SANParks Brews Plan to Cull Elephant Herds

Business Day (Johannesburg)

November 3, 2004
Posted to the web November 3, 2004

Chris Van Gass
Cape Town

SANParks will have an elephant management plan in place by the end of October next year, designed to reduce the "exorbitant" number of elephants in SA, Parliament's portfolio committee on environment was told yesterday.

David Mabunda, CE of the organisation that manages the country's 20 national parks, said a task team would be established soon to take the process forward and by the beginning of March a draft of the plan would be put before the SANParks board for approval.

He did not say how many elephants would be culled. SA has an elephant population of 17000, 12000 of them in the Kruger National Park. Before 1994, when culling was still allowed in Kruger, the elephant population was kept at a ceiling of about 8000 animals.

Following board approval, the plan will be submitted to Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk and then to the cabinet for its approval, by May next year.

Mabunda said SANParks will be able to implement the new management plan, which will fulfil the requirements of the new Protected Areas Act and Biodiversity Act, by October next year.

Mabunda said the dilemma SA finds itself followed a "blind" decision taken in 1995 to place a moratorium on the culling of elephants without alternatives.

Asked by Mike Ellis of the Democratic Alliance if the process could be speeded up, Mabunda said the legislation stipulated a specific public participation process involving interested parties, which took time.

"By November next year we will have another 1000 elephants, and the longer the process is drawn out, the more the situation will be compounded," said Mabunda.

He said SA had placed "no value" on its elephant population because it had offered to give away elephants for free.

"There has been no interest from anyone in the past six years to take up our offer," Mabunda said.

The last time SANParks culled elephants it made a profit of R7m a year from culling between 700 and 1000 elephants, but the intention was not to push the process "because of socio-economic benefits", he said.

"Our mandate is biodiversity management, and that is the drive behind managing elephant populations," he said.

Mabunda said four of five commissions formed at a recent conference on managing SA's elephants recommended that numbers be "drastically reduced" by culling.

He said alternatives such as translocation, contraception and population dispersal were no longer viable.

Sad, Ann,

Considering that the South African government take their inspiration from some of India's socialist idiots, they would probably send in hunters in helicopters to cull the elephants instead of evolving a gradual trophy hunting program and collecting trophy fees to make it economically sensible.

Wish they had the brains to expand hunting and market more reasonable elephant hunts considering the huge numbers involved, but then brains are the last thing to work in a socialist.

Good hunting!

.

I'm actually in favour of paying park employees to cull the cows and calves ...... however, I'd also like to see them selling the sport hunting of trophy bulls to finance the culling teams......but as Alf quite rightly says, it ain't gonna happen.



Either way, it's a start to controlling the overpopulation in the KNP.

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...and if I am not mistaken, that sheep is the current world record. I also believe the same hunter bought the auction tag the next year for a bit (but not much) less money.



Best,



JohnTheGreek

ALF,



Please pardon my ignorance, but in a democracy, aren't there Parliaments and such to amend laws when required? If the RSA government did this and allowed controlled hunting to whoever could pay to shoot trophy elephants in the parks, wouldn't they make money? The elephants would be valued as a resource and with the money earned, even more rangers could be trained to patrol the parks and guard the remaining assets and so on...



Auctioning the elephants at a price that people could afford would make fantastic sense and if there is a sense that foreign hunters would probably be preferred over local South African ones, then the auction could have a special discount of 20% or a little more for South African citizens. All of these are possibilities that could easily be worked out if the government had the will to create and implement a decent solution and earn the money that South Africa would gain in the end, as nation. Getting professionals to shoot the elephants would be a huge waste of not only government money, but also the throwing away of an opportunity to create more jobs and earn significant amounts of money as there are a few thousand elephants which could be sold.



This just goes to confirm my belief that socialists are not the people you could expect to use their brains. What was it Winston Churchill said about socialism being a system that allowed people to share misery equally...



Good hunting!

.

Alf

You hold a "national" lottery where tickets are free and available one to each citizen if they apply for one.

Then you allow the winning tickets to be traded, s outfitters can buy them at auction. If auctioned, the winner must pay a percentage to the government of the winning bid which helps fund culls of females and young. Similarly an outfitter which buys a ticket, pays a tax to the park.

Or if the winner wants to hunt him or herself, they need to hold a valid firearms and hunters licence and pass a basic course such as marksmanship. They also need to pay for an observers wages or maybe a PH.

Very open 'opportunity' of access, but not necessarily end-result.