Hunting Method Law and the Problem-Animal List

#Five names, and everything else

Put five animals on a table: a chacma baboon, a vervet monkey, a black-backed jackal, a caracal and a bush pig. Next to them put a leopard, a brown hyena, a cheetah, an African wild dog and your neighbour's Labrador.

In Gauteng, on your own land, without a permit, you may take an animal from the left-hand group with a trap, a gin, a pitfall, a set gun or a dog. You may take nothing from the right-hand group by any of those means. Not the leopard that killed six ewes. Not the dog that killed twelve.

The left-hand group is Schedule 8 of the Nature Conservation Ordinance 12 of 1983, and it contains exactly those five entries and no others (Ordinance text). Section 56(1) says the Schedule 8 animals are problem animals and "are deemed to be vermin or other animals causing damage". Everything else on the farm is something else, legally, no matter what it did last night.

The last lesson dealt with owning game. This one deals with killing and catching it, and with the predators that come for your stock. They are governed by different sections, and holding a Game Theft Act certificate authorises no hunting method whatsoever.

#The method tree, section by section

The Gauteng Ordinance is the worked example here because its text is publicly available and complete. Every province has an equivalent ordinance with different section numbers and a different problem-animal schedule. Learn the shape; go and find yours.

The legal position

Nature Conservation Ordinance 12 of 1983 (Gauteng and the old Transvaal) — read verbatim, July 2026:

s17(1) — no hunting of ordinary game except: during a declared open season; by the landowner on own land in an open season; by a relative with the owner's prior written permission, carried while hunting, in an open season; by a licence-holder with the owner's written permission in an open season; by the owner or occupier at any time during the day while game is "damaging cultivated trees or cultivated crops"; or under a permit for a stated species, number and sex outside an open season. First offence: a fine up to R750 or 9 months.
s20 — no hunting of game at night without a permit. Section 1 defines night as "the period from half an hour after sunset on any day to half an hour before sunrise". First offence up to R1 500 or 18 months.
s21 — no hunting of game with an auto-reloading weapon, a rimfire cartridge of .22 or smaller, a shotgun or an air-gun, unless permitted. Two provisos: any person may hunt a hare or a bird with a shotgun; and the owner, or a relative with permission, may hunt game excluding specially protected game with any firearm on the owner's land.
s22 — on land where any wild animal occurs, no bringing or possessing a snare, trap, gin, net, bird-lime, trap-cage "or other device or means intended or suitable for the hunting or catching of a wild animal", and no constructing a pitfall or holding pen. Provisos cover the owner, a relative with permission, the occupier, a licensed trader on business premises, and anyone with prior written permission. s22(1A): none of those provisos apply on land where specially protected game occurs or is likely to occur.
s27 — no hunting or catching of a wild animal with a snare, trap, gin, net, bird-lime, pitfall, holding pen, trap-cage, bow and arrow, set gun, dog or aircraft without a permit. Three provisos: (i) the owner, a relative with permission, or the occupier may use a trap, trap-cage or set gun where the animal is "in the immediate vicinity of the carcass of stock which it has or apparently has killed", or where there is "a reasonable suspicion that it is about to cause damage to stock"; (ii) a dog may be used for lawful bird hunting or to pursue an animal wounded in lawful hunting; (iii) a problem animal may be hunted or caught with a trap, gin, pitfall, set gun or a dog. s27(1A): none of these provisos apply on land where specially protected game occurs or is likely to occur.
s31 — poisoning game requires a permit.
ss63–66 — the authority may authorise problem-animal research and problem-animal clubs. Under s66(1)(a) laying poison inside a club's hunting area without the club's consent is an offence, and under s66(1)(b) keeping, selling, conveying, breeding or setting free a live problem animal, or removing one from the province, without a permit is an offence.

The escalation to know by heart. Where the animal is specially protected game, s20(3), s27(3) and s31(3) each raise the exposure to a fine of up to R100 000 or 10 years' imprisonment, plus a fine of up to three times the commercial value of the animal. That is the difference between a bad afternoon and a ruinous one.

Two traps in that text deserve naming. Section 22 and section 27 are different permissions. Owning the device and using it are separately controlled — you can be lawful in setting a cage trap and unlawful in merely having it in the shed, or the reverse. And proviso (i)(aa) is about an animal at the carcass, not an animal in the district. "In the immediate vicinity of the carcass of stock which it has or apparently has killed" is a narrow, factual test about one animal in one place. It is not a licence to work the farm with traps because something is killing lambs somewhere.

Do this on the farm

Work every proposed control action through this order, using your own province's ordinance and schedule:

What species is it, and is it on your province's problem-animal schedule? In Gauteng that is five names. If it is not on the list — leopard, brown hyena, cheetah, wild dog, or somebody's domestic dog — stop here and go to step 6.
Is it night? In Gauteng, half an hour after sunset to half an hour before sunrise. If yes, a permit is required under s20.
What is the method? Trap, gin, net, cage, pitfall, set gun, bow or dog all need a permit under s27 unless one of the three provisos genuinely fits your facts.
Do you also have permission to possess the device? That is s22, with its own provisos and its own s22(1A) carve-out.
Does specially protected game occur, or is it likely to occur, on that land? If so, s22(1A) and s27(1A) switch every proviso off, and the penalty ceiling rises to R100 000 and 10 years plus triple commercial value.
Protected or TOPS-listed species? A damage-causing-animal permit from the provincial authority, applied for before you act.
Someone's domestic dog? Not a wild animal, not a problem animal. Phone the owner and the SAPS, and treat it as a civil claim.
Poison? No. See the next section.

#The national layer above the ordinance

The ordinance is not the whole answer. The governing national instrument for damage-causing animals is the Norms and Standards for the Management of Damage-Causing Animals in South Africa, Government Notice 512 in Government Gazette 40236, commenced 30 August 2016, made under NEMBA (National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act 10 of 2004). It is routinely and wrongly attributed to the TOPS regulations, including in earlier drafts of this course's own research.

Poison sits above all of this, and the ordinance is not even the hard part. A poison reaches a farm as an agricultural or stock remedy, and such a remedy may only be used in accordance with its registered label under the Fertilizers, Farm Feeds, Agricultural Remedies and Stock Remedies Act 36 of 1947. No registered South African product carries a label for baiting a predator. Using one off-label is therefore an offence under Act 36 of 1947 in addition to the ordinance permit question and in addition to cruelty exposure under the Animals Protection Act 71 of 1962 — and it is indiscriminate, so vultures, guardian dogs and the neighbour's dogs die alongside the target. The specific offence-creating section of Act 36 of 1947 could not be confirmed for this course, and whether any predacide is currently registered in South Africa is unknown. The course answer on poison is no, and the route is the state vet and the provincial authority.

#Where the law is genuinely unsettled

A course that pretends this area is tidy will get farmers prosecuted. Three honest gaps.

Contested — here is both sides

Are gin traps lawful in South Africa?

The case that they are effectively banned: leg-holding devices are widely condemned on welfare grounds, cause prolonged suffering and are non-selective; several international jurisdictions prohibit them; and use that causes unnecessary suffering is prosecutable under the Animals Protection Act 71 of 1962 whatever conservation permit you hold. Many South African farmers believe, and repeat, that they are illegal.

The case that they are not: no national prohibition could be located. The Gauteng Ordinance treats a gin as one of the controlled devices under ss22 and 27 — controlled with provisos, not prohibited — and s27(1)(iii) expressly permits taking a problem animal with a gin. GN 512 restricts the foothold trap to authorised use rather than banning it, and does not mention gin traps at all. And South Africa's own Predation Management Forum publishes technical guidance on responsible use, opening with the line that their use "is condemned from all quarters and with good reason" and then setting out rubber jaw covers and adjustable tread plates (PMF). An industry body does not publish operating guidance for a device that is nationally illegal.

What this course can honestly say: legality is provincial, layered under GN 512, and backstopped by the Animals Protection Act regardless of any permit. Whether any province has since prohibited gin traps outright, what trap type is required, and what check interval avoids a cruelty charge could not be confirmed. The failure mode runs in both directions — farmers who believe traps are banned use snares instead, which is worse, and farmers who believe they are unrestricted set them and leave them. Confirm with your provincial conservation authority and the NSPCA before you set anything.

The second gap is the TOPS regime. The revised TOPS Regulations and Species List published in GG 47984 of 3 February 2023, effective 1 April 2023, were withdrawn by GN 3238 in GG 48349 of 31 March 2023 — together with the elephant norms and standards, the leopard trophy-hunting norms and standards and a fourth notice — after an urgent court application by Wildlife Ranching South Africa and PHASA was settled out of court (report). Replacement regulations were still in parliamentary process in late 2025. Which list is in force today could not be established. That matters most for exactly the species where the ordinance gives you nothing: leopard, cheetah, brown hyena and wild dog.

The third gap is procedural. Damage-causing-animal permit pathways are not documented consistently across provinces — the forms, the fees, the turnaround times and even the issuing office vary and are frequently not published anywhere. Start that conversation before you have a dead ewe rather than after.

#Working a real night

Put the tree to work. It is 21:40 on a Thursday in March on a Midvaal smallholding. You find a ewe carcass in the home camp, still warm, and a black-backed jackal standing over it.

Jackal is on Gauteng's Schedule 8, so it is a problem animal and s27 proviso (iii) is available. Sunset was hours ago, so you are well inside the ordinance's definition of night and s20's permit requirement is live for anything it covers. If you set a trap or a trap-cage, proviso (i)(aa) fits your facts squarely — the animal is in the immediate vicinity of the carcass of stock it has apparently killed — and proviso (iii) fits independently because it is a problem animal. Possessing that trap on the land is s22, and the owner proviso covers you. Then the last question: does specially protected game occur, or is it likely to occur, on this land? If it does, s22(1A) and s27(1A) switch every one of those provisos off and you have walked into a R100 000 exposure.

Now change one fact. Make it a leopard. Every step collapses: leopard is not on Schedule 8, the s27 provisos give you nothing, and the lawful route is a damage-causing-animal permit applied for before you act — under a TOPS regime whose current text nobody in this course can confirm. Change it again to the neighbour's dog: not a wild animal, not a problem animal, but somebody's property, raising Animals Protection Act and civil-liability questions that a jackal does not.

Same carcass, same night, same farm, three completely different bodies of law.

#What to do on Monday

Find your own province's ordinance and print two things: the problem-animal schedule, and the section that governs traps and dogs. Pin them in the shed next to the trap. Then, before you buy a cage trap or lend a dog, ask the provincial conservation authority in writing which methods on the GN 512 restricted list they will authorise for your species and your farm, and keep the answer with a date on it. The permission takes weeks; the dead ewe takes one night.

#Check yourself

3 questions — answers explained as you go

1A caracal is taking lambs on your Gauteng farm and you want to set a cage trap for it on your own land. Which statement is correct?
Why: Two layers have to line up, and farmers routinely stop at the first. The ordinance decides whether the method is permitted on that land, and caracal's Schedule 8 listing — not its behaviour — is what makes proviso (iii) available at all; s27(1A) still switches it off where specially protected game occurs or is likely to occur. The national norms then decide whether that specific method needs authorisation, and a cage trap is expressly on GN 512's restricted list, preceded by a severity assessment and an inspection report. The Game Theft Act does neither job: it creates ownership and theft offences and authorises no hunting method whatsoever.
2Under the Gauteng Ordinance, when does "night" begin for the purposes of the s20 hunting prohibition?
Why: Section 1 defines it precisely as the period from half an hour after sunset to half an hour before sunrise. It is a clock definition, not a judgement call about visibility, which is exactly why the last half-hour of usable shooting light is where farmers most often step over the line without meaning to.
3Which of these methods may you use against a damage-causing animal without prior authorisation under GN 512 of 2016?
Why: GN 512 in GG 40236, commenced 30 August 2016 under NEMBA 10 of 2004, draws the line between deterrence and population control. Deterrents are permit-free. Cage traps, poison collars, darting, call-and-shoot, foothold traps, hounds, poison-firing apparatus and denning are all restricted and require authorisation, preceded by a severity assessment and an inspection report. Daily checking and landownership are good practice and irrelevant to whether authorisation is needed.