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SOUTHERN AFRICA: Renewed calls for culling in wildlife reserves raises alarm among conservation groups
IRIN News
December 15, 2005

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50713

JOHANNESBURG - Wildlife conservation groups in Southern Africa have united in rejecting calls by some governments for a return to culling as a way of controlling the region's growing elephant population.

The call comes amid fears that elephant populations were ballooning beyond the carrying capacity of national parks, leading to a scarcity of water and grazing.

The debate around elephant population control methods comes at time when drought is affecting Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia and Mozambique. South Africa also faces a growing elephant population in its Kruger National Park.

Zimbabwe blames the death of over 100 elephants on a serious shortage of water and grazing pasture. Environment and Tourism Minister Francis Nhema told IRIN that the Hwange National Park, which has a carrying capacity of 15,000 elephants, was supporting over 45,000 of them.

He said the large elephant population threatened the bio-diversity of the area because the animals consumed so much food and water that other animals were left with nothing to eat.

"This does not affect elephants alone - it also leads to widespread starvation and death for the other smaller species that cannot compete for resources. To say we have too many elephants would be a gross understatement: people living on the edge of the game reserves are in constant war with elephants that leave the parks in search of water and food," Nhema told IRIN.

He said the country had joined others in calling for the lifting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) on trading in elephant products to no avail since the last, limited, trade was allowed in 1999. Together with Botswana, South Africa and Namibia, Zimbabwe has lost successive bids to get the regional ban on trade in elephant products lifted.

"We support culling if it can save our parks and other smaller species. We keep on asking CITES to lift this ban so that we can be able to maintain the elephants at a manageable number, but no one is listening. Zimbabwe will support any elephant control measures that save the people and all the other animals, not just elephants," said Nhema.

According to the Department of National Parks and Wildlife, Zimbabwe's elephant population grows at a rate of 4,200 per year and occupies a surface area of 78,550 square km.

Last month, government attempts to relocate some of the elephants to Namibia hit a snag when the Namibian Department of National Parks and Wildlife said it was facing the same problems with a 16,000 strong herd.

Namibian parks director Ben Beytell was quoted in local media as saying that the human-elephant conflict was worse in the northeastern Caprivi Strip, where villagers share wells with elephants. He attributed the crisis to the drying up of the Chobe River and Lake Liambezi due to drought.

In Botswana, the Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DPNW) authority blamed the growing elephant population for the destruction of perimeter fences around the Chobe National Park. Elephants straying out of the reserve in search of water and food have almost made human-elephant conflict an almost permanent feature in the north of the country.

South Africa's recent call for culling to control about 12,500 elephants in the Kruger National Park has been dismissed as "too cruel" by wildlife groups.

In a statement responding to the Environmental Affairs and Tourism Ministry's plans to resume culling, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) said the country's reputation as a custodian of wildlife would suffer if the shooting started.

"Culling is a cruel, unethical and scientifically unsound practice," the IFAW statement read in part. The group has proposed the promotion of trans-frontier parks and migration corridors to allow greater movement of animals between countries. They also argued for the use of contraception to control population growth, a proposal rejected as expensive and prone to practical problems by South African Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk.

However, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has urged governments to consider culling only after exhausting all other alternatives. South Africa, which slaughtered 14,562 elephants between 1967 and 1994, stopped culling in 1995 in response to growing local and international pressure.

Johnny Rodriguez, chairman of the Zimbabwe Conservation Taskforce (ZCTF), said his organisation supported the creation of better-managed habitats rather than culling. He said the country could not afford more losses because it had already lost too much valuable wildlife to commercial and subsistence poachers since farm invasions began in February 2000 as part of the controversial fast-track land reform programme.

The African Wildlife Foundation (AWF), a US-based conservation group running projects across Southern and East Africa, called culling a "last option".

"We know of no African government agency which would choose to consider culling where other options exist - culling is heart breaking, difficult, dangerous and extremely cruel. It can only be considered as a last option where the long-term wellbeing of wildlife is at risk," the AWF said in a statement.

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