The University of the Free State has signed service agreements with all four industries represented on the Predation Management Forum (PMF) to establish and manage a Predation Management Information Centre (PMIC). The wool, mohair, red meat and wildlife industries have pooled their resources to create a space for collating and analysing reliable information on predation and predation management methods, which will be made available continuously to a management information system (MIS). This system, a national asset, will make information readily available to all users.
This information centre will be managed daily by dedicated staff, who will receive and manage calls and e-mails. Calls and enquiries will be logged and advice will be offered by the call centre and / or PMF specialists.
The centre will further be responsible for information resource management and provide the contact details of regulatory authorities and specialists managing damage causing animals; it will also source all relevant policies of the national and provincial authorities. Scientific publications, reports, popular articles, best practices and PMF position statements will be sourced and archived. The training manuals of hunters, specialist hunters and livestock farmers and wildlife ranchers will be sourced and archived.
Another function of the centre will entail research and data collection, by means of which predation and predation management statistics, biometrics and new research topics will be identified.
We urge farmers, wildlife ranchers, civil society, the retail sector, regulatory authorities and any other stakeholder affected by predation, to contact the PMIC at 051 401 2210 on week days from 08:00 – 16:00 or use the e-mail PredationMC@ufs.ac.za