Culling to commence any day now in Marloth Park

MARLOTH PARK – It is inevitable that more animals will have to be culled. This is after several attempts to have the game captured, failed earlier this week.
A brave attempt was launched to guide the animals towards the bomas with helicopters.

However, most of the impala would not budge. Some were captured but the exact number could not be established.

Spokesman for Nkomazi Local Municipality, Mr Velly Makwakwa, confirmed to Lowvelder yesterday that culling would consequently continue and that the bomas did not prove useful any longer.

They have been broken down.

According to his information, Wildlife Vets was finished with the mass capture of game. “I have spoken to the Marloth Park Property Owners Association (MPPOA) to inform it that we will have to finish the process by culling. I promised Tony Hayman, a member of the MPPOA committee, that there would be no problems and that we would shoot either early in the day or late in the afternoon.”

Makwakwa added that the municipality would do its best to get the approval of the residents before shooting commenced. “The animals are so tame. Residents have built up a relationship with the game and like to feed them by hand. They think of the animals as their pets, so they will be devastated. But that is the only way out. There is no grazing left in Marloth Park.”

Some of the residents who Lowvelder spoke to, said the culling of the game would be very upsetting.
One of them, Mr Hennie Coetzee, told the newspaper that even the use of the helicopters earlier this week had been traumatic and didn’t achieve anything.
“I think the impala are territorial.  They will literally stand and look at the bomas and won’t take an exploring walk here. They are so tame.”

The plan was to capture 550 impala. “I’m sure that the municipal rangers will not decide to pick up their guns unless there is no other way out.  Shooting in this town is really a problem. I for one, already had a shot fired through my house,” Coetzee added.

The Nkomazi Veterinary Services advised that the animals in the park are the most diseased in the Onderberg with bovine tuberculosis (TB) and that any farmer interested in taking them will have to be well informed of the risk.

The municipal state veterinarian, Dr Johann Kotze told Lowvelder that Mozambique was not interested in accepting any of the animals since the neighbouring country is TB-free.  “Wildlife Vets will need permits for any relocation of game. We will use the Morrisdale Game Abattoir to process the culled game. Everything will be screened, but when meat is cut off from the bone, it can be transported outside of the red-line area.”

The initial objective was to capture and remove 20 giraffe, 30 kudu, 25 zebra, 25 wildebeest and 550 impala.

A total of 150 warthog have been earmarked for culling and some were killed in late May.

Many more are still to be relocated. Warthog are difficult to capture in a boma. According to Kotze, they are the biggest carriers of TB.