New Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk says he has no doubt that the decision to cull Table Mountain’s alien tahrs is the right thing to do.
”It’s a difficult decision but I support it,” he said in Cape Town on Monday.
”I think it’s the right thing to do. We have to protect Table Mountain as one of our heritage sites.”
Last week South African National Parks (Sanparks) announced it had restarted a programme to shoot out all the approximately 100 tahrs from the mountain to make way for indigenous buck.
The decision has been welcomed by conservation groups, but is opposed by some animal lovers, who say non-lethal methods should be used to get the tahr off the mountain.
But Van Schalkwyk said ”a process” has been going on for many years.
What has been conveyed to him is that SanParks’ animal ethics committee considered the issue ”very, very carefully” and that the National Council of SPCAs, one of the objectors, was represented on one of its subcommittees.
”The culling was approved through all the processes and the proper structures. [This is] one of those difficult issues where you have to take a decision on balance,” he said.
”We signed the international convention to protect South African indigenous fauna and flora biodiversity. And everybody agrees that tahrs, they are alien.
”After years of a process this is the answer they have arrived at.”
He said he has been given a presentation on what happened in other parts of the world with tahr populations, and how destructive the animals, which are native to the Himalayas, could be.
”It’s fine to debate these issues in theory, but when people see the destruction and the damage that they can do, and what we have to do here, I think it’s the right decision without any doubt.” — Sapa