From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2000:

Apartheid and three caracal kittens
by Chris Mercer & Beverly Pervan
Kalahari Raptor Centre, P.O. Box 1386, Kathu,
Northern Cape ZA 8446, South Africa; <krc@spg.co.za>.


Our Kalahari Raptor Centre is the only registered wildlife
rehabilitation centre in the Northern Cape province of South Africa--
almost a third of the country.
On October 14, 2000, we advised the department of Nature
Conservation of the Northern Cape Province in Kimberley that:
"Further to our previous application for permits to provide sanctuary to
predators, we were called by a farmer who stated that he had captured
three young caracals after trapping and killing their mother. I drove more
than a thousand kilometres round-trip to fetch them. One of the three had
a foreleg broken so severely as to require amputation.
"We are thus caring for three young caracals, one of whom is
disabled. We wish to use them to educate schoolchildren who visit our
center, and for tourists to photograph. We will not allow the public to
handle them. We propose to build for them a large camp with high
electrified fencing, where they may live out as happy a life as possible.
We thought that the veld near our present vulture restaurant would give
them a pleasant site with a view and camelthorn trees for shade.
"Alternatively, once they are older and stronger, do you have any
wilderness in mind where we could release them?
"We hope you will have no trouble giving us a permit to care for
these beautiful, much-persecuted animals."
The faxed response, in bold print with much underlining, was a
categorical refusal; a notice of intent to prosecute us; and an
invitation to a meeting to "discuss the renewal of existing permits and to
reconsider the future of the Kalahari Raptor Centre."
The department intends to apply the apartheid-era Problem Animal
Control Ordinance of 1974--a chilling reminder of a time when all laws and
policies were framed to protect the Afrikaans farming community, at the
expense of every other person and creature.
The Problem Animal Control Ordinance declared war upon black-backed
jackals and caracals. Both species are invaluable for keeping down numbers
of rodents and other pests--but when farmers create a prey-desert for them
by hunting guinea fowl and springhares, they turn their attention to
lambs.
Any attempt to protect these alleged enemies of the State is
strictly verboten. For example, a motorist who takes an injured caracal
kitten to a veterinarian commits a crime. He must kill the kitten and bury
the body, or he is guilty of yet another offense.
Wildlife sanctuaries, including economically important eco-tourism
resorts, are treated as illegal breeding grounds for vermin. The local
livestock farmers' association and provincial nature conservation
department may ride into any suspect sanctuary on horseback or in motor
vehicles, with weapons and dogs, to kill any jackals or caracals they
find.
When a fugitive goes to ground, the burrow is dug up and the
unfortunate fellow-occupants--ant-bears, bat-eared foxes, or
whatever--share the fugitive's fate. The dogs are provided by the South
African taxpayer. Until recent budget cuts, public funds were used to
import hounds from abroad.
Any attempt to resist the invasion is unlawful. Indeed, persons
on the property invaded may be forced to join the hunt.
The hunt pays no compensation for collateral damage and loss.
Limits are also placed on any criminal liability by hunt members. But the
hunters, who are paid from tax funds, may recover all of their expenses
from the owner of the invaded property.
In short, this is a selective imposition of martial law.
The Problem Animal Control Ordin-ance so far exceeds any legitimate
need of livestock farmers to combat predation, and is so immoral and so
damaging to the economic interests of the country, that one wonders how it
has avoided repeal in the new South Africa.
Who are the real problem animals anyway? Certainly not the
magnificent predators, whom tourists pay millions to see and photograph.
The real problem animals (besides people) are goats and sheep, who reduce
the veld to desert.
Despite the severity of the legislation, eco-tourist destinations
and game reserves are expanding, while the livestock industry is in marked
decline. In Tswalu alone 26 livestock farms were recently merged into one
90,000 hectare eco-tourism resort.
Yet as the sun sets on apartheid and Kalahari ranching, the
lengthening shadows of a brutal past reach out to haunt us.
The only remedy now available is the Constitutional Court. It is
not a pretty equation to divide the delays and costs of a constitutional
battle by the lives of three caracal kittens. We intend to do it anyway.
[Messages on behalf of the caracal kittens may be sent to: The
Premier of the Northern Cape Province of South Africa, fax
27-053-833-2122; Northern Cape Nature Conservation, fax 27-053 -
831-3530, e-mail: wessel@natuur.ncape.gov.za; Valli Moosa, Minister of
Environmental Affairs and Tourism, fax 27-021-461-5838, e-mail
<vmoosa@ozone.pwv.gov.za>; and Thabo Mbeki, President of South Africa,
<president@anc.org.za>.]