VIVA SAFARIS NEWSLETTER JULY 2014
The home page of our website, www.vivasafaris.com has videos taken by guests of two lion kills. These videos were taken in July 2012 and July 2013. I was hoping that we could make it 3 out of 3 with another video for July 2014. No such luck !
Nevertheless, at the beginning of July, we had a lion kill on Tremisana Lodge property, a mere 150 metres from the lodge. The new big male lion that has arrived on our reserve, with the aid of a lioness, caught an impala ewe. I took the pic below :
Lion feasting on impala at Tremisana Lodge.
I understand that our clients did see a Cheetah kill this month and there were a number of times when our guests saw lions eating their kills. All in all, it was a great month of game viewing.
Our guides report that Rhino sightings were better than in June – I am not sure why. What I am sure of is that our SA government is trying to accelerate the extinction of the species. The relevant Minister is deliberating the issue of legalised sale of stockpiled rhino horn. Clearly some individuals stand to make a whack of dollars (or more likely Yuan) if the CITES ban is lifted. The old cliché applies (as I have said before in my newsletters) : “the love of money is the root of all evil”.
I have no academic degree in commerce but it is abundantly clear to me that the Chinese are the new economic superpower. When I speak to guests from all over the globe, I am told that the Chinese are buying up whatever is of value throughout the world. Large tracts of land, big mining houses, huge shopping malls etc etc are all being bought by the Chinese. Can our minister not understand that every single gram of Rhino horn that is put on the legal market will be snapped up in an extremely short period of time ? And then what ? Having whetted the appetite of so many more rhino horn users, not just in China but also in other nations such as Vietnam, the demand for additional rhino horn will not decrease as some of the ignorant may believe, but will instead reach unprecedented heights. The conclusion that any logical-thinking person must reach is that the Rhino will be extinguished. Please, God, ensure that the CITES ban remains intact ! I encourage all like-thinking readers of this newsletter to write to the press in your countries and let them know how you feel about legalised trade in rhino horn
