Elephants cause havoc

Several elephant herds have over the past few weeks caused havoc on farms in the Outjo District, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages.

Three herds of at least 45 elephants invaded a farm located about 70km from Outjo on the Khorixas road during the past few weeks.

According to Johan Steenkamp, the owner of the Landeck Farm, he reported the invasions on five different occasions to the environment ministry's office in Outjo.

Steeenkamp, however, says the ministry officials only showed up on Tuesday after the elephants had moved on to a neighbouring farm on Monday.

According to Steenkamp, ministry officials gave him excuses that they were unable to come to his farm because there were no vehicles available and staff were on leave.

He says that damages incurred at his farm can be anything between N$200 000 and N$300 000.

According to him they are building a lodge on the farm and had put up a new game-proof fence. This was completed in December last year.

He says the new fence was damaged by the elephants at 32 different places, while two different water installations were also destroyed. Normal fences were also destroyed and a 3km pipeline was jerked out of the ground.

Steenkamp adds that new game were bought in last year and had escaped, together with other animals, when the game-proof fence was destroyed, because the damage was too vast to be repaired immediately.

According to Steenkamp it will take at least a month to repair the damage to the game-proof fence and it will cost about N$40 000.

He says to replace the game will cost anything between N$100 000 to N$300 000.

According to him a final count must still be done to determine how much game and what species were lost. They have already determined that kudu, springbok and hartebeest have escaped.

Steenkamp added that blue wildebeest are missing and this can cause major problems if the animals should wander onto nearby livestock farms, as they are carriers of foot-and-mouth, among other diseases.

He stressed that this can cause major problems within the agricultural sector, but added that the environment officials are not assisting.

According to him this problem has existed for the past five years and the expenses paid for the repair of fences, water installations and the replacement of game are very high.

“The excuse of the environment ministry is always that they do not have enough manpower, a lack of transport that they must wait until a person is back from leave and then only they come here when the elephants are gone and the damage has been done (sic).”

In June last year herds of approximately 100 elephants also caused damages on the same farm.

At that time, game fences at four different places and underground water pipes at a dam were destroyed, while a 10-litre water tank was damaged and normal fencing on the farm was also destroyed. Ministry officials at the Outjo office gave the same excuses for not coming out on time to the farm.

Ministry spokesperson Romeo Muyunda said he would follow up with the officials at Outjo. At the time of going to print he was still unable to give any feedback.

Environment minister Pohamba Shifeta this week said human-wildlife conflict has frustrated many people, in particular farmers, to the point where they have resorted to taking the law into their own hands.

“I encourage our staff members to be prompt in responding to issues of human-wildlife conflict. Delayed responses will trigger a bad reaction from the already frustrated farmers, some of whom hunt and kill predators that have caused damages to their properties.”

ELLANIE SMIT