Poachers and Poaching

Recently 2 stories made news headlines in Cape Town, in the 1^st story a pleasure boat the “Maroshga” capsized off  Hout-Bay and 2 people ( a passenger and a crew member) lost the lives, in another incident in Hawston outside of Hermanus poachers attacked a police station in protest of what they call “abuse of power” by the police, 7 police vehicles were damaged or destroyed  and 2 people including a 13 year old boy were injured .In the Hout-Bay incident poachers were busy diving for abalone when the Maroshga got into trouble, quick thinking and assistance by the poachers led to only 2 lives being lost at sea.

Most of the poachers on the ground live in poor communities with a high unemployment rate and see stealing from the sea as their only means of an income since their parents or grandparents are or were fisherman who have lost their jobs as fishing companies were unable to secure fishing permits which would have allowed them to fish from the sea and earn a living.  Speak to poachers and they will tell you that they are doing this so that they can put food on the table and feed their families.

This is partially true as these poachers 'syndicates sell the abalone to the highest bidder for huge amounts, normally Chinese syndicates who smuggle the abalone out of the country for the Asian market.  From the money poachers earn they would buy better equipment (ski boats, scuba gear, air tanks etc), pay staff and finance their lavish lifestyles, flashy cars, clothing, alcohol and the smoking of drugs, rowdy behaviour is not uncommon and little or no respect is shown to the neighbours, in most cases only a small percentage of the money poachers earn filters down to their families.

Smuggling syndicates would contact the poachers with an order for abalone or poachers would alternatively contact the syndicates with an offer of abalone. Poachers would go out either under the cover of darkness or in broad daylight.  Poaching crews normally consist of a boat skipper, diving crew, and mules (to carry the abalone) and the ring leaders of the whole operation. If the poachers have a rowboat hidden away near where they will be poaching they would employ an oarsman to row the boat out to where the divers are busy poaching. What would normally happen is that not the entire crew would go out if poaching takes place during the day, normally it would only be the boat skipper and diving crew on the speedboat without any diving or poaching equipment with them, just normal fishing gear. The rest of the team would either drive or walk over the mountain to a designate area. 

After catching the abalone the speedboat would drop the illegal catch and diving equipment off from where the catch is then either carried or driven back to the home base. From here buyers are contacted and the abalone would be delivered as far afield as Joburg (Johannesburg). South Africa has protected marine reserve areas where no fishing or diving is allowed, because of a lack of man power to patrol and protect these areas it is open to abuse, it these areas that poachers target and poaching takes place. There are designated areas where anti poaching units are based to monitor the sea. These units would go out to sea and patrol the areas or watch from the beach and monitor the movement of poachers as they engage in their illegal activities.  If poachers see the anti poaching unit approach they would dump their catch overboard and try and make their escape, as the poachers will have nothing on them they can’t be charged with poaching, they can however be charged with trespassing in a nature reserve and the skipper could be charged with skippering a boat without a skippers license.  

In undercover operations at night the anti poaching unit together with the police will have sting operations whereby the anti poaching unit will go out at night and creep up on unsuspecting poachers under the cover of darkness and make arrest before the poachers had a change to dump their catch back in the sea and the divers are still in the water, in some cases police divers will be in the water already and intercept any bags of abalone the poachers tries to dump.  

If poachers happen to make to land the police will have roadblocks in place to stop the poachers from getting away.  Often a anti poaching unit will arrive at a lookout area among the dunes and see poachers racing away from them,  a high speed chase will ensue which may result in poachers being captured, this however is not often the case as poachers tends to fire at any of their pursuers.

 Poachers are well known in the area they live in because of their illegal activities and as long as the communities they live in protect them from the police the battle against poaching will be loss and poachers would continue poaching under the guise of putting food on their family’s dinner table