TAHR SHOOTING DISGRACEFUL: TRUST
The International Wildlife Trust which offered to help pay for the relocation of Table Mountain’s Himalayan tahrs says the decision to shoot them is ”an absolute disgrace”.
The Marchig Animal Welfare Trust said some time ago it would help fund the animals’ removal to a private game reserve if a permit for their relocation was obtained.
However SA National Parks (Sanparks) officials began shooting the tahrs last week and say they plan to eliminate them all.
Marchig managing trustee Les Ward said from Scotland on Wednesday, hours after he heard the news of the shooting for the first time, that Sanparks had not notified him of the decision, and that he was ”absolutely fuming”.
”In 24 years of being involved with conservation bodies and government bodies throughout the world, never, ever, ever, have I been treated this way,” he said.
A package had been in place to save at least some of the animals.
However for the past month, Table Mountain National Park (TMNP) officials had not had the courtesy to return his phone calls or answer his e-mails.
He now suspected this was because they had been preparing to go ahead with the shootings.
”If this is the case they should be ashamed of themselves, utterly ashamed,” he said.
Ward said the Friends of the Tahr organisation had deliberately withdrawn a court challenge to Sanparks in order to allow officials to show their bona fides, after being told they wanted a non-lethal solution.
For Sanparks to now say the dismissal of the case meant it was now bound to its original plan to kill the tahr was ”total nonsense”.
”There’s no logic to this. Even if you don’t give a hoot for the tahrs, why would you take animal lives when you can save them, and when it doesn’t cost you a penny?
”To me it stinks. It’s a disgrace for Cape Sanparks and it doesn’t do South Africa much good either.”
Marchig’s offer of assistance still stood, Ward said.
”We are totally committed to saving the tahr of Table Mountain.”
He said if he thought that by going to South Africa he could do any good, he would, but he was not sure whether he could take Sanparks’ statements at face value any more.
Commenting on the South African National Council of the Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals’ threat to obtain an interdict against Sanparks, Ward said Marchig avoided confrontation, but if an interdict saved animals’ lives and allowed time for reflection, it was possibly ”quite a good thing”.
Marchig said earlier it had secured the support of private reserve owner Adrian Gardiner, who had offered to house the animals near Barrydale in the southern Cape.
The University of Pretoria’s veterinary wildlife unit had agreed to advise on capture techniques, relocation and release.
It had been agreed that Sanparks should apply for the permit that would allow the captured tahr to be moved to the reserve, Marchig said.
TMNP declined on Wednesday to say how many tahrs had been killed since the start of the programme last Friday.
Spokesperson Fiona Kalk said she had ”no updates” on the figure given by park manager Brett Myrdal on Monday of four males shot.
Asked whether she could get an update, she said: ”Not currently… Sanparks will be releasing further statements as and when things change.”
The tahrs 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. There are now about 100. Sanparks says it is getting rid of them because they damage the mountain, and to create ecological space for indigenous klipspringer and grey rhebok, which have become extinct there. – Sapa