South African National Parks (SANParks) is reconsidering a management plan that will see between 400 and 1 000 elephant culled in the Kruger National Park annually for at least five years.
At a high-level indaba held in the country’s premier reserve this week to discuss burgeoning elephant populations, SANParks director of conservation services, Hector Magome, said it was time to dust off a plan that was launched in 1999 but shelved amid controversy.
Magome said SANParks was under pressure from tourists and conservation groups because elephants are destroying large trees and other habitats in the park. There are also concerns about growing populations in Marakele and Mapungubwe national parks in Limpopo.
About 16 000 elephants were culled in the Kruger before a moratorium in 1994. A census last year indicated about 11 500 elephants in the park. During the years when culling was the norm, scientists said the carrying capacity of the Kruger was 7 500 elephants.
The management plan now under consideration divides the park into six zones and sets out the number of elephants that should be culled in each zone. It recommends that in areas called the north and south botanical reserves, where elephant numbers should be kept static, 442 elephants should be culled in the first year of the plan’s implementation.
In two ”low-impact” zones 521 elephants would be culled in the first year and there would be an annual take-off of 7% in the following years.
In two ”high-impact” zones, none would be culled and the herds would be allowed to grow unhindered over 20 years. After that the low-impact and high-impact zones would be swapped, and a large number of elephants might need to be removed.
Translocation, hunting, immunocontraception and migration corridors are also being considered.
A draft management policy will be presented to Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk and published for comment at the end of April 2005.