The last few tahrs on Table Mountain could get a reprieve if South African National Parks is presented with a viable plan for their capture and removal.
However SANparks spokesperson Wanda Mkutshulwa warned on Friday that the plan would have to be ”watertight” as SANparks did not want to be exposed to further legal action.
SANparks chief executive David Mabunda announced on Thursday that with 109 tahrs shot, the culling operation was an estimated 95% complete.
He said the culling would however be suspended for the winter. Mkutshulwa said the National Council of Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NSPCA) indicated at a meeting two weeks ago it might want to present a proposal for capture and removal of the tahrs.
No plan had yet been put forward, and she assumed the organisation was researching its proposal.
”The condition is that the NSPCA has to give us a viable proposal. That is our starting point,” she said. ”If a viable proposal does not come, we will continue with the culling.”
A plan would have to deal with the issues of how the capture was to be carried out, who would pay for it, where the animals would go, and wildlife permits.
When SANparks announced the culling in mid-May, it said the dismissal of a High Court challenge by the Friends of the Tahr organisation bound it to it original decision in 1999 to eradicate the tahrs.
”Any alteration to this decision would make SANparks vulnerable to further litigation,” it said in a statement then. ”For that reason we cannot reconsider that decision and will implement it.”
Mkutshulwa said that in opening up the possibility of a live capture operation for the remaining animals, SANparks was deviating from this position.
However, if there was a guarantee there would not be ”botched-up operations”, SANparks would be safe from litigation.
”That is the only way we can accept any proposal from anybody,” she said. ”If there are no guarantees, SANparks would be wary. We would be opening up to another three or five years of litigation.”
NSPCA wildlife unit manager Rick Allan confirmed on Friday his organisation was working on a plan, but said the mechanics of getting the animals off the mountain were difficult.
The NSPCA had gone through scenarios of darting them, but this would be dangerous for drugged animals on cliffs. Instead it was exploring passive capture, which involved luring the tahrs into enclosures.
”But to lure them in is another story. And to get them off the mountain is another story,” he said.
”But we haven’t given up hope. We are going to keep trying to find a humane solution to remove them from the mountain to the very end. We are committed to that.
Allan said SANparks had given no commitment to hold off on the culling other than its announcement of the winter reprieve.
”We are racing against time,” he said.
SANparks says it is culling the goat-like tahr, native to the Himalayas. to create an ecological niche for indigenous buck such as klipspringer, which have become locally extinct on the mountain. – Sapa