Bad news for reserves as rhino sales dip

28 May 2017 - 02:00 By TONY CARNIE
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Auctioneer Brandon Leer says rhinos are still a high-risk buy - there are very few buyers in the market just now.
Auctioneer Brandon Leer says rhinos are still a high-risk buy - there are very few buyers in the market just now.
Image: ROGAN WARD

Poachers have hit South Africa's cradle of rhino conservation so hard that only a handful of endangered animals were available for sale in KwaZulu-Natal this week at the world's biggest rhino auction.

More than 1,100 other wild animals were sold on Monday at the annual Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife auction - where rhino revenue plummeted 80%.

It was a significant setback for a conservation agency hit by severe state budget cutbacks and an unprecedented wave of poaching.

Auctioneers said the recent lifting of the domestic moratorium on horn sales had not had a big impact as buyers still see rhinos as a high-risk investment.

All the wild white rhinos in the world originate from a tiny remnant population found in KwaZulu-Natal's Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Game Reserve. They gradually multiplied from fewer than 100 animals in the 1870s to restock Kruger National Park and reserves across Africa.

Ezemvelo began selling surplus rhinos to private buyers in the late 1980s and in recent years it has sold about 70 white rhinos a year - mostly from the 98,000ha Hluhluwe-Imfolozi rhino cradle. Private ranchers and game reserves now own about 37% of South Africa's rhinos.

But this year, with more than 90 rhino killings in KwaZulu-Natal in the first five months of the year - the highest killing rate for the province so far - Ezemvelo did not sell any rhino from Hluhluwe-Imfolozi for the first time in decades. Instead, just 10 adults and five calves, from smaller reserves, were sold. Most had been dehorned for security reasons.

Prices dropped by nearly 7% to an average price of R361,500 per rhino.

Several observers had expected prices to rise after the recent lifting of the domestic moratorium on rhino-horn sales and draft legislation that could allow foreigners to export two horns per year for "personal use".

Last month 43 rhinos were offered for sale at a private auction at Mkhuze, but only one was sold when most bids did not match reserve prices.

Vleissentraal wildlife auctioneer Johan Vosser said the Mkhuze auction came soon after the moratorium was announced. "I think sellers were a bit too optimistic about the possible impact of those two developments," he said.

In general, Vosser said, interest in rhinos in the past few years had declined.

"They are an expensive investment and the returns can take several years to realise.

"Buyers are also scared of poaching and don't want to take a chance," he said. "It's not just the high cost of guarding the animals - the personal security of the owners and staff is at risk."

Top wildlife auctioneer Brandon Leer said: "We have not seen any real impact yet from lifting the moratorium. Rhinos are still a high-risk buy - there are very few buyers in the market just now."

Just days after the auction, in the early hours of Friday morning, armed poachers broke into the Ezemvelo game capture bomas and overpowered and tied up an armed guard. They killed a captive white rhino calf and its mother and hacked off their horns.

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