Poachers indiscriminately poisoning wildlife
Nomazulu Moyo
Kruger National Park- In the shadowed wilds of Kruger National Park, a grim discovery casts a pall over the savannah: 86 vultures, lifeless, the victims of a sinister poisoning. Joe Nkuna, a seasoned Section Ranger at Mooiplaas Section of the Park reaches, stands amidst the carnage, his heart heavy with sorrow.
“The vultures, they are the sentinels of our skies,” Joe muses, his voice a mere whisper against the rustling leaves. “To see them fall like this… it’s a shock that pierces the soul.” His gaze lingers on the buffalo carcass, once a majestic beast, now the inadvertent harbinger of death.
As the vulture numbers dwindle across South Africa and the SADC region, a troubling pattern emerges: the poisoning of animals within the park’s boundaries is on the rise. The buffalo, its flesh tainted with lethal toxins, became an unwitting feast for the vultures. A hyena, too, met its end, ensnared not far from the buffalo’s final resting place.
Mystery shrouds the aftermath—whether some of the vultures were harvested for medicinal purposes remains unknown, an enigma lost to the wild.
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Joe Nkuna, with nearly three decades of guardianship over these lands, has borne witness to nature’s cycles of life and death. Yet, nothing could have prepared him for this tragedy. “In all my years, never have I seen such a thing,” he confesses, the weight of the scene etched into the lines of his face. “It leaves a mark on you, changes you.”
As March’s end draws near, so too does Joe’s tenure as a protector of Kruger. He will depart, but not as the man he once was. This event has changed him, leaving an indelible fracture in his spirit. “I will carry this with me,” he says, his eyes reflecting the pain of loss, “as I step away from these lands that I have called home.”
