A game farmer has been fined R240,000 after pleading guilty to four charges relating to illegal hunting, possession and translocation of game.

Ryan Wall, 48, from Durbanville, Cape Town, was sentenced in the Malmesbury regional court on Wednesday. A further fine of R930,000 was suspended for five years.

CapeNature said the charges related to illegal activities in 2015 and 2016 on Wall's game farm in Doornfontein, near Darling.

"In 2015, Wall was caught hunting two trophy eland bulls outside the hunting season and without permits. He was also in possession of 40 blue wildebeest which he had acquired illegally," CapeNature said after the sentencing.

"Two of the charges for which Wall was convicted related to the purchase, translocation and subsequent release of fallow deer, a nationally declared invasive species, in 2016.

"The trade and translocation of fallow deer is prohibited in the Western Cape, where it poses a risk to the province’s unique biodiversity and food security."

CapeNature said the successful prosecution was the result of close co-operation between it, the police stock theft unit and the NPA.

CEO Razeena Omar said: “Offences involving the illegal possession, hunting, transport and trade in protected wild animals for personal financial gain and trading in and spreading alien invasive species in the Western Cape are viewed in a serious light.

"Invasive species cost SA's economy billions of rand a year. More than R1bn of taxpayers’ money is spent each year trying to manage the problem.”

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