The human-wildlife conflict has reached an all-time high in Sepako, a village 50km north-east of Nata village and nestled along the Zimbabwean borderline.
In the last 11 days, two farmers have lost 10 cattle to a pride of lions that has sent panic in the well knit cluster of smallholders.
When The Voice team left for Sepako last Friday morning to meet an anguished farmer, Galetshajwe Ranko, 39, who lost five cows on October 12th, another distress call came through at 0630hrs, announcing another attack early that morning after 81-year-old Kamogelo Nkaelang lost four calves and one pregnant heifer to the notorious lion pride at Mmadinoga cattlepost, just three kilometers from the village.
In an interview with Ranko, who was left with rotting hides as proof of the damage caused by the lions, the cattle owner said he realised that some of his cattle were missing on Tuesday morning.
“I went out to look for them and found five lying dead, not far from each other. It was clear that they had been killed by lions, as the spoors were still visible,” he said.
Ranko said he counted about seven different spoors and was convinced that there was a pride of seven lions patrolling the Mmadinoga Cattle post grazing area.
He said his frustration as a farmer was that the burden of proving that indeed one’s livestock was killed by lions rests solely with the farmer.
“When we report to the Wildlife Department when the lion tracks are still visible they don’t turn up, usually their excuse is that they don’t have transport. So what we usually do is present the hides as evidence, but even that is sometimes not sufficient enough. Officers would usually conclude that our cattle were killed by hyenas which means we do not receive any compensation,” he said.
“The compensation itself is not enough to replace the dead cows. We receive P3000 for an adult cow and P1000 for a calf. It’s a total rip-off,” cried Ranko.
The young farmer told The Voice that the human-wildlife conflict in the village has been ongoing for many years which has impoverished a lot of farmers.
“Losing five cows in a day is too much for a small scale farmer, and this has been going on for many years. We’ve been abiding by the law without killing these lions, but at this rate we have to find a way of protecting our livestock,” he said.
For Nkaelang, the loss was still a fresh memory. The five bloated carcasses not far from each other were yet to be skinned to salvage whatever was left behind by the lions.
The old man said he was alerted by one of his neighbours at around 7am.
“He was the first one to see the dead cows and called me, and by the look of things, the attack occurred at around 4am, and as you can see, they were killed not far from the kraal,” Nkaelang said somberly.
According to Nkaelang, the lions are attracted to the cattle-post by a quarry which has now become a drinking hole for both livestock and wild animals.
“This is a serious loss, and there’s no guarantee that I’ll be compensated because Wildlife Officers here always blame hyenas, but as you know government does not compensate for any damage caused by a hyena,” he said.
Regional Wildlife Officer Phemelo Gadimang confirmed the lion problem in an interview with The Voice on Wednesday.
“The area is close to the Zimbabwean border and the CT5 where animals are allowed to roam freely, so such occurrences do happen, and animals do stray into the village” he said.
Gadimang said he would not want to make any excuses for his officers, but admitted that there was a challenge of shortage of transport which is being addressed.
“It is true that any affliction caused by hyena carries no compensation, but a lion kill can never be mistaken for a hyena kill. Our officers have to be thorough as we also have farmers who would want to claim compensation even when they lost animals to hyenas,” said Gadimang.