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THE Ministry of Environment, Forestry, and Tourism (MEFT) has recorded 63 rhinos poached since the start of the year, of which 41 are black rhinos and 22 are white rhinos. Spokesperson Romeo Muyunda said this year’s poaching cases include 15 rhinos poached on custodianship farms, another 22 on private farms, and 26 in the Etosha National Park. In previous years, 44 rhinos were recorded poached in 2021, 42 in 2020, 57 in 2019, 83 in 2018, and 55 in 2017.

Retired Major General Jooste was headhunted for the position of Commanding Officer, Special Projects, at SANParks where he was responsible for developing, planning and executing an anti-poaching strategy. Tony Park is a novelist who divides his time between his home country, Australia, and the South African bush, which features prominently in his well-loved novels.

A man has been sentenced to 34 years in prison for rhino poaching by a court in Mpumalanga. This comes against the backdrop of another court in the area sentencing a man to 17 years for rhino poaching. The Skukuza Regional Court sentenced Sipho Titus Khosa on Friday to 34 years in jail.

Pretoria - Convicted rhino poacher Silvester Sidney Zitha, 40, has been sentenced to an e

Rhino poaching is driven by the demand for rhino horn in Asian countries. In Summary: They were arrested in September last year with a firearm and ammunition at a game farm with the aim of slaughtering rhinos to extract their horns for commercial purposes. This is the second time that a hunter of a protected species has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Zitha was convicted on a host of poaching-related offences which included trespassing, possession of a firearm with a silencer, possession of ammunition, killing of a rhino, possession of an axe and conspiracy to commit an offence.

The Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism reported two newly registered wildlife crime cases, and arrested three suspects in relation to the possession of protected wildlife skins. The Ministry of Environment reported that on 8 November 2022, two suspects, identified as Tjizire Kohongo and Angula Kafidi, were arrested after being found in possession of a leopard's skin.

Cape Town - More than 800 rhinos have been poached in South Africa in the last three years.

Cape Town - A 50-year-old Ghanaian national was sentenced in the Kroonstad Regional Court in the Free State after he pleaded guilty for being in possession of abalone.

Rhino poaching is on the rise again in South Africa, feeding appetites in Asia and the Middle East, where rhino horns are often used in traditional medicines or as cultural artefacts. South African and Asian governments, as well as Interpol, have struggled for decades to curb this illicit global trade, where each horn can fetch tens of thousands of dollars. Now, animal conservationists are trying to save South Africa's rhinos by moving them out of threatened areas and into new habitats with strong security and strategic conservation methods.

Authorities are on the hunt for poachers after two carcasses of the endangered White Rhino were discovered on a farm near the Windhoek district. According to the police report, the two Rhinos' were poached between Friday 21 October 2022 and Monday 24 October 2022 at an unknown time at Farm Otjisauona. It is alleged that the suspects unlawfully and internationally hunted the complainant's white Rhinos by means of shooting and removing all the horns.

Cape Town - A third prisoner who escaped from custody in Makhanda last week has been rearrested. Trymore Chauke was nabbed on Sunday after police received information about a possible escapee who was alleged to have been asking people for food in the farming community of Seven Fountains in Makhanda. A police task team immediately followed up on the lead and within 30 minutes Chauke was rearrested, police said. He escaped from the facility through a window with six other inmates last week. He was held in custody for rhino poaching.

Simba Masinga, one of the seven prisoners who escaped from Waainek Correctional Centre in Makhanda in the early hours of Tuesday morning, has been rearrested. Police said Masinga, convicted for rhino poaching, was the second person to be arrested.

Four newly registered wildlife crime cases have been made between 11 and 12 October and five Namibian men were arrested in relation to these cases. This was revealed by the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism's weekly wildlife crime statistics. These statistics indicate that two elephant tusks, two live pangolins and four full duiker carcasses were confiscated after the arrest of the suspects, which took place in the Oshana, Kavango East and Omaheke regions.

SARS is focussing on tax audit investigations aimed at suspect non-compliant taxpayers benefitting directly or indirectly from tax evasion and illicit financial flows stemming from wildlife crime. Resulting tax investigations have resulted in notable successes including legal recovery, civil proceedings and criminal charges against a criminal syndicate involved in wildlife trafficking including rhino poaching.

The International Rhino Foundation (IRF) has revealed that Africa's white rhino population, under pressure from poaching, continues to decline. This was according to the IRF's State of the Rhino report which is published every September. The report documents current population estimates and trends, where available, as well as key challenges and conservation developments for the five surviving rhino species in Africa and Asia.

Pretoria - A recent report by the Global Organised Crime Index ranked South Africa 19 out of 193 countries for criminality. According to the report, the year 2020 shaped organised crime in many different ways because of Covid-19, but while the global economy ground to a halt under lockdowns and travel restrictions, criminals were working out how to circumvent obstacles and exploit the situation. The report also indicated that rhino poaching had declined during the pandemic.

According to a report published on August 22 by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), from 2018 to 2021, 2 707 rhinos were poached across the African continent, 90% of them in South Africa.

The Gobabis Magistrates Court has declared self-styled prophet and preacher, Jackson Babi, unfit to possess a firearm for a period of four years and fined him N$370 000 or a jail term for 17 years. The court stated this during the sentencing hearing, when the prophet was sentenced on 12 counts of crimes related to rhino poaching.

Two Zambian nationals were arrested on Thursday, 1 September, at about 14:30, after they were found in possession of four elephant tusks, which they attempted to sell to an undercover officer. According to the police, the incident happened in Ibbu village in Katima Mulilo. It is further alleged that the suspects entered the country without valid documents. The suspects are scheduled to make their first court appearance at the Ngoma Magistrate Court on Monday, 5 September. Police investigations continue.

Namibia is experiencing a surge in poaching, with the number of poached rhinoceros rising to 48 this year, Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism spokesperson Romeo Muyunda said Wednesday. In a statement, Muyunda said of the poached rhinoceros, 32 were black rhinoceros and 16 were white rhinoceros.

Cape Town - Threats to African rhinos from transnational crime networks remain high, despite the reported pause during the Covid-19 lockdown periods. This is according to the IUCN African Rhino Specialist Group's (AfRSG) updated information on rhino populations. At a continental scale, the threat of illegal wildlife trade in rhino horn to African rhinos has declined to 2.3% poaching rate of the total population from the peak in 2015, at 5.3%.

DCI detectives based at the Serious Crimes Unit on Tuesday arrested three suspects in Kinango, Kwale County, after being found in possession of a male pangolin.

A serial poacher with previous convictions is in police custody after he was arrested and treated for a leg wound that he sustained when the owner of the farm Kaliombo in die notorious poaching district of Karibib fired a shot at three fleeing suspects carrying meat. The police said that the farm owner patrolled and inspected his farm after he heard dogs barking and was also alerted by security guards of the possibility that there were poachers moving about. The owners came upon three suspected poachers accompanied by three hunting dogs carrying meat.

SA National Parks (SANParks) says it is investigating a suspected poisoning incident in the Kruger National Park after the discovery of a buffalo carcass which appeared to have been laced with poison last Thursday. More than 100 dead vultures and a dead hyena likely to have fed off the carcass were also found on the scene.

Last week, the People's Court of Hanoi, Vietnam, sentenced three women and one man to a collective 18 years imprisonment for the illegal transportation and trade of 984kg of pangolin scales, one of the largest cases of wildlife trading investigated in Vietnam's history.

Three suspects were arrested for poaching at Tala Game Reserve, outside Pietermaritzburg, after police and a private security company responded to the scene. The three suspects were found with a waterbuck carcass on Saturday.

Two men were on Saturday arrested after being found in possession of protected plant species at Okahandja.
The duo, a Namibian and Chinese national were found with four Adenia pechuelii (elephant foot) plants; 15xCyphostema plants; eight Commphoras plants; five plastics containing Welwitschia seeds and 12x plastics with differentunidentified seeds. Ministry of Environment spokesperson Romeo Muyunda stated that this came after Ministry officials followed up on avideo in which the two suspects were seen collecting protected plants reportedly in the area of Usakos.

Pretoria - Two men aged 37 and 52, one a police constable, charged with illegal dealing in pangolin and contravention of the National Environmental Management-Biodiversity (Nemba) Act, have appeared before the Johannesburg Magistrate's Court.

Kwale police have arrested two men who were illegally in possession of a pangolin. The two were nabbed at Malomani area in Samburu sub-county.

Following the poaching of 11 rhinos in the Etosha National Park in the past month, the Namibian Government stepped up wildlife security and strategic plans to ensure maximum protection of Namibia's iconic species. This includes the immediate deployment of retired Commissioner Ndahangwapo Kashihakumwa to Etosha National Park.

Durban - Two suspects are expected to appear in court on Monday after the Hawks arrested them for being in possession of two ‘recently extracted’ rhino horns, while travelling from KwaZulu-Natal to Gauteng.

Amidst shocking discoveries of wildlife poaching incidents in the country recently, such as the 11 black rhinos killed in Etosha recently, Minister of Environment and Tourism, Pohamba Shifeta on Wednesday launched the first ever National Stakeholder Forum on Wildlife Protection and Law Enforcement to strengthen the fight against the crimes. Shifeta said Namibia has experienced a massive surge in wildlife crime over the past decade, driven by increased global demand for illegal wildlife products.

The huge police operation launched after the discovery of two poached rhinos on the north-western side of the Etosha National Park has led to the gruesome find of another nine rhinos killed. All the animals are critically endangered black rhinos. According to Ministry spokesperson Romeo Muyunda, this brings the total number of rhinos poached in six months to 22.

Cape Town - SANParks Honorary Rangers is hard at work to stop rhino poaching in the Kruger National Park and all SANParks areas with assistance and collaboration from Rhino Tears, a wine brand, that donates towards the rangers with every bottle sold.

Durban - A 45-year-old man convicted of rhino poaching was sentenced to 28 years in prison by the Empangeni Regional Court.

The 41-year-old man was arrested by members of the South African Police Service while trying to board a flight to Singapore. A security official at the airport alerted police to suspicious-looking items in the suspect’s hand luggage. Upon further investigation and interrogation of the suspect, police found that the suspect was carrying rhino horn weighing 26kg in his carry-on bag.

Durban - with the number of rhinos killed for their horns in KwaZulu-Natal Ezemvelo Wildlife reserves this year set to surpass poaching deaths for the past two years, a report has been released on what should be done to protect the endangered species. The report was compiled six years ago by a task team that investigated the scourge of rhino poaching and recommended that Ezemvelo beef up its intelligence capacity to combat the crime. It said such an investigation unit could help police and prosecutors secure convictions against those implicated in poaching.

The contraband represents 80 to 100 slaughtered elephants. Officers discovered the smuggled tusks aboard trucks in the city of Lubumbashi on Saturday, according to a legal official who declined to be named due involvement in an ongoing investigation into the affair. Police arrested five people but two fled after questioning, the official said. He added that the haul amounted to 1.5 tonnes. Both the origin and intended final destination of the ivory remain unclear.

Durban: Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife has expressed disappointment after a man caught with a rhino horn without a permit, received a suspended sentence in court this week.

Ministry spokesperson Romeo Muyunda stated about 4 000 timber pieces and a timber cutting machine have been confiscated, but the value of the timber has not been determined. This is the second largest illegal timber activity reported within a month.

Durban - Since the beginning of the year, 106 rhinos have already been poached according to KwaZulu-Natal Economic Development, Tourism, and Environmental Affairs (Edtea) MEC Ravi Pillay. In a statement on Saturday, Pillay said this comes after a total of 93 rhinos were poached in KZN parks in 2020 and 102 were poached last year.

Last year, 97 rhinos were poached in Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife reserves in 2021. Between January 1 and March 25 this year, 61 have been killed. According to some reports, the tally for the year so far is at least 75.

Durban - A total of 61 rhinos were killed for their horns in KwaZulu-Natal between January 1, 2022, and March 25, 2022.

Pretoria - The Skukuza Regional Court has sentenced two rhino poachers to an effective 19 years in jail, after the two Mozambican nationals were arrested last month inside the Kruger National Park.

A TRUCK containing unprocessed timber intended for exportation to South Africa was seized by Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism officials in Windhoek. Ministry spokesperson Romeo Muyunda said the 1 500 planks on the truck are held and the transport permit is temporarily suspended, pending further investigations to establish where the timber came from and if it was legally acquired. Muyunda stated that in 2018 the Ministry introduced a moratorium on timber harvesting, transportation, marketing and exporting. "This has led to a…

Limpopo game farmer Dawie Groenewald and his co-accused were arrested about 12 years ago on a multitude of rhino poaching-related charges, yet their criminal trial has yet to start.

A 40-year-old Mozambican national, Brian Phiri, has been sentenced after being convicted for poaching by the Skukuza Regional Court in Mpumalanga.

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 - Yet another suspect has been nabbed for alleged dealing in succulent plants. A 49-year-old suspect was arrested at the Cape Town International Airport on Friday following a police tip-off that he was going to export two boxes of endangered succulents.