Rhino poaching reduced by 70% in Limpopo
The Limpopo National Park anti-poaching unit has managed to reduce poaching in the park by 70% since 2014.
Head of the anti-poaching unit at the LNP, Carlos Pereira, said: “Poachers are clever and organised but we were able to reduce poaching by 70%.”
The LNP forms part of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park with the Kruger National Park in South Africa and the Gonarezhou National Park in Zimbabwe.
Pereira said there were around 3,000 anti poaching personnel that were working hard towards reducing the amount of poaching activities.
Poaching was only criminalised in Mozambique in 2014 and Pereira felt that traffickers need harsher consequences for their actions.
“The law privileges traffickers, and they are the reason for this disaster we are facing. A poacher can be recruited anywhere.”
Pereira expressed that they were proposing to the government that traffickers should be detained for at least eight to sixteen years and not just be given a fine.
READ: SA, Mozambique united in fight against poaching
He added that Mozambicans and South Africans were working hand in hand to exit with rhino horns.
“The poachers are using different boundaries to penetrate the kruger. They plan and they do get inside kruger and exit on the Mozambican side.”
Kruger National Park (KNP) Official Ike Phahlane confirmed that there were three poachers found lurking in the park Sunday night by KNP rangers.
“There was contact between poachers and our rangers last night and one of our rangers was hurt,” he said.
Phalane stated one of the three poachers were fatally injured while the other two managed to flee into the darkness.
Further details on the incident were still being investigated.