Durban — A 37-year-old man was to appear again in court in January charged under the Northern Cape Nature Conservation Act 9/2009 Section 4, for possessing endangered wild animals without a permit.
Duston Gregory Henrico from Gauteng appeared in the in Pofadder Magistrates Court on Wednesday where he was granted R5 000 bail.
This was according to police spokesperson Colonel Cherelle Ehlers who explained that Henrico was arrested on Tuesday following a joint operation involving the Springbok Stock Theft and Endangered Species Unit and Springbok K9 Unit.
“The team followed up on information received and searched a premises and a vehicle where they discovered 16 containers with 23 reptiles. A vehicle, camera, laptop, and cellphone were also confiscated.”
The Namakwa District Commissioner, Brigadier Schalk Andrews commended the members for their unabated efforts to eradicate poaching in the Namakwa District.
While police did not name the species that were recovered they did share four pictures - that of four snakes and some type of small lizard.
Ushaka Marine World’s Dangerous Creatures weighed in on these pictures identifying the species as house snakes, a tiger snake, and a giant ground gecko.
“House snakes are common, it is just that in KwaZulu-Natal there are different laws when it comes to them. Here in KZN you can catch a house snake and keep it whereas in all the other provinces you need a permit to have any indigenous reptile, especially in the Northern Cape, they are very strict when it comes to any form of poaching,” explained lead herpetologist Carl Schloms.
He said horned adders and mini-horned adders and coral snakes are the most sought-after and poached snakes in the Northern Cape.
“The ground gecko is fairly common and the tiger snake is also not that rare. There are two types of tiger snakes the eastern tiger snake found in Durban going north and then a Beetz’s tiger snake in the picture. What's disappointing is that these snakes don’t do well in captivity so I don’t know why this man would have them in captivity especially the ones in the Northern Cape.”
Schloms said house snakes don’t really have any value in the black market but are rather just collected.
“People who do breed house snakes such as the Tanzanian house snake get them from about R200 to R300 when they are still babies, geckos also don’t have a value but you would need a permit to have these in the Northern Cape. From the pictures, it appears that this guy is a collector.”
Schloms said all the other provinces expect KZN to have stricter laws particularly the Northern Cape because of the species of animals that occur there.
“They have quite a number of sought-after species when it comes to lizards and geckos and snakes sought after by collectors so it's a good thing that they have stricter laws. It's wrong to capture these animals to keep them in captivity. I understand that sooner than later everything is coming under one umbrella where KZN will also get the same laws applicable.”
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