Animal rights groups merge
2005-12-13 10:55
Nelspruit - Three South African animal rights groups have merged into a single body, and their first battle is to save thousands of elephants in the Kruger National Park from being culled.
Justice for Animals, South Africans for the Abolition of Vivisection (SAAV), and Xwe African Wild Life have merged to form Animal Rights Africa (ARA).
"ARA will take an uncompromising stance on the proposed elephant cull," said ARA spokesperson Steve Smit.
He said culling was an "apartheid era" management style and that there was no sound scientific basis for such lethal action. He accused South African National Parks (SANParks), which manages the Kruger, of having a political agenda and wanting to trade in ivory.
"SANParks want to cull the elephants so that they can tell the international community that they have built a huge ivory stockpile and need to sell the ivory," he said.
Smit also expressed concern that mainstream conservation NGOs in the country were supporting the culling proposal, which suggests slaughtering between 5 000 and 7 000 elephants in the Kruger.
Culling will protect other animals, plants
Seven conservations organisations have supported the culling option and include big guns such as the Wildlife Trust, Wildlife and Environmental Society of SA and the World Wide Fund for Nature SA.
In a statement they said they supported "whatever means [SANParks] can show to be ethical and appropriate" to protect Kruger's biodiversity.
SanParks argues that culling will protect other animals and plants from the effects of the growing elephant population. There are an estimated 12 000 elephants in the park. Their numbers have grown since a moratorium was placed on culling in 1995.
President of the Southern Africa Association for the Advancement of Science, Ian Raper, calls the seven environmental groups a "cartel" that has failed to conduct sufficient research before supporting the culling option.
"There is a lot at stake here, and this unnecessarily negative intrusion into the process is not helpful," said Raper, who also chairs The Earth Organisation's science advisory board.
Translocation an option?
He said in sensitive regions, culling would often only reduce the population in the short term, after which, research has shown, intra-regional influx would occur and these areas would quickly repopulate.
ARA's three founding member organisations met with environmental affairs and tourism minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk on November 28 to present alternative views on the management of Kruger's elephants.
"We told the minister that should there be evidence of an overpopulation of elephants, the park authorities should look into other alternatives such as translocation or the of contraception," he said.
He said the park could also drop fences to open the Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Park, so that the elephants could move into neighbouring Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
He said ARA would meet the minister again to get a feedback but that a date hadn't been set yet.