WINDHOEK – The Ministry of Environment and Tourism (MET) has culled about 100 springbok to be distributed among some of the 900 000 Namibians affected by drought. The exercise was delayed for the past three weeks due to unspecified technicalities.

Three weeks ago, the Minister of Environment and Tourism, Uahekua Herunga, disclosed his ministry was ready to “supervise” the exercise and said the delays were experienced between the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) and Meatco Namibia.

The Deputy Director of Parks and Wildlife Management in the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, Colgar Sikopo, yesterday said the delays have been resolved and the ministry started with the game-culling exercise already last week.

Sikopo confirmed that culling has already been completed in the Naute Park in the south where 100 springbok have been culled for drought relief.

“The team has now moved to Etosha at Karoo game reserve and once we are done we will move to Hobatere game reserve in the Kunene and then complete the exercise with Hardap game park,” Sikopo explained.

About 150 springbok will be shot in the Hardap National Park and  another 100 will be culled in the //Karas Region’s Naute National Park. In the Kunene Region another 100 springbok will be culled to assist drought victims.

Since the Etosha National Park has bigger game, the ministry will cull about 25 zebra around the Karoo game reserve, while 25 will be culled in Hobatere game reserve in the Kunene.

All the wild animals to be culled in the south will be springbok because parks in the south only cater for smaller game. While bigger game such as eland, zebra and oryx will be culled from the parks in the north.

The meat will be processed at Meatco factories and the company will also be in charge of handing the canned meat over to the Office of the Prime Minister for drought relief.

The culling of wild animals in the country’s national parks forms part of the drought relief initiative for communities severely affected by drought. The culling of game follows President Hifikepunye Pohamba’s directive to the ministry earlier this year to avail wildlife to provide meat to people qualifying for drought relief.
Meatco Manager for Communications and Marketing, Mario Poolman, said Meatco and the Abattoir Association of Namibia would process game for drought relief. He said the Meatco Oshakati abattoir would slaughter a variety of 150 game from Etosha.

“The animals will be hunted in the park and the carcasses will be brought to Meatco’s Oshakati abattoir. At the abattoir the carcasses will be sawed up into smaller pieces and packed into boxes for the government. The whole process from hunting to packing will happen under the Directorate of Veterinary Services’ (DVS) supervision. Please note we are not doing any canning for these products. The carcasses will only be processed into smaller cuts, but no canning,” he noted.

The abattoirs in the region (and members of the Abattoir Association of Namibia) are Brukarros and Mariental Abattoir, which will further process the carcasses into smaller cuts and package the products. This will also happen under DVS supervision.

The Oshakati abattoir has the capacity to slaughter and debone 160 cattle carcasses every two days. In addition, Poolman said, the game carcass processing requested by government needs only a part of the Oshakati factory’s processing capabilities and cold storage.

“This takes a lot less time than slaughtering the animals and deboning them before packaging. Including the fact that current volumes at the Oshakati factory are currently very low, the impact will be minimal on our slaughter capacity at the Oshakati factory,” he explained. Culling will at this stage only take place in four game parks.

By Albertina Nakale
The Ministry of Fisheries has also been directed to provide dried and canned fish to the affected communities. Pohamba declared the drought a national emergency after an initial assessment found 331 000 people were affected but this figure has since ballooned to over 900 000. To date government has distributed over 50 000 metric tons of maize to the needy.