Livestock Losses Drive South Africa's New Wildlife Management Rules

R3-billion in annual livestock losses sits at the heart of South Africa’s latest attempt to regulate how farmers and authorities deal with wild animals that kill stock, damage crops or threaten people. The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment published Draft Guidelines for the Management of Damage-Causing Animals on 2 July, with public submissions closing on 2 August. The document sets out procedures for trapping, poisoning, pursuing with dogs, relocating or killing wild animals. Its central structural problem is visible in the title: these are guidelines, not law.

The legal distinction matters enormously. Under the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act (Nemba), norms and standards create enforceable national requirements. Guidelines cannot be enforced directly. They may shape how permit officials think, and they can become binding only if written into individual permit conditions. That gap produces a patchwork of compliance across provinces, where one authority might require a cage trap to be shaded and checked every 24 hours while another issues a permit with no such conditions attached.

Additional reference context is available at https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-07-28-the-problem-with-south-africas-problem-animal-guidelines/.

Wildlife legislation expert Professor Rob Slotow puts the contradiction bluntly: “A minimum standard is a standard. The document is written as minimum standard guidelines. So it doesn’t make sense.” He is equally direct about the consequence: “If it’s not stipulated in the permit, it’s not a condition and it’s not a requirement. These guidelines have no teeth.”

The economic driver behind the proposals is not hidden. The department’s own background document cites formal livestock losses to black-backed jackal and caracal predation exceeding R3-billion annually. The guidelines focus heavily on protecting sheep, goats and other small stock, alongside crop damage from baboons and porcupines. The document acknowledges long-running problems: inconsistent provincial policies, weak monitoring, limited research and uncertainty about whether predator control actually reduces losses or inadvertently increases them.

Slotow accepts that the guidelines serve a useful, if narrower, function than their broad title implies. Their real centre of gravity is commercial farming. “They’re good in the sense that they put in place a mechanism for people to understand what they need to do to apply for a permit. They also give provincial authorities a more standardised way to assess applications,” he said. Landowners are encouraged to prove damage occurred, identify the responsible animal and demonstrate what preventive measures were attempted. Non-lethal options listed include kraals, fencing, protective collars, shepherding, guard animals, lights, alarms, GPS tracking and camera traps.

For more severe interventions, the guidelines prescribe specific safeguards. Cage traps must be shaded, designed to prevent injury and inspected at least daily. Leghold traps are described as a last resort, requiring offset or padded jaws. Dogs may track or flush animals but may not kill them. Poison collars and poison-ejecting devices carry placement, warning and disposal requirements. Slotow accepts these provisions could reduce indiscriminate killing. His objection is that the harshest interventions are precisely those that require binding standards, not voluntary guidance. “If you’re putting a leghold trap out and you haven’t complied with all of these points, you are going to cause intentional suffering to an animal. That’s a standard,” he said.

A second weakness is the complete absence of the words “well-being” and “welfare.” Nemba now includes animal well-being among its requirements. The draft instead speaks of reducing indiscriminate killing and suffering, which Slotow describes as reactive. A well-being approach would ask first how conflict can be prevented and whether adverse effects can be avoided altogether. The document places a duty on landowners to take reasonable preventive measures but gives them little practical guidance about what prevention should look like across different landscapes.

Meanwhile, the gap is particularly acute for rural communities bordering protected areas. Commercial landowners have a long history of applying for permits or calling on government for help. Rural communities affected by elephants, lions and other animals escaping from reserves are often less able to influence the process and generally cannot deal with the animals themselves. The government’s background note mentions a separate Global Environment Facility project on broader human-wildlife conflict, which may explain why the department opted for an interim document while further research continues.

The draft revives a process stalled for years. National norms and standards were published in draft form in 2010 and again in 2016 but never finalised. The new document largely retains that earlier structure while changing its legal label from norms and standards to guidelines. The department presents this as an interim measure but has not explained what it is interim to. Slotow argues that an interim system should contain a clear process for learning: incidents and permit decisions monitored consistently, results collated nationally, guidelines revised in light of experience. The draft includes reporting provisions and a detailed incident form but no clear pathway from interim guidance to final law.

There is also an awkward species gap. The background is dominated by livestock predators, yet the guidelines are broad enough to apply to elephants and lions. Damage-causing elephants are already addressed under existing national elephant norms and standards, which the draft does not list among the relevant laws.

Slotow’s verdict is not that the guidelines are worthless. They could improve permit applications, encourage evidence-based decisions and reduce some of the worst practices. But the harder question remains unanswered: what is this document intended to become? Without a stated endpoint, South Africa risks formalising an old draft as permanent temporary guidance while postponing the task of creating enforceable, preventive and well-being-centred law.