Poaching in the Drakensberg

At first, I thought this thread was a misunderstanding of the recent helicopter crash with the Witness having chosen a particularly dubious headline for the story about egg hunters (a part of the scientific effort to harvest eggs from the bearded vulture nests since parents lay 2 eggs, but only raise one chick, and so the eggs would be hand cultivated and reared to be released back to the wild), but having read the article fully, I am shocked.

Thanks for sharing this with us Richard, I will make it my personal goal to follow up with all involved, including the Park Manager to find out whether there are ways to counter this scourge in Vergelegen. Many years back when I was last in Vergelegen with Intrepid, we noted the large number of Eland in the area, but also a growing number of drug paths from Lesotho. It would be useful to conduct a follow up to compare the population numbers, and the images of the paths we took then with now (forgive my scientific mind rambling).

It may be useful to consider shifting some of our anti-poaching units from other areas in the Berg to this hotspot.

Again, thanks for bringing this to light. I will follow up.