The removal of Himalayan tahrs from Table Mountain National Park will go ahead following the end of a legal challenge, park manager Brett Myrdal said on Thursday.
”In order for klipspringers to come back on to Table Mountain we do need to remove tahrs,” he said.
”How we will do that, I cannot comment on now because it’s a team matter and we need to take into account the legal constraints. We need to take into account the most humane methods of doing that, we need to take into account the perspectives of the public.
”But ultimately we will do what has to be done.”
Earlier, speaking to the Cape Town Press Club, he said the legal challenge launched last year by Friends of the Tahr, which was strongly opposed to any killing of the goatlike animals, had ”just ended”.
However there would be no public statement until Sanparks had developed a coherent plan on dealing with the animals. A team would meet on the issue in the next week.
Myrdal said in reply to a questioner that he had actually ”deleted the word tahr from my personal dictionary”.
”What we’re going to do about the tahrs is turn it upside down. We going to look at klipspringer introduction, reintroduction, and everything will be viewed from that perspective.
”I think that the bunnyhuggers, bless their hearts, they’re hugging the wrong bunnies. The importance is to recognise that our faunal heritage has been destroyed by ourselves.”
He said the park could describe itself as a failed zookeeper: there were fallow deer, black sambar and tahrs all over the mountain.
”Let’s look at how to bring klipspringers and grysbokkies back, and what that requires.”
In a recent helicopter-based count, Sanpark officials spotted at least 51 tahrs on Table Mountain, but say the actual number could be at least double that.
A member of the pro-tahr grouping said they would probably comment on Friday morning.
About a quarter of the count consisted of juveniles, an indication that the population is increasing rapidly.
The tahrs, which park officials say cause serious erosion problems on the mountain, originate from a single pair which escaped in 1936 from the now-defunct Groote Schuur zoo.
They numbered at least 700 during the 1970s before the City of Cape Town initiated a culling programme which was stopped, then restarted by park managers in April 2000.
It was stopped again in July that year after 54 animals had been killed, and the Friends of the Tahr asked the Public Protector to intervene.
Myrdal also told the press club on Thursday that conservationists needed a less intolerant attitude to alien plants.
”We have to distinguish between invasives and the rest, and alien invasives are a threat. Other alien plants are not. Stone pines, therefore, are not a threat.”
There had to be a phased programme to deal with aliens.
”I don’t believe in this xenophobic approach of removing all alien invaders at hand. I think we need a more tolerant approach. But I do say that there’s a long term goal, [to be approached] in a careful and balanced way.”
He said it was important to maintain wilderness character in the park, and Sanparks could not allow more than one vehicle a day to go up the back of Table Mountain.
”Right now we’ve got water affairs going up; they’ve got a key, they go as they please, they check the water level on a daily basis as if it might change. Safcol are going up there… and then our team are going up too, as and when we please.
”We need to take our role seriously as custodians of the mountain. Time is up for vehicles on the back of the mountain. One vehicle to service the accommodation there is going to be the goal.”
He also said there was legislation that governed helicopters.
”No hiker enjoys having their peace and tranquility buzzed by this thumping sound of rotor blades. So we also to attend to that.” – Sapa