Osonjiva Hunting Safaris' Tinus van Rensburg apparently admitted this action.
Did he have a problem animal permit for this Leopard? I doubt he had a permit to destroy private property.
It's hard enough to get a Leopard permit to hunt in Namibia without this going on.
Farmer willfully shoots leopard and destroys equipment
The tragedy of the unnecessary killing of a leopard that was shown not to be habitually taking livestock, was compounded by the intentional destruction of the valuable GPS collar this research animal was wearing, blatantly showing the attitude of the farmer concerned to conservation.
As part of the N/a’an ku sê Foundation’s human-carnivore conflict mitigation research, a free-roaming male leopard was fitted with a GPS collar on 10 February 2016.
This took place in the Otjozondjupa region in the north of Namibia. The leopard was a suspected, but not a proven, conflict animal, and the resulting data from the GPS collar was used to track his movements in a bid to ascertain if he indeed was a so-called problem animal. The leopard was subsequently named Spots, and the N/a’an ku sê Foundation has been researching his behaviour since February, the GPS data confirming that this leopard did not target livestock during this time.
ON 12 October 2016 the GPS collar stopped transmitting, and after approximately a week of no GPS updates being received, the N/a’an ku sê Foundation contacted the farmer on whose land the leopard had initially been tracked. The farmer informed the foundation that a neighbour had recently shot a leopard, and put the N/a’an ku sê team in contact with the farmer concerned, Mr. Tinus van Rensburg of Farm Osonjiva (http://www.osonjiva.com/index.html), a hunting farm in the area. Mr. van Rensburg readily spoke to N/a’an ku sê, informing them that he indeed had deliberately shot the leopard, and furthermore intentionally destroyed the GPS collar. Mr. van Rensburg then continued to elaborate, “I will continue to shoot and kill leopards in the area and, should they have collars, I will destroy the collars too.”
The N/a’an ku sê Foundation performs vital research in the area of human-carnivore conflict mitigation, whereby GPS collars are fitted to free-roaming carnivores (primarily leopards and cheetahs) in order to gain valuable insight into their movements and behaviours, insight that allows for potential conflict to be addressed and avoided. This is done purely at the cost of the N/a’an ku sê Foundation, with no financial burden falling on the farmers who collaborate with N/a’an ku sê in its efforts to address the ongoing crisis of carnivore conflict. Furthermore, N/a’an ku sê advises landowners on the best possible livestock protection techniques.
The costs incurred and carried by the N/a’an ku sê Foundation are hugely significant, a GPS collar costing NAD41,000.00 (approximately USD3,000.00), and every collar is irreplaceable in the ongoing research efforts that the N/a’an ku sê Foundation undertakes in its bid to facilitate a peaceful relationship between man and wildlife.
Did he have a problem animal permit for this Leopard? I doubt he had a permit to destroy private property.
It's hard enough to get a Leopard permit to hunt in Namibia without this going on.
Farmer willfully shoots leopard and destroys equipment
The tragedy of the unnecessary killing of a leopard that was shown not to be habitually taking livestock, was compounded by the intentional destruction of the valuable GPS collar this research animal was wearing, blatantly showing the attitude of the farmer concerned to conservation.
As part of the N/a’an ku sê Foundation’s human-carnivore conflict mitigation research, a free-roaming male leopard was fitted with a GPS collar on 10 February 2016.
This took place in the Otjozondjupa region in the north of Namibia. The leopard was a suspected, but not a proven, conflict animal, and the resulting data from the GPS collar was used to track his movements in a bid to ascertain if he indeed was a so-called problem animal. The leopard was subsequently named Spots, and the N/a’an ku sê Foundation has been researching his behaviour since February, the GPS data confirming that this leopard did not target livestock during this time.
ON 12 October 2016 the GPS collar stopped transmitting, and after approximately a week of no GPS updates being received, the N/a’an ku sê Foundation contacted the farmer on whose land the leopard had initially been tracked. The farmer informed the foundation that a neighbour had recently shot a leopard, and put the N/a’an ku sê team in contact with the farmer concerned, Mr. Tinus van Rensburg of Farm Osonjiva (http://www.osonjiva.com/index.html), a hunting farm in the area. Mr. van Rensburg readily spoke to N/a’an ku sê, informing them that he indeed had deliberately shot the leopard, and furthermore intentionally destroyed the GPS collar. Mr. van Rensburg then continued to elaborate, “I will continue to shoot and kill leopards in the area and, should they have collars, I will destroy the collars too.”
The N/a’an ku sê Foundation performs vital research in the area of human-carnivore conflict mitigation, whereby GPS collars are fitted to free-roaming carnivores (primarily leopards and cheetahs) in order to gain valuable insight into their movements and behaviours, insight that allows for potential conflict to be addressed and avoided. This is done purely at the cost of the N/a’an ku sê Foundation, with no financial burden falling on the farmers who collaborate with N/a’an ku sê in its efforts to address the ongoing crisis of carnivore conflict. Furthermore, N/a’an ku sê advises landowners on the best possible livestock protection techniques.
The costs incurred and carried by the N/a’an ku sê Foundation are hugely significant, a GPS collar costing NAD41,000.00 (approximately USD3,000.00), and every collar is irreplaceable in the ongoing research efforts that the N/a’an ku sê Foundation undertakes in its bid to facilitate a peaceful relationship between man and wildlife.
