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S Africa announces elephant plan

An undated file photograph shows elephants in the Addo Elephant National Park in South Africa's Eastern Cape Province. It was reported on Wednesday that South Africa's elephant population has grown so large that the animals may pose a threat to their environment. PHOTO: EPA

South Africa's environment minister offered a new plan on Wednesday to control the nation's booming elephant population that contemplates resuming the much-criticized killing of excess animals, but only after thorough scientific study and as a last resort.

Without some form of population control, elephants will soon overwhelm the public parks and private game reserves where they can still roam free, the minister, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, warned.

Van Schalkwyk's proposal, unveiled at an elephant reserve in the nation's southeast, appeared to defuse for now a looming confrontation between environmentalists and game managers over ways to manage the nation's 20,000 elephants.

National park officials have already considered a mass killing, or culling, of the 12,500 or more elephants in Kruger National Park, South Africa's biggest wildlife reserve, contending that the park can support only 7,500 animals. Some conservationists have agreed, saying that preserving the park's biological diversity is more important than saving elephants.

But some environmentalists argue that the killings are both unnecessary and inhumane, given elephants' high intelligence and complex social structure.

South Africa had ordered the killing of more than 14,000 elephants in Kruger until an international outcry helped bring about a moratorium in 1995. Opponents of culling have threatened to start a boycott of South Africa tourism if a new culling campaign is approved.

Van Schalkwyk made it clear on Wednesday that any cullings would be both limited and approved only after other options had been exhausted.

The new proposal envisions a range of methods to address the rising number of elephants, including contraception and luring elephants from crowded parks to vacant spaces.

There are no quick options. Contraception is not a simple solution, in part because it subjects female elephants to great stress from more frequent matings with heavy bulls. Nor is it easy to relocate elephant herds.

Van Schalkwyk also allotted about US$700,000 for scientists to study elephant management techniques and to address some basic questions, including whether the existing population is straining the habitat as much as some say.

That elephants are destructive is unquestioned. African elephants can eat as much as 5 percent of their weight and drink up to 189l of water a day, and herds have been known to reduce forests and bushlands to treeless expanses of weeds, grass and broken stumps.

The government says that South African herds are growing at a rate of 6 percent a year. Left unchecked, officials say, the national elephant population will rise from 20,000 today to 34,000 in 2020.
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