South African National Parks’ (Sanparks) decision to shoot Himalayan tahr on Table Mountain has not been cleared by its own ethics committee, a spokesperson for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said on Monday.
Senior inspector Neil Fraser was commenting on the decision announced by Sanparks earlier in the day to resume a programme to eliminate all tahr from the Table Mountain National Park (TMNP).
Fraser, a member of the animal use and care committee established to advise Sanparks on ethical issues, said Monday’s announcement was the first he had heard on the decision to go ahead with shooting the tahrs.
”As far as I’m concerned this culling operation has not had ethical clearance,” he said.
TMNP manager Brett Myrdal said, in making the announcement, that shooting by professional marksmen had been approved by the committee in January 2001.
Fraser said he was not a member of the committee in 2001, but that a new committee had been formed since then and the understanding was that any method would have to be cleared afresh.
”That certainly has not happened,” he said. — Sapa