Island animals 'not neglected'

2008-04-29 19:42

Cape Town - Robben Island Museum has rejected a report that wild animals on the 574 hectare island are starving to death because of poor environmental management.

The Cape Argus reported on Tuesday that among the animals affected were bontebok, springbuck, fallow deer and rabbits, and that environmentalists blamed neglect by the museum, which manages the island.

The newspaper said the problem was mainly the result of an explosion in the wild rabbit population, which was "eating everything in sight".

However the museum's director, Paul Langa, said the island had a programme to exterminate the rabbits - which had drawn accusations of brutality.

It was also shifting many of the fallow deer off the island, though this was a complex operation.

Conservation programme

It had a conservation programme in place, "but you can't fulfil all the requirements at one time", he said.

"There may be methods better than what we are doing, but let's be advised of the methods."

He said it had to be remembered that the island was just that: an island, with its own environmental peculiarities.

At particular seasons it got very dry, and this year had been a bad year "because it's been very, very dry".

The museum would issue a full response to the claims raised in the Argus article, he said.

The island hosts 23 recorded species of mammals, including small herds of bontebok, springbuck, steenbok, fallow deer and eland.

The rabbits were introduced by early European settlers.

The museum has in the past also run a programme to shoot out feral cats on the island, to protect birdlife, though the SPCA suggested that rabbits turned carnivore might be responsible for bird deaths.

The focus of the museum is the island's prisons, where apartheid-era struggle icons including Nelson Mandela were jailed.

- SAPA