 Reference Base  Entrepots for rhino horn in Khartoum and Cairo threaten G... |
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| Location: |
Africa - Eastern Africa - Sudan |
| Subject: |
Distribution - Poaching |
| Species: |
White Rhino |
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Recent poaching of Garamba's rhinos. In the 1970s and early 1980s the heaviest commercial poaching of rhinos in Garamba (DRC) and elsewhere in eastern and central Africa occurred (see Figure 2). In 1984 several international conservation organizations established the Garamba Project to rehabilitate Garamba National Park and to conserve the northern white rhino. Until 1991 Park staff greatly reduced poaching in general, only a small number of animals were killed for their meat in the north of the Park. This concentrated the elephants and rhinos in the better-protected southern sector, close to the headquarters at Nagero. In 1991 the civil war in adjacent Sudan moved to the south of that country. The Sudanese Peoples' Liberation Army (SPLA) took the town of Maridi in April 1991 and government forces and families fled across the border into Zaire, bringing several hundred weapons with them. The Park staff recovered over 600 weapons from people who passed through Garamba (which is on the Sudanese border), but some weapons remained in the area and ammunition was readily available from across the border in Sudan. Between 1991 and 1998, some 80,000 Sudanese refugees were settled in areas bordering the Domaines de Chasse (hunting blocks) that surround the Park. Sudanese, carrying their weapons, moved across the border into Garamba relatively unconstrained. Zairian/ Congolese military units who were stationed in the area also increased the number of arms. During this time civil unrest and economic decline in Zaire worsened which further de-stabilised the area.
After 1991, the killing of large mammals increased as there were more people armed with automatic weapons and more ammunition. Poaching gangs increased in size, and since 1994, the gangs also used hand grenades against guards. Results of the monitoring of law enforcement show that in 1995, 1996 and 1997, 71%, 77% and 81% respectively of the poaching gangs were Sudanese. The principal reason for poaching was for meat from the large mammals, especially buffaloes, which is smoked and sold. The front line of this poach- ing progressively moved south through the Park as animals were virtually eliminated in the north. This movement towards and into the southeni sector of Garamba led to increased opportunities for shooting elephants and rhinos. Elephant poaching continued to be for meat as well as ivory, except for a brief period in early 1996, when nearby Zairian military person- nel carried out elephant poaching for ivory alone until stopped by diplomatic pressure in March of that year. In January 1996 Park guards recovered 41 fresh tusks from a Zairian military gang in the south of the Park.
The first known confirmed rhino killing since 1984, the start of the Garamba project, was in February 1996. He was a prime adult male, M5 ?Bawesi'. Meat as well as horn was taken from him. On 23 March 1996 a young, pregnant female, 3aF ?Juillet' ran into poachers and was killed. They only had time to take the horn before escaping from an anti-poaching unit. Not long afterwards, a report was received of rhino horn offered for sale in Maridi.
The Liberation War, from October 1996 to April 1997, which removed President Mobutu's regime, most affected Garamba from February 1997 onwards. In February, the Park guards were disarmed for retraining and 90% of the Park's equipment was looted. Anti-poaching coverage, measured in patrol days, was reduced between February and June 1997 to 14% of that during the same period in the preceding year. Poachers took advantage of the situation and moved south to and beyond the Garamba river. Most of the hippos in the river were massacred by automatic fire, even though it was impractical to take the meat from all of them. A few hippo teeth were taken for their ivory (G. Panziama, a Guard inspector in Garamba, pers. comm., 1997). Data from aerial surveys of the Park made in 1995 and 1998 by the Garamba Monitoring Unit showed declines of elepliants from 11,175 ? 3,679 to 5,487?1,339, buffaloes from 25,242 ? 8,299 to 7,772 ? 2,063 and hippos from 3,601 ? 1,294 to 786 ? 207. These were losses of roughly a half, two-thirds and three-quarters of the populations (Hillman Smith et al., unpubl.).
Two rhinos were confirmed killed during and following the Liberation War. In March 1997 a young adult male, la/4aM ?Channel 2' was killed and his horns were taken. Two guards were accused and arrested. In November 1997, when Park guards attacked a Sudanese poachers' camp, they found the posterior horn of the adult female, F4 ?Boletina'. The anterior horn was not recovered and was probably taken by the poachers. A further three sub-adult rhinos may have been lost during the war, but four rhinos were born, taking the population from a minimum of 27 in December 1996 to a minimum of 26 in May 1998. It is thanks to the diligence of the Park guards and continued support from international donors that rhino losses were not more. During the current war, which started in August 1998, ariti-poaching efforts are continuing, but one rhino was killed in late 1998. However, the period under examination in this paper ends in late 1997 with the northern Sudan rhino horn survey.
Besides the four previously mentioned poached rhinos and the three lost sub-adults, three adult rhinos disappeared during the 1990s and could potentially have been the source of horns on the market. One adult and one subadult were found dead of natural causes in 1993 and 1995 and their four horns were put in the ivory store at the Park headquarters. These rhino horns were temporarily hidden with other valuables in the west of the Park when the senior staff had to evacuate the headquarters in February 1997 because of the war. A little later, when the horns were returned to Nagero, an occupying army officer requisitioned one of the horns. The other three rhino horns and most of the ivory remained untouched. In October 1997 the three horns were moved to the central store of the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature, ICCN (the wildlife department), in Kinshasa. In November 1997 the posterior horn of F4 ?Boletina', recovered from the poaching camp, was put into Garamba's ivory store at Nagero.
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