'No reason' to cull SA elephants

Too many elephants can wreak havoc on the environment
Leading South African scientists have advised the government against culling elephants, saying there is no reason to lift a 10-year ban.
The government has been considering an end to the ban, amid fears that a rapid increase in the elephant population is threatening the ecological balance.

But a panel of 10 experts told the environment minister it was not clear the elephant population was too large.

They said that mass culling was in any case not a perfect solution.

Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk met the panel in an attempt to resolve what has become an emotive issue in South Africa.

'Lack of evidence'

"The scientists said that there was not yet sufficient compelling evidence to take action at a large scale to reduce the elephant population," environment ministry spokesman JP Louw said.

"They said there was not sufficient evidence to say contraception would work or translocation would work. There is not sufficient evidence about the impact of culling."

Some 13,000 elephants currently roam in the Kruger National Park, South Africa's premier wildlife reserve.

This is nearly double the 7,000 that was considered the optimum number during South Africa's apartheid years, when culling took place regularly.

South Africa's National Parks Service has argued that large numbers of elephants are destroying natural habitats and threatening other wildlife in the park, as well as endangering communities and farmland in areas bordering on the park.

Those opposed to the culling of elephants have argued that the overpopulation problem could be solved by transporting animals to areas where they are scarce, or by administering contraception.

Oh boy if they start using them I hope they video the action it would be fun to watch.
Sure seems we have a lot of experts in their field that live in an academic vaccumm.

I've personally seen the damage in Kruger and the surrounding reserves. It's tremendous and something that cannot be corrected in our lifetimes. Some of those trees destroyed are over 300 years old. How can you replace them in large areas? They need to put all of these self righteous environmentalists inside their so-called elephant condoms, tie them shut and throw the whole bunch of them in the croc infested Limpopo River.

Another thing to consider in the "Elephant Contraceptive" equation would be the effects of contraceptives on herd age structure. Use of contraceptives (it would be oral or injectible contraceptives on females, if what my vet sister in law said was correct - she took a summer seminar in Africa several years back focusing on game animals, and worked as a vet in Johannesburg that past 3 years while my brother got his Ph.D. there) would have to be aimed at younger reproductive age animals to have a real shot at reducing the birth rate and impacting the population . . .

Also, a contraceptive program would cost the government lots of money - why not take the philosophy of "stick it to the Rich American hunters" LOL and let hunters pay to reduce the herds?

Troy

Other reasons the contraceptive injections don't work is that the hormone changes caused by the drugs can make the females very unpredictable and often aggressive (sound familiar? ) and they need to keep track of individual animals to continue the treatment...... not easy and not cheap with that many Elephants in that large an area......

Also, RSA would have to change the constitution before they could allow sport hunting in a National Park and even if they did, sport hunters would almost certainly only be allowed to hunt the bulls...... herd culling is a job for the professional culling teams rather than sport hunters.

If the anti hunting lobby want to try a serious contraception programme, why don't they offer the umpteen million dollars necessary to dart, collar and administer the necessary drug programme on ALL the KNP elephants for a couple of years. - Then if it doesn't work they could also finance the culling and the re-introduction of species that have suffered as a result of their trial.

More in humour than anything, why restrict it to American hunters - I'm sure they'd be more than happy to stick it to hunters from elsewhere in the world!

They found out in Zimbabwe that most of the large tree damage was caused by bull elephant. If they want to reduce tree damage the number of bulls will have to be reduced. Contraception will not reduce bull numbers except over a very long period. If tree damage is at an unacceptable level now there will be few trees left by the time contraception reduces bull numbers.

465H&H

The bulls push trees over and the cows and calves bark strip the standing trees - although the bulls damage looks more severe in many cases the bark stripping does at least an equal amount of damage to the eco system...... but I wasn't advocating contraception.....far from it. (IMO) It's as useless a way of controlling numbers as translocation. Neither method will work.

I'm of the school of thought that the only way to control numbers is culling - but I believe it needs to be done properly. Sport hunting the bulls is perfectly acceptable to me (although the legal aspects make this difficult in the KNP) but I firmly believe the cows and calves should only be culled by proper culling teams.

quote:

Other reasons the contraceptive injections don't work is that the hormone changes caused by the drugs can make the females very unpredictable and often aggressive (sound familiar? ) and they need to keep track of individual animals to continue the treatment...... not easy and not cheap with that many Elephants in that large an area......

If you took how my ex-wife was in a similar hormonal state and scaled it up to elephant size, well, lets just say that crime and corruption would be the least of the RSA's problems.

Oh, the humanity of it all .

LD

Just wandering off topic a little,

Some years ago when I lived in England, I bought myself a boat. When my (then) wife saw it she asked me what I was going to call it - and made a BIG point of telling me over several days that a lot of boat owners named their boat after the their wife....and wouldn't it be nice if I did the same.

........ so I named the boat "Moody Cow"

It got a lot of laughs in a lot of places, but jeez did I get some ear ache from the wife!

I still think it's funny!

Well I have also seen the evidence, there is no doubt in my mind that there are too many elephant. Even the Timbavati and Klaserie reserved which are open to the KNP - there is noticable destruction of larger trees caused by elephants.

Everyone in SA know there are too many ele's but it seems to me that it is a world wide very sensitive one.

No one knows what the future will hold.

Elephant herds have a very complex structure. If you mess around with that structure you upset the whole herd. When a herd's social stucture is disturbed it changes their behaviour. That is when you start getting unprovoked atacks etc. By using contraceptives to keep the elephant numbers down, the social structure will be disturbed and no one knows what will happen. No studies have been done on this that I know of.

Translocating will only bring temporary relief. I cannot belief that the panel decided against culling. Most of the true conservationists that I heard of or read their article are for the culling of the elephants. One of them Dr G Verdoorn, director of the Birdlife SA. Conservation is not about one species, but about the whole biodiversity of an eco system. If one insect becomes extinct due to the conservation of one animal, the conservation effort did not work.

Once man has intervened in nature he must keep on intervening to keep the balance.

I like the suggestion of Shakari, that the greenies must start putting their money where their mouths are. They keep on screaming conservation, but how much of their money actually goes to conservation. It is mostly hunting organizations that are funding conservation projects. Strange but true. We as hunters are always singled out as cruel and inhumane creatures, but if it were not for us, a couple of species would have disappeared from the earth and a lot of bio diversity would have been lost.

Makes you wonder