Global News - May 2008
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Poaching gangs 'are recruiting the unemployed in South Africa'
Wed 21 May 2008 14:00 UK — Africa,Marine Wildlife
Gangs involved in illegal poaching of abalone in South Africa are recruiting unemployed people from the country's township, a report has warned.
The local Cape Argus newspaper reported that officials are becoming increasingly concerned that gangs are using underprivileged people from the area to carry out their illegal activities.
Justin Buchmann, a ranger in the southern section of the Table Mountain National Park, explained to the paper: "We noticed the syndicates are going into areas which have many unemployed people and selecting those who can swim and giving them kits to poach for them.
"Before, it was mostly regular divers who were poaching, now it's not."
Last month, officers in Cape Town arrested men from the area's townships who had been recruited by a gang to gather 541 abalone.
Mr Buchmann said that authorities had noticed a spike in poaching that they were now working hard to stamp out.
"In an attempt to combat that, we have staff out 24 hours a day," he told the paper.
Recently, the government in South Africa warned that poachers have been increasingly targeting the country's most famous wildlife area, Kruger National Park.
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