Anecdotes about wild animals seemingly getting drunk after eating rotting fruit are widespread.

Every year in November about 10 million straw-coloured fruit bats gather in Kasanka National Park in Zambia to feast on fruit delicacies such as musuku, mufinsa and mangos.

South African farmers illegally breed tigers and other big cats for sale into the luxury goods and traditional medicine markets. 

While the UK government has been considering a ban on imports of hunting trophies, the South African government recently approved an annual maximum quota of ten legal trophy hunts of endangered black rhinos for 2022.

On the same day that South Africa hosted its fourth Investment Conference in Sandton, a new instrument was offered to investors – a Wildlife Conservation Bond (WCB), or Rhino Bond.

In 2016, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) shifted the conservation status of giraffes from species of “least concern” to “vulnerable”. It seems that in all of six years, the gentle giants had gone from a state of low or no concern to being just four steps away from a complete wipeout.