Fence pole theft accelerates elephant breakouts

Observer comments ... Elephants when they break out of the Park become a threat to the local communities and the net result is often that the Elephants have to be shot. In a recent case of break out luckily the elephants were able to be rounded up and driven back into the safety of the Kruger National Park. Unfortunately as this story points out 2 had to be shot. The SAN Parks helicopters are used for a wide variety of tasks including ones like this round-up. A recent report comments on the delivery of the first of 2 brand new modern helicopters for use by SAN Parks projects.

Elephant Break-Out Havoc and Round-Up

The 15 elephants that were causing an uproar in the villages neighbouring the Mahlangeni section of the Kruger National Park (KNP) did not have to exert much effort to break through Kruger’s western boundary fence in early July.

An investigation has revealed that at least 80 of the fence posts had been stolen in that area.

The poles are believed to have been stolen by people from the neighbouring villages, who allegedly sell them for scrap metal. In the past, the solar panels and batteries that are supposed to power the fence’s electric wires have also been stolen repeatedly, Fence pole theft accelerates elephant breakouts leaving the fence without its electrical deterrent properties.

13 of the 15 elephants were herded back into Kruger by the Sanparks chopper (2 new choppers on order) at the request of the Limpopo department of economic development, environment and tourism on July 17, 2006.

During the herding operation, two of the group of 15 bulls broke away and refused to respond to the helicopter’s attempts to push them back into the park.

As they posed a potential danger to the people in the area, the decision was taken to put them down. The meat from the elephants was then shared out amongst the villagers in the area.

The elephants were herded some five kilometres to return them to the park, crossing over the Klein Letaba River twice in the process. The fence in this section of Kruger was due to be replaced in the near future as part of an ongoing attempt to upgrade the park’s western boundary.

It is expected that a new cable fence will be in place within the next month or so. The state veterinary authorities have designed a fence that no longer uses electricity, but is constructed at considerable expense from cables. Although electric fences are good at keeping animals in, the human element of people shorting out the fence to cross into or out of Kruger for various purposes has been their downfall, along with the theft of materials from the fence.

The new fence design is intended to overcome these shortcomings while still keeping the elephants and other animals inside Kruger.

Meanwhile, other elephants have also been seen roaming around the Phalaborwa region close to the Selati River. It is unclear how the elephants made their way into the area, but it appears that more and more elephants are testing the western edges of protected areas in the lowveld.