Mention the word quelea to Free State farmers and fear flickers in their eyes. Just one of these tiny endemic birds can eat four grams of smallgrain in a day. Moving in flocks of between 100 000 and several million, they can destroy crops like wheat and sorghum in a matter of hours.

The agricultural department has set strict guidelines in a national quelea control policy, which establishes methods of quelea extermination - either by approved poison-spraying, or blowing up the birds with dynamite and fuel - and a series of procedures that aim to prevent damage to the surrounding environment and "non-target species".

In view of the policy guidelines, however, the death of 140 kites deserves an explanation. The incident occurred on August 29 on the farm De Spruit in Marseilles, owned by Jan Verster. He had reported the presenc eof queleas on his farm to the department, which sent Zeelie to supervise the quelea extermination, which was to take the form of an explosion using fuel and dynamite.

Verster's neighbour, Jan Oberholzer, was telephoned by another farmer advising him not to be alarmed if he heard an explosion that evening.

Oberholzer says that he went to the quelea-inhabited reedbed on Verster's farm "out of concern", where Verster, his son, Zeelie and a dynamite team were preparing for the operation. Oberholzer says he was worried that, although "queleas are a big problem", there were no crops immediately under threat, a clear precondition laid down in the quelea-control policy.

Oberholzer says he saw a large number of kites flying around the reedbed - and warned Zeelie that they might be affected. Zeelie, he says, told him that he was a qualified nature-conservation officer and that the kites would be roosting in the trees above the reedbed after dark. According to Oberholzer, the farmer and his son were drinking. Oberholzer removed a small mongoose, which he alleges was being roughly handled, and had a glass of brandy thrown in his face by Verster.

The following morning, Oberholzer and a friend returned to the reedbed and "came across the carnage". They collected 90 dead kites. Oberholzer contacted the Free State Raptor Conservation Project, whose team leaders Johan Esterhuizen and Jacques Fuller visited the reedbed with Dr Gerard Verdoorn of the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT). They collected a further 48 kite carcasses, as well as the bodies of a number of snipes, a mongoose and a porcupine. 

According to Verdoorn, the area surrounding the reedbed was littered with 20 and 25 litre drums, an empty brandy bottle and a cordite-cable reel. Underneath the drums were containers that had previously been filled with pesticides. From the smell of organophosphate that hung heavily in the air, says Verdoorn, it was plain that the drums used for the fuel explosion had still contained pesticides, which contravened a "universal principle" that drums used for such explosions shoudl be triple-rinsed. It was also clear, he says, that no follow-up inspection had been done in the area.

"Incidents like these give farmers a bad name," says Verdoorn, who has sent a detailed report to the department of agriculture, calling for an official explanation and tougher adherence to quelea-control policy guidelines.

Working with farmers lies at the heart of the EWT's conservation efforts, he says.

"Without farmers there woudl be no vultures, for example."

Lucas Geertsema, of quelea control in the agriculture department, says the department has commissioned an independent investigation by the Agricultural Resources Council, whose findings, together with the EWT report, will form the basis of an internal inquiry.

"Mr Zeelie has been temporarily suspended pending the outcome of an internal disciplinary inquiry," he says, "and if he is foudn guilty of not following the procedures, definite steps will be taken."