming with this information in their application to the Department of Environmental Affairs when making application for this permit and that the permits could have been issued erroneously by the DEA who were obviously not given all the relevant information in order for them to make an educated appraisal of the situation before issuing the permits. We make this observation because it appears from the court papers that the application for the hunting permit was not provided and then the permit for a “walk and stalk” hunt itself has been redacted when there does not in our view appear to be a legitimate basis for doing so.

The arguments put forward by Lalibela in support of the hunts have no sound conservation basis.

We the undersigned support Hillside Safaris Pty Ltd (as the owners of Kichaka) in their application for an urgent interdict to stop the hunting of these animals pending arbitration in terms of the Conservancy Agreement that currently exists between the parties.