The thorny issue of the Table Mountain tahrs may be headed for court again following a threat by the National Council of SPCAs (NSPCA) to seek an urgent interdict.
NSPCA executive director Marcelle Meredith labelled South African National Parks’ (Sanparks) decision to cull the goat-like creatures “maverick slaughter”.
She said in a statement on Tuesday morning that the NSPCA might go to court if Sanparks does not stop the shooting immediately.
But Sanparks said it will continue.
“The status quo stays,” said Sanparks chief executive David Mabunda during a break in the organisation’s monthly executive management meeting on Tuesday.
“We are going on with the culling because it’s in line with the mandate of Sanparks to protect indigenous flora and fauna.”
Asked about Meredith’s threat, he said: “We’ve been down that road before and we’ve come out with full marks. She’s most welcome, though it will be really unfortunate.”
Responded Meredith: “I will get hold of my lawyer immediately.”
Sanparks has been challenged before on its tahr-culling plans, by a now-defunct organisation named Friends of the Tahr.
That challenge, launched in the Cape High Court, dragged on for three inconclusive years and cost Sanparks about R500 000.
It was formally dismissed last month by a judge sitting in chambers.
Sanparks’ lawyer in that matter, Steve Raney, said one of the consequences of the formal dismissal, rather than a settlement out of court, was that no fresh action could be brought against Sanparks based on the same facts.
Mabunda said Sanparks was acting in line with the international Convention on Biological Diversity, which obliges signatories — including South Africa — to control or to eradicate alien species that threaten ecosystems, habitats or other species.
“So that is what we are doing. We are culling, we are not shooting or killing,” Mabunda said.
He also said the people doing the job are not marksmen, sharpshooters or snipers.
“They are rangers who are used to dealing with biodiversity issues, managing populations.”
He said the Friends and other groups have had more than five years to come up with alternatives, and there have been none on the table to date.
“We are not cruel,” he said. “If there was a reasonable tangible alternative on the table we would have entertained it. But there was nothing. That is why we have to carry on with the introduction of the klipspringers and grey rhebok, which are indigenous to the area.”
Manager of the Table Mountain National Park Brett Myrdal announced on Monday that marksmen have already killed four of the goat-like tahrs since Friday.
He said the shootings are part of a programme to eliminate all 100 or so tahrs to make way for indigenous buck, which have become locally extinct.
Among the papers filed by the Friends as part of their challenge was an affidavit by a firearms expert who said the likelihood of sharpshooters achieving clean kills of tahr was more a matter of luck than good judgement.
“It can be expected that a great many will be injured or wounded, although they may later die from blood loss from wounds or from infections,” said Cape Town security consultant Francois van der Merwe in the document.
He said the .223 ammunition recommended by the ethics committee is small-calibre ammunition and “in any event would be an unsuitable choice for shooting the tahr from anything except point-blank range”.
The tahrs, native to the Himalayas, originate from a single pair that escaped in 1936 from the former Groote Schuur zoo.
They numbered at least 700 during the 1970s before the City of Cape Town initiated a culling programme that was stopped in the face of public pressure in 2000. — Sapa
Tahrs to die a ‘slow death’