Ian Whyte watched in awe as a hungry elephant stripped the bark off three marula trees in South Africa’s Kruger National Park, hammering at nature with all its might.
”Within a few minutes, that bull killed three trees, and in just one feeding session,” recalled Whyte, a research manager and elephant specialist who has worked in Kruger for 36 years.
One of the world’s most splendid oases for wildlife, Kruger National Park is considering a plan to kill thousands of elephants that are destroying forestland, unleashing a domino effect on ecosystems and putting other species in jeopardy.
In the last decade the elephant population in Kruger has nearly doubled, with about 12 500 now roaming an area the size of Israel, far more than the 7 000 that park authorities estimate is the maximum capacity for the park of two million hectares.
For Whyte, there is no option but to reduce the number of elephants through culling, if the park on South Africa’s northeastern border is to maintain its biodiversity.
”I don’t know anybody who gets excited about killing elephants,” said Whyte. ”But is it better to do nothing and risk losing other species?”
Whyte cites studies showing that the number of tall trees has declined in Kruger, including knob thorns where raptors nest and fever trees favoured by open-billed storks. He maintains they were smashed by elephants.
In the northern plains of the park, tall trees can be seen towering over an enclosed area partitioned in 1967 for rare roan antelope.
Meanwhile, the home range for elephants on the opposite side of the fence has been reduced to shrub fields.
South Africa has been the target of animal rights groups since it announced six months ago that it was considering a plan to lift the moratorium imposed in 1995 on elephant culling.
”This is a very emotional issue,” said the environment and tourism department’s spokesperson JP Louw. ”We need to get past the emotion and find out what is best for biodiversity in South Africa.”
Indeed animal rights groups have lost no time in pointing out that culling is cruel.
Using helicopters, a team will swoop down on a herd with a marksman on board who will put down the matriarch with one shot to the head. The remaining elephants that will gather around the fallen matriarch or wander aimlessly nearby are easy targets for a fast kill.
Because elephants have such strong family bonds, park managers feel the most humane method is to kill an entire herd including calves in one quick cull rather than allow traumatised animals to survive.
Kruger also plans to sell the ivory tusks, hides and meat from the culled elephants.
At the forefront of the anti-culling lobby, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw) argues that Kruger has not sufficiently explored other options to an elephant slaughter.
Some of these include elephant contraception and the creation of megaparks to give elephants more space.
But Whyte said that two trials of contraception generated a new slew of problems, including costs and questions over changes to the family structure from the population control.
”It would have to be logistically far easier for us to do it,” he said.
He also brushed off suggestion that elephants would naturally migrate to other areas after calling Kruger home for decades.
The government’s decision on whether to cull elephants is expected before the end of the year and will have regional implications as Botswana and Zimbabwe, which also have huge elephant populations, could follow South Africa’s footsteps.
With more than one million people visiting Kruger park annually and tourism ranking as one of the country’s top foreign currency earners, the government is also deploying much effort in securing support from other African countries to buttress its stance.
”We want an African solution to this problem,” said Louw. – Sapa-AFP