After Bloody #DrivenHunt, More Anger and Questions

A week after the controversial #drivenhunt of scores of animals in Limpopo went ahead, drawing media coverage and disdain around the world, the so-called massacre continues to incite debate about the five-day event and the brutal practice of chasing wild animals into a confined area to be shot.

On Sunday, the South African TV programme Carte Blanche, which had done an in-depth show on the upcoming hunt a week earlier, gave a day-by-day account of the week’s events.

Presenter Devi Govender said the hunters, mostly Dutch and Belgian citizens, had been amused at the media attention on the first day, as well as by the sight of protesters outside Braam Farm, where the hunt was to take place.

But by the second day, with the number of protesters growing and organisations like the Wild Heart Wildlife Foundation and Ban Animal Trading South Africa sharing news on their Facebook pages regularly, the visitors started covering their faces.

“What was meant to be a luxury safari had turned into the hunters becoming the hunted,” Devi said.

The National SPCA sent inspectors to the site, as did the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA).

Warrants to stop the hunt were obtained, but the hunters were moved to a farm next-door, Ammondale, where the hunt continued.

As almost 100 so-called beaters hit the ground and made noise to get the animals to move in a certain direction, the hunters were stationed on dozens of platforms along a route, ready to shoot them.

Govender reported that even though driven hunts are supposed to be new to South Africa, they have been going on in the Alldays area “for years’.

The NSPCA’s Isabel Wentzel, a senior inspector, told the programme that some of the hunters, whose faces had been recognised by people in their home towns, had received death threats already.

She said the event had escalated from a Limpopo matter to the national level, and would be looked into by the DEA.

The final tally of animals killed last week, according to the NSPCA, was 98.

Watch the Carte Blanche episode here: