Radical Plans To Cut Elephant Population
JOHANNESBURG- South Africa's national and private parks are prepared to put elephants on the pill, re-introduce culling and send them overseas in order to reduce overpopulation.
South African National Parks, which this week admitted that the problem was "quite serious", said it would be holding a conference next month to find solutions to the problem.
The country's tourism jewel, the Kruger National Park can only accommodate 7,500 elephants but has a population of over 12,000.
Two national parks in Limpopo, Makalali and Mapungubwe (which was officially opened on Friday) also face an elephant explosion that poses a threat to biodiversity.
SANParks, which imposed a moratorium on the culling of elephants in 1995, said it might consider culling "if it is one of solutions considered to be viable".
Wanda Mkutsaqlwa, head of communications for Sanparks, said: "We have been told that elephants have the ability to re-engineer or change an ecosystem.
"Trees are being uprooted. We are losing a number of trees. Some of the animals are dependent on the trees which are eaten by the elephants."
Dr Douw Grobler, owner of a company specialising in wildlife capture, said contraception was working well with smaller elephant populations on private land.
Grobler, who managed Kruger's game capture unit for 14 years, said 350 elephants were culled during the last organised culling at Kruger in 1994
"Kruger really has a problem with the elephant population going so high. There's huge overpopulation there. They have to bring the figure down to between 8,000 and 9,000.
"Unfortunately culling is the only way they can reduce their numbers at this stage. There's no other viable method."
New ways of managing elephant numbers were discussed at a symposium in Phalaborwa last week which was attended by 140 elephant experts and others involved in elephant management.
Chairman of the Elephant Managers and Owners Association, Dr Marion Garai, said that long-term planning was needed.
Howard Blight, chief executive of Elephants For Africa Forever, which trains and tames wild elephants, said: "To retain the integrity of the habitat and have a balanced biodiversity, elephant numbers need to be reduced. It's practical and easy to introduce contraception in small reserves."
But elephant expert Rory Hensman said contraception was not the answer to the elephant problem. "Contraception won't take any elephants out of the equation. It slows population growth down but it's invariably brought in too late. If you sterilise them, you will be landing up with huge behavioural problems. The most dangerous thing is to allow the elephant population to get out of control.
"I believe that we should look at all options, including contraception, relocation and taming and training them. But, at the end of the day, if it means culling, then culling it will have to be."
Mkutsaqlwa said SANParks was willing to offer elephants to other countries but said this was an expensive exercise. "They will have to bear the costs of transportation," she said.
South African National Parks, which this week admitted that the problem was "quite serious", said it would be holding a conference next month to find solutions to the problem.
The country's tourism jewel, the Kruger National Park can only accommodate 7,500 elephants but has a population of over 12,000.
Two national parks in Limpopo, Makalali and Mapungubwe (which was officially opened on Friday) also face an elephant explosion that poses a threat to biodiversity.
SANParks, which imposed a moratorium on the culling of elephants in 1995, said it might consider culling "if it is one of solutions considered to be viable".
Wanda Mkutsaqlwa, head of communications for Sanparks, said: "We have been told that elephants have the ability to re-engineer or change an ecosystem.
"Trees are being uprooted. We are losing a number of trees. Some of the animals are dependent on the trees which are eaten by the elephants."
Dr Douw Grobler, owner of a company specialising in wildlife capture, said contraception was working well with smaller elephant populations on private land.
Grobler, who managed Kruger's game capture unit for 14 years, said 350 elephants were culled during the last organised culling at Kruger in 1994
"Kruger really has a problem with the elephant population going so high. There's huge overpopulation there. They have to bring the figure down to between 8,000 and 9,000.
"Unfortunately culling is the only way they can reduce their numbers at this stage. There's no other viable method."
New ways of managing elephant numbers were discussed at a symposium in Phalaborwa last week which was attended by 140 elephant experts and others involved in elephant management.
Chairman of the Elephant Managers and Owners Association, Dr Marion Garai, said that long-term planning was needed.
Howard Blight, chief executive of Elephants For Africa Forever, which trains and tames wild elephants, said: "To retain the integrity of the habitat and have a balanced biodiversity, elephant numbers need to be reduced. It's practical and easy to introduce contraception in small reserves."
But elephant expert Rory Hensman said contraception was not the answer to the elephant problem. "Contraception won't take any elephants out of the equation. It slows population growth down but it's invariably brought in too late. If you sterilise them, you will be landing up with huge behavioural problems. The most dangerous thing is to allow the elephant population to get out of control.
"I believe that we should look at all options, including contraception, relocation and taming and training them. But, at the end of the day, if it means culling, then culling it will have to be."
Mkutsaqlwa said SANParks was willing to offer elephants to other countries but said this was an expensive exercise. "They will have to bear the costs of transportation," she said.
Labels: contraception, culling, elephants, SANParks
posted by Kruger2Canyons.com at
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
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