Greens Clash over South African Elephant Cull Question
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by Ed Stoddard Reuters March 16, 2005
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JOHANNESBURG — A simmering battle over culling elephants has brought to light sharp
divisions in the green movement over how to restrain a burgeoning
population from outgrowing the confined wilderness of South Africa's
parks.
A senior South African National Parks official told
Reuters at the weekend the country may cull elephants for the first
time in a decade to control surging populations of the huge animals,
with the most pressing need seen in the famed Kruger Park.
His comments have drawn strong responses from both sides of
the green divide, which can become a chasm when "poster animals"
adored by humans, such as elephants or seals, are invoked.
There are some greens who see red when any policy could be
construed as cruel to animals, and others who say there is sometimes
no choice and that scientific evidence shows that the numbers must
be reduced.
"SANParks has had 10 years to come up with an
appropriate and scientifically sound management plan for elephants
and haven't done so," said Jason Bell-Leask, the southern African
director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).
"Now, with their backs against the wall, it seems they are
looking for a quick-fix solution for reducing the elephant
population," he told Reuters by e-mail.
IFAW favours
measures such as contraception and relocation, but both are seen by
park managers as costly and impractical.
He said the
scientific jury was still out on the ecological impact of Kruger's
swelling population of the pachyderms, which by some estimates has
grown to close to 12,000 from around 7,000 a decade ago.
Kruger officials have long argued that the park is straining
in the face of the rising elephant numbers. They say the elephants
are eating themselves out of house and home and that other species
are suffering as a result.
A final decision on culling is
expected by October.
"The Kruger is a managed habitat and
they have very few management options left. And at the moment
culling is the only one," said Tony Frost, the chief executive of
WWF-South Africa.
"The national parks people would not rush
into something like this, it is really a last resort ... but there
are too many elephants," he said.
Culling would be sure to
provoke protest from animal welfare groups worldwide who argue that
elephants are intelligent and emotional animals and the practice is
cruel.
Before South Africa stopped culling in 1994, scenes of
it shown on television provoked an outcry at home and abroad.
"The South African public and international community will
surely not tolerate a call for a resumption of culling, particularly
in the light of there being no scientific justification for one,"
said IFAW's Bell-Leask.
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Source: Reuters
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