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Three suspects were shot and fatally wounded in a shootout with police in the early hours of Wednesday, 31 January 2024. Police received intelligence that a group involved in serious crimes including murders committed in the Inanda area were hiding at the Lungelani Informal Settlement in La Mercy. A team comprising of various police disciplines including members of the Hawks descended on the location. Realising that they were surrounded, the suspects opened fire at the police and a shootout ensued.

Fifteen years after South Africa was hit by an unprecedented wave of rhino-horn poaching, the slaughter rate remains relentless - with one rhino shot almost every day in KwaZulu-Natal, the historic heartland of global rhino conservation. More than 60% of the rhinos killed in South Africa so far in 2023 drew their last breaths in KwaZulu-Natal as poachers continue to shift more of their deadly firepower and axes to the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park, one of the world’s last strongholds of wild rhino conservation. Latest poaching …

The Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife conservation agency has, up till now, opted to not dehorn its rhinos to protect them from poachers. But that could change soon, following another year of relentless killings in which the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park emerged as the current rhino poaching hotspot, globally. The latest poaching figures released by national Environment Minister Barbara Creecy show that 244 rhinos were killed by horn poachers in KwaZulu-Natal in 2022 - the vast majority of them in the HIP.

The Wildlife Justice Commission said a threat assessment on the state of rhino horn trafficking in the past decade showed that much was needed to fight the trade via law enforcement, policymakers and conservation. The assessment found that over the last decade, six countries dominated the supply chain as source, transit and destination locations and that a third of rhino horns were smuggled unconcealed, suggesting a potential reliance on corruption to move shipments along the supply chain. They found that large amounts of harvested horns have been diverted from legal…

Just as the barbarity of war in Ukraine or the global climate crisis gradually lose their shock value, the unrelenting massacre of South Africa’s rhino has all but drifted from public view. Behind the scenes, however, at least 75 rhinos have been butchered for their horns in KwaZulu-Natal in the opening months of 2022.

Cape Town - Poaching continues to decimate the rhino population with 451 rhinos poached in South Africa last year, 327 of them from government reserves and 124 from private property.

Cape Town - Two men who were caught with R9 million rand worth of abalone have been sentenced to a year behind bars while authorities have warned this is still a very serious crime being committed and is often linked to the drug trade.

Shocking official statistics have emerged which show that the world's single-largest population of rhinos - those living in the flagship Kruger National Park - has been slashed by between 66% and 70% over the past decade, mainly due to the unrelenting wave of butchery by international hornpoaching syndicates.

Members of Upington Highway patrol have arrested a male suspect in connection with possession of Endangered Species. Police got information about the suspect yesterday and it was operationalized. The suspect was found at a hiking spot in Upington hitch hiking to Olifantshoek. He was searched and pangolin skin was found in his luggage. It is valued at about R108 750.00, weighing 2,05 kg.

Northern Cape-The Hawks Serious Organised Crime Investigation has resulted in the arrest of a 48-year-old suspect for allegedly trading in a pangolin. The suspect who originates from Botswana was arrested on Tuesday after information surfaced that he intended selling a pangolin that is an endangered species. A sting operation resulted in the suspect being arrested after he was found in possession of the said pangolin.

I have read Rob Moffett's opinion piece (The Namibian, 1 November 2013) on turning rhinos into a commodity with interest. I have also seen some other press coverage of this issue.