PORCUPINES – A PRICKLY ISSUE

Beatrice Wiltshire

Photo : courtesy of Anna Haw of the Landmark Foundation

Do porcupines really shoot their quills? This erroneous belief seems to have been around a long time, possibly perpetuated by childhood story book illustrations. The truth is that, if attacked, the little animal engages in some formidable posturing, erecting its quills, which are quite loosely attached and lets its enemy’s teeth sink into them. The attacker ends up with a mouth and throat full of painful barbs, as our own Jock of the Bushveld experienced.

On browsing through the gift- and curio shops, it becomes obvious that porcupine quills are increasingly being used in the manufacture of various commodities relating to the Afro-chic fad. And don’t be misled by the shop owner’s assurance that the quills were ‘picked up around the farms.’ The quills you see are usually obtained by killing the animal in the most inhumane manner by clubbing to death, hunting with dogs or the cruellest of all, using gin traps, the latter banned in more than 90 countries – but not in South Africa.

The specie has definite positive implications within a biodiversity context and porcupine research scientist Christy Bragg has written scientific papers referring to them as ‘ecosystem engineers.’ According to her, ‘studies show that productivity and diversity of plants within porcupine diggings can be many times higher compared to outside their diggings. They not only increase bulb diversity (which has important eco -tourism implications) but also contribute towards an increase in the diversity and germination of annuals, shrubs and grasses.’ This was all as Nature intended.

Going back in history, one learns that porcupine populations were inherently stable as there were

no urban or agricultural impacts on them. This stability was brought about by a self-regulating mechanism determined by population density and predation.

Then arrived the most destructive predator of all – the human being, which saw the natural balance disturbed and the start of human/animal conflict.

With an increase in agriculture and urban development, coupled with a concomitant decrease in natural habitat and predator species such as big cats, jackals, etc. this vegetarian animal turned to the ready food supply afforded by agricultural practices. With their strong incisors, porcupines were able to bite their way through agricultural fencing. In arid regions their keen sense of smell caused the thirsty animals to locate and bite through PVP water pipes, often positioned below ground level.

But this problem is not insurmountable. After discussion with farmers in the affected regions, Grant McIlrath of the Meerkat Conservation Project in the Karoo , suggested that farmers should raise their piping above ground level, perhaps on the farm fencing, to prevent porcupines from getting to them. Letsie Coetzee, Section Ranger from the Tankwa National Park, suggests that in other areas, where PVP pipes could be damaged by the sun, the problem appears to be solved by burying the pipes deep enough in the ground. It all depends on the area and its particular problems and needs.

Be that as it may, a tipping point was reached when porcupines were classified ‘vermin’ and ‘problem animals’ because of their perceived detrimental effect on farming activities. This classification led to large scale mortalities through hunting, trapping and poisoning.

Their fate was sealed when consumption of their meat entered into the equation and some game lodges now have porcupine steaks on their menus. Opportunistic farm stalls began introducing the public to the quirky commodity of porcupine quills, thereby putting an economic value on them. This led to an exponential increase in demand and killing to supply the quill trade.

Occasionally, however, some ethical farmers would contact conservation organisations, requesting help in removing problem porcupines, but this was not the norm and the fact that it is happening less frequently, is put down to the destructive impact the quill industry is having on porcupines. It appears that the animals are now being targeted specifically for their quills.

Because of their classification as vermin, porcupines were not afforded protection through either national or provincial conservation legislation. This was further compounded by the fact that little was known regarding their distribution and population. So while commercial exploitation of the species was taking place on a large scale, it was happening in a vacuum of scientific data on its effects. The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW,) through their Think Twice campaign, highlighted the plight of the porcupine within Southern Africa and the threat placed on them by commercial exploitation.

In order to address this problem and as a result of public pressure, the government drew up draft Biodiversity and Threatened and Protected Species Bills and called for input in the matter from stakeholders. In the subsequent Biodiversity Act, the porcupine has now been listed a ‘protected species,’ which by definition means ‘an indigenous species of high conservation value of national importance that requires national protection.’

Because of the Government’s policy of ‘sustainable usage’ however, this new classification does not mean that they are no longer hunted or trophy hunted. It merely means that they may be ‘used sustainably.’

There has been an exponential increase in the number of quills being supplied to the market and no documentation to trace the source or extent of each transaction – a person can deal in porcupine by-products without having to obtain a permit to do so. So there is no control over this random hunting and killing of porcupines and no means of accountability. Exports thrive.

Meanwhile our indigenous porcupine continues to be trapped (including use of the inhumane gin trap) and then shot or clubbed to death, as well as hunted with dogs. The latter method is cruel to the dogs as well, because of collateral injuries. Such is the result of the commodification of sentient beings.

It has been pointed out, also in the Farmer’s Weekly (4 August 2006) that ‘no farmer/wildlife programme has much chance of success without input from the kingpins in the debate namely the farmers.’ This is so as, apart from a few isolated eco-friendly farmers, it is mostly the farmers who have been encouraging their labourers to hunt porcupines both for their meat and their quills.

And it is all so unnecessary. When we asked one of the biggest exporters of quill products whether these quills could be manufactured synthetically, the answer was a resounding ‘no.’ However, the Inter-Continental hotel at the O.R. Tambo airport sports an eighteen metre long sculpture, all made of synthetic quills, hanging in the atrium of its Quills restaurant. So the only thing keeping this cruel trade going is the retail industry.

The next time you are browsing through gift- and curio shops, don’t be tempted to buy an item of beauty made up of porcupine quills. By doing so, you are actively supporting a cruel and unethical, consumer driven trade and could be assisting in the demise of the porcupine. A relevant, recent example would be the indigenous porcupine in Italy, which was considered a delicacy and hunted extensively within its range until it became extinct.

We can do without the lamp shades, jewellery, picture frames and even glass coasters made up of porcupine quills, but our environment cannot do without our little eco-system engineers.

ZOOS – AN OUTDATED CONCEPT

“They pay the price for their beauty, poor beasts. Mankind wants to catch anything beautiful and shut it up, and then come in thousands to watch it die by inches.”

David Garnett – A Man in the Zoo.

Zoos have come to represent fun days for children, but the public spotlight is increasingly falling on this relic of colonialism. Like many institutions of the past that have fallen by the wayside as they no longer measure up to moral scrutiny (slavery and child labour spring to mind) modern society is increasingly questioning the incarceration of wild animals in cages.

Few are aware of the enormous cruelty inherent in the system. To be placed in zoos, animals have been captured in the wild, taken from their habitat and families, manhandled, transported, made to feel pain and caged in order to be exhibited and exposed to continual human gaze.

In their wild state, the average lion pride has a range of 15 to 150 square miles, depending on the carrying capacity of the habitat and prey density. Like elephants, primates and other wild animals, they live in colonies with strong social structures and hierarchies. So the environments provided by zoos are at best artificial, creating artificial animals, with not a thought to their sadness and loneliness, torn from their families, unable to live out their natural and social instincts, for the whole of their lifetimes, often decades.

States EC Young, Professor of Zoology, Auckland University: “The simple basis of my opposition to captivity in zoos is that we are holding animals in grossly unnatural, debilitating, and aberrant circumstances. None of their beauty and force and intelligence is apparent. Confined, frustrated, performing the same ritualistic and often dangerous damaging behavior of acute boredom, they caricature the real thing.” Confining wild animals to zoos can therefore hardly be called educational.

In his book: ‘Reading Zoos: Representations of Animals in Captivity’ Professor Randy Malamud exposes the zoo’s unwritten history in its relation to colonialism. Zoos were inextricably bound up with imperialism and its ideologies of conquest, and they provided much-needed symbols and legitimation for conquering nations. Animals captured in foreign lands were brought back to capitals such as London in order to be displayed for a gawking public. Exotic animals symbolized the empire’s prowess to gain dominion over nature. Prof. David Ehrenfeld of Rutgers University states in Ethics on the Ark: "In many ways, the zoo has come to typify the themes of the Age of Control: exploration, domination, machismo, exhibitionism, assertion of superiority, manipulation.”

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries humans were frequently exhibited in cages with animals as part of an exotic collection of life forms. Dwarfs, bearded women and people with all kinds of deformities and oddities were exhibited for human amusement, forming part of the ‘us’ and ‘them’ distancing scenario.

Closer to home in the early 20th Century, Saartjie Baartman , a member of the Griqua tribe in the Eastern Cape, caught the eye of a visiting English ship’s surgeon who persuaded her to accompany him to England as a subject of medical and anthropological research. She was considered a freak because of her extraordinary enlarged buttocks and genital peculiarities, and after being put under scrutiny by the researchers, was exhibited like a wild beast in the streets of London, eventually being taken to Paris where she was handed to a “showman of wild animals” in a traveling circus. While moral progress compelled people to realize the wrongs of exhibiting humans, society is only now starting to comprehend the injustice of exploiting wild animals in zoos and circuses.

A possible parallel to Saartjie Baartman’s story is the well documented case of Jackie the Chimp who, torn from the wild, was kept in unbearable captivity and taught to do demeaning tricks for the patrons of Boswell Wilkie circus. He was subsequently given to the Johannesburg zoo in 1966 before eventually being passed on to Roodeplaat, the South African Defence Force’s covert Biological and Chemical Warfare facility. His Hveterinary history over the period of 10 years spent at the zoo shows that he was kept on drugs and tranquillizers for most of the time.

Like the majority of zoo animals who are denied a rich social life, their every need and instinct thwarted and in possession of complex minds, he’d developed zoochosis, a term used to describe various psychological problems, from stereotypic behaviour that includes rocking and walking in circles, to self mutilation and even infanticide.

The drugs on which Jackie was kept also raises disturbing questions about what zoos do to animals in their care in order to make them viewable objects.

According to Travers and McKenna of the Born Free Foundation over 60% of polar bears in British zoos are mentally deranged.

Alarmingly, zoos are not only breeding excessively, but this is an activity that is encouraged, particularly because young cubs and baby animals are more of an attraction and because animals bred in zoos are often sold for profit via dealers. This is how zoo animals end up in the pet trade, in circuses or experimental laboratories, as victims of canned hunts, or as breeding animals for the cruel wildlife trade.

Says Dr. Steven Best of the University of Texas: “The fact that, as insipid parents claim, their children might ‘enjoy’ the zoo is not an argument for it, but a disturbing indication of an early stage in the warping of a young mind.”

Indeed, a society that cages animals cages itself.

CANNED HUNTING - THE LEGACY OF CALLOUSNESS AND GREED

The human animal has always tended to sport his manliness by vanquishing the weaker or defenceless. In an earlier civilization this resulted in the scalping of the vanquished, these scalps to be taken as trophies. Modern man has not evolved much. From the Nazi lampshades purportedly made from human skin, it is now the heads of defenceless animals that are mounted on walls as proof of male dominance.

In 1997, Roger Cook, producer of the British investigative television documentary The Cook Report, investigated the killing of rare wild animals in the name of sport. Posing as a tourist-hunter in South Africa, he was taken on a hunt for lions and tigers – the latter specially imported for the purpose. The documentary exposed more than just blood lust. It also exposed the despicable and clandestine activity known as 'canned hunting,' whereby captive-bred lions were let loose in an enclosure from which they had nowhere to flee and where they were shot by khaki clad 'hunters' from overseas. Many of them were not even good shots and after one or two wounding attempts the hapless animal would be put out of its misery by an accompanying hunter. But this was after all what they paid good money for, as well as being able to pose for the camera with one intrepid foot on the slaughtered animal, at an angle which did not show the fence in the background. One particularly poignant scene showed a lioness who had been separated from her cubs, being shot several times while attempting to get to her babies.

The resultant public uproar did nothing for South Africa's image overseas, and there were calls to have 'canned hunting' banned, not only because of its ethical but also ecological and biological implications. The Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) then resorting under Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk, also joined in the condemnation, but was subsequently accused by Animal Rights Africa and others of 'double speak'. With all the spin and fanfare put out by the government, the general public was lulled into thinking that canned lion hunting was indeed being banned but the industry, far from being controlled, grew exponentially, with the active support from the government. And it was not only confined to the hunting of large predators – elephants, rhinos, buffaloes and antelope species were also hunted in this way. Between 2007 and 2008 the number of lions trophy hunted and killed by the predator industry doubled. Captive lion breeding farms mushroomed. The government played a double game. On the one hand they made public announcements that they were going to 'put an end, once and for all, to the reprehensible practice of canned hunting' and that after 1 June 2007 there would be no more canned hunting of large animals in South Africa, while on the other hand providing the predator breeding industry with loopholes that would allow this reprehensible industry to continue and expand.

Loophole 1: The NEMBA Threatened or Protected Species (TOPS) is a flawed and inadequate legislation that does not ban canned predator hunting but merely attempts to regulate it.

Loophole 2: Inexplicably postponing the implementation of TOPS from June 2007 to February 2008, thereby giving the South African Predator Breeders Association the opportunity to challenge TOPS before it came into force.

Loophole 3: Excluding lions from the definition for listed large predators of the TOPS legislation promulgated in February 2008, supposedly while the South African Predator Breeders'Association court

case against the Minister was pending.

Furthermore, as recently as 9 July 2008 the Deputy Minister Rejoice Mabudafhasi unequivocally assured them that "government does appreciate the existence of the industry and that there is no way that the regulations will eventually lead to its closure as the industry is an accepted part of the tourism experience package that South Africa markets."

Eventually, on Thursday 11th June 2009 judgment was given in the Free State High Court in Bloemfontein when Judge Ian van der Merwe concurred with the government that biodiversity must be protected and that the breeding of lions in captivity with the sole purpose of canned hunting did not aid their protection. The verdict was that these semi-tame animals may only be hunted 24 months after being set free from their breeding cages. The lion breeders' request that the period of 24 months in the regulations be changed to 'a few days' was dismissed with costs.

Reason to celebrate? Hold on to your hats and brollies! Whilst the verdict is welcomed, there are still some very serious gaps. There is no stipulation as to the size of the encampment into which the animals are to be released after being set free. So they could still be released into quite a small area from which they have no way of escaping. Furthermore, these are semi-tamed, hand reared animals and those who are involved with the rehabilitation of lions will agree that a lion that has been hand reared and thus human imprinted will never be able to be truly wild and fend for itself as a lion should. Also, how on earth would this be enforced? Surely not by the conservation officials, most of whom are hunters themselves and are widely suspected to be hand-in-glove with the breeding fraternity?

The bottom line is that the lion breeders have now escalated to 123 and there are 3000 canned lions waiting to be, well, canned. This situation could have been avoided. Attempts many years ago by Animal Rights Africa (ARA) and others to persuade DEAT to support a plan that would address the ethical and welfare concerns for the predators still caught up in the industry, fell on deaf ears.

And the industry has not been slow to engage in the emotional terrorism of pointing out that '5000 breadwinners will lose their jobs and 3000 semi-tamed lions will have be put down.'

Says Paul Hart of the Drakenstein Lion Park: 'This ploy to gain public sympathy is ridiculous in the extreme, especially coming from people who breed lions for the express purpose of killing them in a variety of gruesome ways, such as shooting arrows into them, setting packs of dogs on them and blasting away at them with high powered rifles.'

Meanwhile, the breeders will no doubt play for even more time by going to the various courts of appeal, a process which could take many years, while the problem continues to escalate.

Says Michele Pickover of ARA 'Quite clearly this is all about profits and greed, while what it should be about, is the animals.'

Until the property status of animals gives way to a classification of 'sentient beings' animal cruelty will continue.

THE HIDDEN SIDE OF GREYHOUND RACING

According to recent reports would-be promoters of the as yet illegal greyhound racing industry tout the legalisation of this industry as having the potential to create 30 000 jobs and provide a R1,5bn tax offspin. Indeed a preliminary report from that University in the land of BROC (Braaivleis, Rugby, Oranjejag and Canned Lion Hunting) would presume to support this.

The statements made are clearly a sop pandering to top politicians, in order to try and legalise what should remain banned. If we are now to legalise this form of animal exploitation, then why not legalise drug dealing, child pornography and the human slave trade? That would create a lot of jobs and tax offspin too.

But any offspin from Greyhound racing would only be short-term. Greyhound racing has not worked anywhere else in Africa, being patronised for a number of years and then falling into disuse, creating an animal welfare crises because of the surplus animals. Furthermore, supporting greyhound racing would draw people away from the Lotto which at least benefits a wide range of good causes across the board such as Child Welfare, Animal Welfare, Aids etc.

But worst of all are the abuses inherent in this cruel and unethical 'sport' which critics oppose on the following grounds:

Only one in two dogs is deemed fit for racing, leading to tens of thousands of healthy dogs being killed every year. Some trainers prefer to drown or starve their dogs to death, thus preventing unwanted veterinary bills. Many more end up in laboratories, only to be further tortured by vivisectors conducting 'research.'

Once the 50% who 'make it' begin serious training, around their first birthday, they are kept in cages their entire racing lives – cages so small (90cm x 120 cm x 90 cm high) that they have room only to stand up and turn around. The backs and thighs of many racing dogs are worn bare and some dogs develop sores from lying in their cages for extended periods. A total of 22½ hours a day are spent in these crates.

The Greyhounds' freest moments come in the matter of seconds they spend racing. Yet this freedom is not without risk. Dogs rocketing out of their starting boxes are bunched tightly and turns on the racetrack are challenging. Spills can fracture bones and cause other injuries. The normal rigours of racing cause foot-pad abrasions, sprained ligaments and fractured right-front hocks, which absorb most of the concussion as dogs bend around counterclockwise turns.

Barbaric training techniques, such as tying a live rabbit to the mechanical arm, though illegal, are commonplace as many people believe that dogs trained on live lures qualify for racing twice as often as dogs trained on mechanical devices.

Very few retired greyhounds are ever re-homed as they first have to be rehabilitated before being adopted out. This requires a great deal of time and patience.

But in the end, the real issue here is that the exploitation of animals and turning them into commodities is part of a bigger picture of exploitation of the defenceless, whether human or non-human. It's up to us to decide whether our country is in need of a moral regeneration or whether we can afford to exploit sentient beings in the quest for a fast buck for the enrichment of a few.

HOW ROBBEN ISLAND WAS ROBBED OF ITS HERITAGE

In An Unnatural Order we described how the Cape fur seal originated in the Cape, where 85% of the offshore islands are situated. Due to over fishing, sealing and banning, these colonies became extinct and seals fled north, to be further driven off the few islands off Namibia, until forced onto the mainland where currently 80% of all pups are born. One in four pups are caught by jackals and this has resulted in jackals’ numbers increasing due to the seal pup feed, disturbing even further nature’s natural balance. Not only do they have to contend with the marauding jackals, but human culling of seals on the mainland have forced the seals to flee north, with the newest and fastest growing seal colony, Cape Frio, being very close to the Angolan border. The further north seals are driven to escape government marine conservationists and scientists, the closer they get to the equator where they are unable to survive warm tropical weather and water. So one could say that the government, unchecked, is in fact driving the species to extinction.

We now describe how, in a previous unspoiled state, there existed a seal utopia on an island of 507 hectares, off Cape Town. This beautiful paradise, now lost, teemed with a rich wild life consisting of mostly seals and some sea birds. It was named Robben Island (Seal Island).

Today, because of government and Marine and Coastal Management (MCM) policy, there is not one seal left on Robben Island. Over-fishing and Apartheid style forced removals drove them from their historical breeding sites, causing the seals to become 'second rate citizens' - scavengers on their natural habitats.

There is a parallel: Established in the 1920s, the vibrant multi-cultural community at Sophiatown, Johannesburg, was a thorn in the side of the Apartheid-government. Not only did it prove that various races could live side-by-side in harmony, it was also a freehold township, which meant that it was one of the rare places in South African urban areas where blacks were allowed to own land.

Sophiatown was also the centre of a black cultural revolution. It was here that the most important developments in indigenous jazz took place and the products of Sophiatown included jazz masters such as Hugh Masekela, Jonas Gwangwa and Abdullah Ibrahim (then known as Dollard Brand), the poet Don Mattera, singers like Dolly Rathebe, Dorothy Masuku and Miriam Makeba and artists such as Gerard Sekoto.

In support of their ideology, the Apartheid government enforced the relocation of Sophiatown residents. Families were forcibly removed from their homes, their possessions loaded on the back of police trucks and dumped in Meadowlands in Soweto. Many formerly prosperous people were thus impoverished. Over the next eight years the vibrant Sophiatown was flattened and removed from the maps of Johannesburg to make way for a low-cost residential suburb for whites only, created by the policy of Apartheid. A Machiavellian touch saw Sophiatown renamed Triomf - Afrikaans for "triumph."

History has a way of repeating itself and the S.A. government, in the guise of Nature Conservation, saw fit to apply this model to South Africa's seal population, enforcing their removal to awash rocks, unfit for breeding, while proclaiming as exclusive 'bird islands,' the seals' historical breeding sites. These included 11 islands around which walls were built to prevent the seals from returning there. The seabird droppings, guano, were considered a commercial money spinner.

But back to Robben Island , which was later to become an island prison for opponents of the Apartheid state and was, for 26 years, the home of the most famous political prisoner of all, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. The island was proclaimed a world heritage site, a wild life reserve and a protected seal island.

Sadly, today there is not one seal left - they have all been chased off the island and have had to seek refuge elsewhere. Robben Island became a centre of tourism, weekend weddings, an upmarket fundraising venue and the like. Furthermore, having driven the original seal colony from their historic breeding site, MCM saw fit to introduce twenty three species of non-indigenous mammals while Tahrs on Table Mountain were being shot, for the very reason that they were not indigenous!

The banning of seals from Robben Island is apparently illegal, but nobody seems to want to do anything to stop it. A letter from Francois Hugo of Seal Alert-SA to the UNESCO World Heritage committee elicited no reply.

Then in a magnanimous gesture, Seal Alert-S.A. was eventually informed by the Chairperson of the Robben Island Committee, Ahmat Kathrada, as well as Herman Oosthuizen, the MCM scientist most closely involved with seal issues, that the seals could have 40% of the western coastline of Robben Island. Would they allow Seal Alert-SA to re-introduce the seals which had for so long been banned, in an attempt to get re-colonization going and thereby restoring the natural order? Oh no, that would be going too far. It had to be a natural process. “If it happens, it happens.”

It has now been two years and still no seals have returned to the island, a strange phenomenon, considering that there is plenty of fish around it.

Could it be that the seals are in fact being prevented from re-colonising the island? It is a fact that conservation authorities are chasing seals off and away from all the other islands. Why would seals breed on a small rock to the north, and in the waterfront, and 20km to the south at Hout Bay but not repopulate Robben - if not disturbed? Dead and shot seals wash ashore onto the island, why not alive seals trying to repopulate? So many questions …...

Snout decided it would investigate and so we contacted Herman Oosthuizen

who strongly refuted the fact that there were walls built around islands in order to keep the seals off. He also re-iterated that the seals could return to Robben Island but that it had to be a natural process. “The seals must decide,” the gentleman said.

But the intrepid Google Earth had another story to tell. There are clearly walls built around some islands as captured by their eye-in-the-sky. Vondeling and Dyer are just two of them. So somewhere something was wrong. Could there be a misunderstanding?

Snout e-mailed Herman Oosthuizen the following questions:

1. Are there any walls on the S.A. islands: Dyer, Vondeling and Marcus?

2. Could you please list which islands are protected under the ACT ?

3. Are the seals allowed to re-populate those islands?

4. What is MCM policy with regard to seals re-populating Bird Island, St Croix, Seal Island, Dyer, Robben, Dassen, Vondeling, Malgas, Marcus ?

To date there has been no response to our repeated enquiries.

AN UNNATURAL ORDER

Few people are aware of just how our marine heritage has come to be destroyed through human greed and over fishing and how forced removals and displacements, closely following the social engineering lines of our Apartheid past, disturbed the natural order of our marine life, causing the starvation of seals and sea birds alike and creating enmity where none existed..

Seven hundred years ago there was an estimated 20 million seals living on less than 46 barren islands along our coastline, 80% of these islands are found off the Cape/South African coast and 20% in Namibia.

The largest of these islands was Robben Island, named after the seals that colonised it. Being the top predator, seals dominated these few islands, although from earliest historical accounts, they shared the islands with seabirds with whom they lived in harmony. This was as nature intended.

Over millions of years, seals had evolved to play a most vital role in the eco-food chain off this coast. Their task was to remove the sick and the weak from migratory fish species that would mature far to the north, and then migrate south to spawn, before making the long journey back. This migratory fish selectivity ensured that the species they preyed upon remained healthy.

The islands, which were well placed geographically, would provide bountiful prey of the right size for the growing pups. The seal population was kept in check by a variety of factors, affording the alpha bulls and mating cows the opportunity to control their own population size, limited by the size of each island. The result of this unique relationship between seals, the size of their population, their islands and their prey, was a sea teaming with fish of many species and thus one of the most productive fisheries in the world - a fact soon discovered by man who systematically set about raping the environment in an unsustainable manner.

He started with the biggest, easiest and most visible, the whales. When depleted and no longer commercially viable, he moved on to the seals, the seabirds, their eggs and then, with regard to the offshore islands, the guano (bird droppings) scrapping them clean. His commercial mind then turned towards the seas where, in turn, he pillaged the surface shoaling fish, the big game deep water fish, the line fish, then the bottom dwelling fish and then even the sea-plants, his greed escalating commensurate with his profits.

Apart from ever increasing human consumption, this food chain was turned into dried and processed ‘fishmeal’ to be used in pet foods and live stock farming, despite seafood never having formed part of these land based animals’ natural diet. In fact, it is said that over 70% of the industry is dedicated to making ‘fish meal’.

In the wake of this rampant pillaging an entire echo system was destroyed and entire species were left in tatters. And the resultant cost to the environment carried an even greater one – a fresh water bill, allegedly far in excess of R 150 000 per month for washing fish at just one fish plant, instead of using freely available salt water. This is obscene in a country that is urged to conserve water as it is estimated that South Africa will run out of fresh water in at most 10 years.

But we digress.

Extensive sealing over the past few centuries saw all these offshore seal colonies collapse. By 1900 seals were virtually extinct. No longer hunted, they attempted to rebuild their destroyed colonies and fulfil their vital role. But their historic breeding habitats, their islands, were now denied to them.

One of the first consequences of this man-made imbalance in the natural environment was an unnatural growth and over population in the numbers of seabirds, due to less competition for space and prey and so they took over these former seal islands which had now become exploited for seabirds, their eggs and lucrative guano, by the human greed machine. So desperate were seals to re-colonize their offshore islands once again, that government was forced to build walls on 11 of the largest to keep them off permanently. With few available islands now situated in their historical, migratory fishing grounds, seals had few options and so, unnaturally, took to breeding on 16 small awash rocks, not suitable for their pups. The price the seals paid was high - almost all their newborn would be washed away.

Overcrowding became an issue and so around 1940 the seals were forced to begin breeding on the mainland for the first time, thus forever altering the evolutionary path of this species. By 1950, their numbers had sufficiently recovered to facilitate renewed interest in them, not because of their profitability in harvesting, but because of the concern they might in future pose to the now lucrative fishing industry, already feeling the effects of over fishing in the 1960's.

Because of dwindling numbers, the Cape Fur Seal became a protected species and up to 1990 the South African government, which at that time controlled both South Africa and Namibia, was involved in the administration of commercial harvesting of these creatures, this ‘harvesting’ being driven by the need for the manufacture of Scottish sporrans, a traditional export business. There was no other market for their skins. But the genitals of these hapless creatures are sought after for use as an aphrodisiac in eastern countries, already suffering a burgeoning over population.

In 1990, following a public outcry about the cruel clubbing to death of seals by untrained labour, the S.A. government placed a moratorium on commercial sealing. But by that time, with the independence of Namibia , dwindling breeding grounds in South Africa had forced the Cape Fur Seal to colonize the Namibian mainland where the cruel commercial slaughter continued.

Bizarrely, seals are today only found on 1% of the offshore island land mass with an unnatural domination on 99% of the off-shore islands by seabirds, the weaker lower species in the food-chain.

However, even in this bizarre situation, with probably the biggest mass mortality of top predators the world has ever seen, there is still hope. This hope comes in the form of the highest law in the land, the Constitution, which states: "the harvest of a natural resource (fish) has to be done in a sustainable manner."

By introducing seals back to one single island, as suggested by Francois Hugo of S.A. Seal Alert, we can alter the evolutionary path of seals back to what nature intended – but then we would have to harvest in a sustainable manner.

(See: How Robben Island was robbed of its heritage.)