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Madikwe crisis — NSPCA and DA accuse North West Parks of trying to raise revenue on elephant misery
A slow-burning tragedy is unfolding at Madikwe Game Reserve in North West and the grind of counter-accusations has the look of a fight between enraged rhinos. Meanwhile, elephants are being lined up to be shot.
The NSPCA has criticised North West Parks and Tourism Board (NWPTB) for repackaging Madikwe elephants as an income stream and parliamentary environment portfolio committee member Andrew de Blocq says recent tender bids for hunts in provincial reserves are cause for suspicion.
He accused the NWPTB of 'blatant disregard' for Parliament's explicit directives, adding: 'This is not an administrative oversight, but a deliberate act of defiance against the authority of the committee and Parliament itself.'
He described the board's refusal to use non-lethal methods such as contraception at Madikwe as inexplicable, and the inclusion of the NSPCA in planning as 'not a matter of convenience; it is a legal and moral necessity'.
De Blocq questioned why the board was so resistant to independent oversight, noting its promotion of culling and trophy hunting as primary solutions and raising concerns that vested hunting interests might be taking precedence over humane, science-based management. He pointed to the appearance of economic development, environment, conservation and tourism MEC Bitsa Lenkopane's appearance in her official capacity at the Dallas Safari Club Convention and subsequent tender bids for hunts in provincial reserves as concerning.
The DA has asked the portfolio committee chair to urgently intervene, potentially by summoning the NWPTB before Parliament again to account for their disregard of the parliamentary committee directives, to ensure humane, accountable management and to prevent similar disasters in other reserves.
Here's the backstory:
The first warning flag went up in December 2024 when, following a complaint, the NSPCA's Wildlife Protection Unit conducted an inspection of the park and was horrified by what it saw. It said that while Madikwe was 'flaunting themselves as the fifth-largest game reserve in South Africa and 'one of the best conservation areas in Africa', the scores of elephants and other wildlife experiencing long, suffering deaths tell another story'.
Inspectors came across an elephant calf so weakened that it was unable to move away from humans and was euthanised. On a second visit two additional elephants in dire condition had to be put down. A flight over the reserve revealed more dead animals, including a giraffe.
In June 2025, Our Burning Planet reported on a scathing parliamentary session in which members of the Portfolio Committee on Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment accused North West officials of gross mismanagement and evasion of responsibility for the ongoing elephant crisis in the Madikwe Game Reserve.
The committee was told that Madikwe had more than 1,600 elephants – more than triple the reserve's original carrying capacity of 500, and more than six times the 250-elephant maximum suggested by early management plans. At least 70 elephants had by then died of starvation, with many more in advanced stages of malnutrition. Up to 1,000 might have to be culled.
NWPTB acting CEO Jonathan Denga confirmed that the province had known about the issue for years but offered no justification for the failure to act. 'Yes, the elephant population is a serious problem,' he said. 'But many of the management options have been exhausted. We are trying to bring balance.'
Conservation writer Adam Cruise slammed North West Parks for claiming the need to cull, noting that it regularly sells hunting packages in its provincial nature reserves and had issued a tender for hunting in Madikwe as well.
He pointed out that in January this year, a delegation from North West, led by Lenkopane, attended the annual Dallas Safari Club Convention in Atlanta, Georgia. Lenkopane took part in discussions with counterparts from Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Namibia 'addressing shared challenges such as the management of burgeoning elephant populations in the region'.
Was North West Parks using its own mismanagement and the drought to call in foreign hunters to add to the province's piggy bank?
A few weeks later, North West Parks shot back. An article by Denga and chairperson Khorommbi Matibe said the elephant density in Madikwe of 2.7 per square kilometre could arguably be the densest in southern Africa.
'A closed, fenced-in reserve with a current indeterminate growth rate of a habitat modifier like an elephant, that has no predators, with access to permanent water and food, will lead to overpopulation.' In this situation there were only two options: contraception or culling. 'Lethal reduction can take the form of hunting and culling, whose revenues can be easily ploughed back into the reserve.'
The NSPCA responded to Denga and Matibe, saying it condemned the framing and normalisation of lethal reduction as both a viable strategy and economic opportunity, warning that culling or hunting intelligent, social animals like elephants should never be repackaged as a source of income. It argued that the overpopulation was a man-made crisis, the result of years of poor planning, no contraception programmes and a lack of long-term foresight.
Alternatives to lethal control, such as immunocontraception and translocation, remained not only possible but preferable, the NSPCA said, adding that photographic tourism and community benefit could coexist without killing. It accused the NWPTB and the provincial environment department of deliberately excluding it from decision-making despite a parliamentary portfolio committee instruction to include the NSPCA in the provincial task team and share all relevant documentation.
The organisation warned that such exclusion might necessitate legal action and called for independent ecological assessments, transparent management plans and welfare audits before any irreversible action was taken.
The NSPCA noted 'lethal reduction, whether in the form of culling or so-called trophy hunting, cannot be repackaged as an income stream to plug holes in long-neglected management systems. The commodification of wildlife under the guise of 'sustainable utilisation' erodes not only the ethical foundation of conservation, but also South Africa's international reputation as a country committed to humane and responsible environmental stewardship.'
The impact of elephants was the central theme of a national indaba at the Bonamanzi Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal on 12 and 13 August and Madikwe was a key debating issue though no conclusions were arrived at.
Probably stung by the escalating controversy surrounding North West Parks' management of Madikwe and also Pilanesberg Nature Reserve, it has planned a public consultation session on 26 August to 'construct a framework of the dynamics of elephant populations' in the two reserves and define the role of elephants. This would provide 'the opportunity for new and fresh views'.
The escalating crisis at Madikwe has become a litmus test for how South Africa balances ecological management, animal welfare and political accountability. With the NSPCA condemning lethal control as a shortcut born of mismanagement and the DA demanding urgent parliamentary intervention over the NWPTB's defiance of oversight directives, pressure is mounting on provincial authorities to abandon opaque, profit-driven agendas in favour of transparent, humane and science-based solutions.
Whether that shift happens will determine not only the fate of Madikwe's elephants but also the credibility of conservation governance across the country. DM
