Anti-poaching sentences need to be more punitive to protect farmers

IN recent weeks a prominent commercial livestock farmer based at Esigodini shared horrific pictures of his slaughtered pedigree bull.

The bull had been slaughtered, skinned and the meat transported to the illicit markets in town.

He found remnants of the carcass which included offals, ribs and bones stripped of all the flesh.

A pedigree or stud animal is an animal registered with the Zimbabwe herd book.

These are animals of pure and high-quality genetics with known lineage and other essential breeding parameters such as the estimated breeding values.

When you buy a genuine pedigree bull, you would have bought yourself known top line genetics to infuse into your commercial herd so as to improve the performances of your herd through the progeny produced.

Pedigree animals usually cost two legs and arm because of the genetic value they bring to your herd.

You will struggle to get a working pedigree bull at anything less than US$5 000. I provide this background information so that I try and properly locate the loss that the above-mentioned farmer incurred.

It was a huge loss and for sure in social media circles fellow livestock farmers kept consoling him in ways synonymous with one who has had a bereavement in the family because they completely understand the loss.

Imagine you invest say US$7 000 or even as high as the US$50 000 bull from Little Beatrice Brahmans that was recently showcased at the just ended ZITF, then some vagabond thief snares it in the veld and fillets it for back door markets in western suburbs of Bulawayo!

The loss is phenomenal and so is the pain. The problem of low-level thieves who slaughter farmers’ animals in the veld and fillet the carcass so that five animals can easily fit into the infamous Honda Fit, is getting common and almost every day there are stories circulating in social media from victims.

The long arm of the law should surely catch these thieves and give hardworking livestock farmers a peace of mind.

The stock theft sentence of a mandatory nine year per count, is deterrent enough in my view but perhaps there are loopholes that the cunning thieves exploit and walk free.

If the law enforcement is not strengthened, soon farmers will take the law into their hands and it will be vigilante justice out there.

In fact, we have seen numerous videos of farmers who have caught a suspect stock thief and the instant justice that is meted on the suspects tells you that farmers have had enough.

The vigilante type of justice system can deliver instant results but it is outside the law and it is flawed on many levels, the simplest being that an innocent person can be falsely accused and beaten to death.

Let the appropriate law enforcement mechanism take effect and protect the livestock farmers from the menace of the ruthless thieves.

Again, some laws need to be updated in terms of the sentences they carry because some of the vices which used to occur on low scale levels now seem to spread to levels of concern.

An example is snaring of livestock and also animals falling into unprotected pits on the veld.

The rise of illegal gold panning all over the grazing lands have seen livestock farmers counting losses and licking wounds every day.

Pregnant and even lactating cows have been found dead in open pits that are left by illegal miners.

It is a loss that the livestock farmer will just take on the chin with no possible redress from anyone because the pits are created by migratory illegal miners of no fixed abode.

Then, the issue of snaring especially in individual farms and A1 villagized schemes which still have vast expanses of grazing lands and paddocks.

Such farms tend to have some plains game such as Kudus and Impala, and some unscrupulous poachers from the communities put snares to try and trap these animals.

However, the snares do not discriminate between wild animals and domestic ones, as a result more often than not the snares catch livestock which graze in those areas. some poachers actually deliberately set these snares to catch farmers’ animals.

If caught these are charged as poachers, not stock theft and I suspect that carries a lesser sentence than stock theft.

Poaching sentences especially as pertains use of snares, need to be reviewed to make them more punitive and deterrent.

Otherwise, these will continue to spiral out of control and farmers will keep counting losses. Uyabonga Umntaka MaKhumalo.

Mhlupheki Dube is a livestock specialist and farmer. He writes in his own capacity. Feedback [email protected]/ cell 0772851275