South Africa's elephant cull: concerns 'miss bigger picture'

Richard Leakey, BBC The Green Room 17 Mar 08;

It is too soon for conservationists to ring the alarm bells over South Africa's elephant management plan that includes culling, argues Dr Richard Leakey. In this week's Green Room, he says the measures are necessary and based in animal welfare concerns.

Last month's report on elephant management in South Africa has sent alarm bells ringing throughout the conservation and animal welfare circles, and headlines have been screaming that culling is about to be re-introduced.

This is a highly emotive issue and I have studied the government's report before making any judgment. Indeed, the report goes far beyond culling, and the headlines I have seen have been rather misleading.

Let me explain my position. By 1990, long-term research in Kenya and elsewhere had revealed that elephants have highly organised societies and a surprisingly well developed ability to communicate.

We consider them sentient creatures like whales and apes that deserve special consideration when it comes to their management.

I was part of the community of concerned professionals who objected to the culling of elephants in southern Africa during the 1990s and before because, at that time, the body of knowledge about elephants was ignored.

Culling appeared to be largely commercially motivated (for ivory and trade in baby elephants); it was not managed in a scientific manner and was unacceptably inhumane.

Unable to ignore the global concerns for the ethical and inhumane treatment of elephants, the South African government then banned the culling of elephants in the 1994.

The statement made by Marthinus van Schalkwyk, South Africa's Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, on the publication of the final Norms and Standards for Elephant Management, reveals that the nation has come a long way since its position in the 1980s.

The country has clearly looked seriously at the issues raised by experts from around the world by consulting widely within and beyond South Africa, and has prepared a carefully considered position on the management of elephants that aims to serve the interests of elephants as a species, their welfare, their impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem integrity, and their effects on the people - both locally and nationally.

Pleasant surprise

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the guiding principles behind this piece of legislation begin with an acknowledgement that "elephants are intelligent, have strong family bonds and operate within highly socialised groups, and unnecessary disruption of these groups by human intervention should be minimised".



The welfare of elephants is further emphasised in the statement: "Management interventions must, wherever practicable, be based on scientific knowledge or management experience regarding elephant populations and must take into account the social structure of elephants.

"(It must) be based on measures to avoid stress and disturbance to elephants, and, where lethal measures are necessary to manage an elephant or group of elephants or to manage the size of elephant populations, these should be undertaken with caution and after all other alternatives have been considered."

While I will never "like" the idea of elephant culling, I do accept that given the impacts of human induced climate change, and habitat destruction, elephants in and outside of protected areas will become an increasingly serious problem unless some key populations are reduced and maintained at appropriate levels.

Human pressures

A part of the problem is caused by increasing demand for resources by humans, and I believe that we have a responsibility to check habitat impacts in order to reduce conflicts between elephants and humans by controlling human activities as well.

Reducing elephant populations may therefore be a necessary part of population management, and this will be done in a humane and considered manner.

South Africa intends to reserve culling as a last resort after all other options such as translocations and fertility control have been exhausted.

Though I find elephant culling repugnant, I can see the sense in it in these scenarios, as I imagine many others do also.

If culling is deemed necessary, then I would personally like to see the management authority ensure that entire families or bond groups are removed intact to eliminate or minimise the emotional trauma to remaining individuals, and secondly, to maintain smaller populations using tested and approved fertility control.

It means that the authorities have much work to do in terms of studying the family and bond groups and maintaining good records. If done well, culling entire bond groups would reduce cases of rogue elephants and would eliminate or reduce the frequency of further culling in the future.

Finally, it is with great relief that I note that the minister has prohibited any further capture of wild elephants for captivity.

He acknowledges the unacceptably cruel practices that are common in captive elephant care and training in South Africa where baby elephants are beaten and tortured to "break their will" in order to train them for tourism, circuses and even zoos.

I look forward to seeing new legislation that completely eliminates cruelty in the captive care and training of these highly intelligent and feeling animals.

Dr Richard Leakey is the founding chairman of WildlifeDirect, a former head of the Kenyan Wildlife Service and a leading palaeontologist

The Green Room is a series of opinion articles on environmental topics running weekly on the BBC News website