By Melanie Gosling
Sharpshooters from the Kruger National Park have begun killing the tahrs on Table Mountain and have shot four males so far.
Table Mountain National Park manager Brett Myrdal announced on Monday that the organisation had resumed its programme to eradicate the Himalayan tahrs after court action by animal rights group Friends of the Tahr was dismissed last month.
The animals are being shot by sharpshooters from South African National Parks only and no outside hunters will be called in.
The drug Scoline, used to kill some of the tahrs in the past, would not be used again, Myrdal said.
"We do this (the culling) reluctantly and in the interests of biodiversity. We ask the public of South Africa to understand that the national parks team are animal lovers too, in fact nature lovers as a whole, with a profound understanding of ecology."
"Our team is also traumatised by the requirement of removal but, as custodians of the mountain and the sea, we have the responsibility to look to the future, which does entail carrying out difficult decisions. Ultimately we have to consider issues in terms of biodiversity conservation," Myrdal said.
The tahrs - wild goats indigenous to the Himalayas - have had a negative impact on Table Mountain's vegetation and were causing erosion, he said.
The tahrs' presence on the mountain prevented indigenous klipspringers from being re-introduced, Myrdal said. Tahrs were known to climb trees to eat leaves and also uprooted bulbs with their horns.
"This is having a devastating impact on a wide range of plants, at least 11 of which are endemic to Table Mountain," Myrdal said.
Klipspringers weighed between eight and 10kg and were solitary or occurred in pairs, while tahrs weighed between 50kg and 100kg and occurred
in herds, which caused greater erosion.
He said it would take about two years to eliminate the estimated 100 tahrs.
Conservation organisations that said on Monday they supported the culling, provided it was done humanely, were Cape Nature Conservation, the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa, the Botanical Society and the WWF (Worldwide Fund for Nature).
Adele Walker of the Cape Town SPCA said on Monday they were "not happy" with the
decision. "Before we can condone it, we want written justification that this is the only way."
Tony Frost, CEO of the WWF, said on Monday: "Tahrs don't belong on Table Mountain. It's a tough call for National Parks, but the quicker the culling's done the better because then we can all get past this angst."
Cecily Blumberg, former spokesperson of the now disbanded Friends of the Tahr, said on Monday it was unacceptable that National Parks officials "reached for a gun" to solve a problem created by humans.
"You can't hide cruelty under the guise of conservation. National Parks is showing
arrogance and disregard for the public, who have tried to come up with humane solutions," Blumberg said.
The tahr population grew from one pair that escaped from Groote Schuur Zoo in 1936. In the 1970s, there were about 700 tahrs. The then Cape Town City Council, which formerly controlled Table Mountain, began culling them in the 70s.
When National Parks took over control of the mountain, they resumed the culling programme in 2000. Friends of the Tahr objected and National Parks agreed to a moratorium.
"Friends of the Tahr were given every reasonable opportunity to undertake a removal and relocation programme but were unable to give effect to their own proposal," Myrdal said.
"Negotiations finally broke down when they refused to concede that any tahrs that were not captured be culled."
In 2003 Friends of the Tahr took National Parks to court to have the decision to eradicate the tahrs reviewed. Last month this application was dismissed by agreement.
Steve Raney, lawyer for National Parks, said he believed Friends of the Tahr agreed to the dismissal because they realised National Parks had not acted outside their mandate. The legal challenge had cost National Parks R500 000.
Neil Fraser, of the National Council for SPCAs and a member of National Parks animal ethics committee, said on Monday the proposal to cull the tahrs should first have come before the ethics committee for approval.
However, Peter Novellie, chairman of the ethics committee, said the proposal had been approved by the committee in 2001 and it "was not necessary" for it to come before the committee again.