DEPREDATIONS BY JACKALS

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28155, 19 December 1956, Page 7

DEPREDATIONS BY JACKALS

300,000 Sheep Killed In Cape Province (From a Reuter Correspondent) JOHANNESBURG. South Africa is losing 300.000 sheep a year, valued at more than £1,000,000, mainly through the depredations of jackals. The menace is so serious in the Cape that a commission has been examining the problem. It has just ended its investigations. It took a great deal of evidence on whether the bounty system for killing vermin should be abolished, and if so, whether there was a suitable alternative. The bounty system has operated in the Cape for nearly 40 years. The Transvaal used to have a bounty system, but it was abolished some years ago as ineffective. In the Transvaal an extension of the hunting pack system is being pursued. The Cape may follow that lead. Farmers told the commission that instead of the bounty system they would like State aid for the training of the right type of dog and for qualified hunters. In the Transvaal, at Panfontein, near Bloemhof, qualified huntsmen are training new jackal hounds with crosses from English, Welsh and Fell foxhounds, but the hounds are only available to Transvaal packs. While the jackal is the chief menace in the Transvaal and the Free State, the baboon, leopard and lynx are listed with the jackal as the worst type of vermin in the Cape. Altogether in the Cape, 16 animals and birds are listed as vermin, but farmers say that the list could be reduced to four. Natal is also worried by its vermin problem. It was stated at a meeting of the Natal and Griqualand Woolgrowers’ Association a few weeks ago that the sheep industry would be ruined unless the jackal menace was halted.