Kimberley - Nearly six months after news of the “mass killings” of between 200 and 1 000 blue cranes in Richmond, Northern Cape, allegedly by a farmer in the area, left the country in shock, the Northern Cape Department of Nature Conservation and Environmental Affairs is still to decide if they have a prima facie case to prosecute the alleged perpetrator.
In what was at the time described as a “massive blow” to the population of South Africa’s national bird, between 200 and 1 000 blue cranes were poisoned, allegedly by a well-known Northern Cape farmer, over a period of three years, from 2012, causing outrage among environmentalists and most members of society.
In March, Dr Gerhard Verdoorn, from the Griffon Poison Information Centre, confirmed that toxicological analysis of the stomach content of some of the blue crane carcasses revealed a very high concentration of the insecticide diazinon.
Verdoorn said that maize had been soaked in diazinon and laid out to poison the blue cranes. He added that diazinon, which is widely used as a blowfly remedy for wool-producing sheep in the Karoo, had been implicated in the deliberate and accidental poisoning of blue cranes on a number of occasions in the past, but that the Richmond case was the worst of its kind to date.
Shortly after the report by Verdoorn, the Northern Cape Department of Environmental Affairs and Nature Conservation (NCDENC), while “condemning the incident in the strongest terms”, said it did not have enough “concrete proof” to lay charges against the farmer allegedly responsible for the “mass murder”.
This is despite the NCDENC spokesman, Lesego Pule, previously saying that the department’s compliance and enforcement unit had been investigating this case “for a while already”.
Nearly six months after the incident came to light and after no responses to the numerous enquiries about the poisonings were received, Pule finally on Wednesday broke the silence and said that the NCDENC still needed to determine if they had a prima facie case against the alleged perpetrator.
“Departmental investigators completed work on the case and subsequently compiled and registered a case docket at the Richmond police station in February. Our biodiversity officers working on the case have been closely working with the National Prosecuting Authority’s provincial office. An action plan has since been developed as a follow-up investigation on the matter. We are also seeking professional opinion from experts on certain aspects of the case.
“As part of the plan to conclude this investigation, we have a scheduled a site investigation, including ourselves and the Provincial Director of Public Prosecutions, for the middle of August. The outcome of that investigation will determine whether we have prima facie evidence to prosecute the accused,” Pule said.
However, insiders have revealed that the implicated farmer will more likely than not walk free, as farm workers are reluctant to give statements about any involvement in the poisonings after being threatened with their jobs by their employee, leaving the NCDENC with a “weak case”.
This was also the underlying sentiment of the NCDENC, who on February 23 said that on the basis of preliminary findings, it was unable to charge any person, after an interview with a worker on the farm belonging to the farmer implicated in the poisonings, yielded no evidence of blue crane poisonings.
“We dispatched biodiversity compliance and enforcement officials to the farm where the killings are alleged to have occurred. On site, the officials interviewed a man, who informed them that there were only a few blue cranes around the farm, mostly in the lucerne fields.
“He further indicated that they do not use poison to scare off the birds. He showed the officers an automatic cannon that they use to chase the birds away. Our officials then undertook a walk-about on site and they did not see any bird carcasses or anything related to the use of poison to control bird populations.
“Officials thereafter visited a neighbouring farmer, who informed them that he was not aware of any blue crane mortalities in the area,” Pule stated at the time.
However, the owner of the farm could face a myriad of charges if found guilty of the deliberate poisoning of the birds, including contravening animal protection, nature conservation, environmental management, land use and poison management acts, which include Act 36 of 1947, the Northern Cape Provincial Conservation Act and the National Environmental Management Biodiversity Act.
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