Lions cause mayhem

A Kunene farmer lost 86 goats and sheep valued at approximately N$103 000 after at least ten lions entered a kraal on his farm last Wednesday night and wiped out the majority of his stock.

The farmer, Samuel Gawiseb from farm Avante Post in the Torra conservancy, could not be reached for comment but a friend, Vitalis Florry, told Namibian Sun that only eight young goats survived the attack.

“They also killed the guard dog. About eight kids that were still drinking milk survived,” Florry said.

It is not clear where the lions currently are, but Namibian Sun was informed that they would be targeted for killing, either when they are declared problem animals by the environment ministry, or if in retaliation, someone decides to try and poison them if the authorities don't act.

The mass killing has highlighted what Florry and others say is a lack of practical strategies to reduce or prevent human-wildlife conflict, as well as meagre compensation for loss of livestock, crops and even human life in areas farmers share with wildlife.

“The lions should be collared, so that there is an early warning system in place when they come towards human settlements. But at the moment they are not collared. We don't think those lions were collared,” Florry said.

Ministry of Environment and Tourism officials have visited the scene and are investigating.

According to Florry, the financial loss for Gawiseb is a catastrophic.

One goat has a market value of roughly N$1 200 but the current policy on compensation for farmers makes provision of N$200 for a goat and N$250 for a sheep.

Based on this, Gawiseb would receive merely N$21 500, more than N$80 000 less than the worth of the animals he lost, Florry estimated.

Florry explained that in some conservancies, the conservancies add additional funds per animal lost to farmers to minimise the financial loss. He said he was not sure this was also the case in the Torra conservancy, where Gawiseb farms.



The issue of meagre compensation has been under the spotlight for some time, with many communal farmers criticising the current policy, which provides compensation of N$1 500 per cow, N$500 per horse, and N$5 000 towards the funeral when a person is killed.



In line with this, regional consultations for input on the revised national policy on human wildlife conflict got under way in September and in October the ministry announced it would need N$900 million to implement the revised national policy on human-wildlife conflict management.



The revised policy has proposed sharp increases in compensation for human-wildlife conflict.



Izak Smit of Desert Lions Human Relations Aid (Dehlra) told Namibian Sun that there is a number of ways to protect livestock from predators such as lions, including upgrading kraals to make them predator proof, arming farmers with tools to chase off lions and collaring lions as an early-warning and monitoring system.



He said collaring is a crucial element of helping farmers keep an eye on roving predators and would “go a long way towards addressing the conflict.”



Smit explained that the killing frenzy was strategic on the part of the lions to silence the panicked animals in the kraal.



“Lions are intelligent enough to know the animals are turning into whistleblowers, so in order to shut them up and not attract unwelcome attention, they just break the animal's neck. This is not uncommon when there is hysterical frenzy and they need to turn off the noise.”



He said in an open area, where the panicked prey can run off, lions would not need to silence the animals and the loss of life would be markedly lower.



He said while the loss to the farmer was a great concern, he was also concerned about the possible loss of ten desert-adapted lions.



“With the numbers dwindling, we can't just go and annihilate ten lions. That will have a huge knock-on effect.”



Smit said Dehlra had appealed to the government to collar the lions but their pleas fell on deaf ears.



JANA-MARI SMITH