Marksman to cull island animals
18 September 2009, 11:01
By Craig McKune
A renewed attempt to manage Robben Island's feral animals - including rabbits, guinea fowl and cats - is set to begin, and a marksman has been chosen for culling operations.
Robben Island Museum interim chief executive Henry Bredekamp said yesterday that details would be announced on the island today, and sharpshooter John Kieser confirmed he had been contracted to cull.
Kieser is contractually not allowed to give details about the Robben Island operation.
He said he was a "conservationist and an island ecologist" and experienced in animal control.
"I was involved in the removal of rabbits from Bird Island in Algoa Bay. I started before that at Marion Island, where I worked in the cat eradication programme."
Les Underhill, director of the UCT's Animal Demography Unit, said guinea fowl would not have occurred naturally on the island.
"The island has been hammered hard under the weight of all these additional species."
The rabbits and deer had "grazed the plants into a kind of a desert".
It would not, however, make sense to adopt too purist an approach to the island's ecology, Underhill said.
"I don't think we're looking at a classic nature reserve set-up here.
"We can't just remove every invasive species - somehow we have to manage to capture the cultural and biodiversity history of the island, although they don't all strictly belong. Clearly, we can't allow the population to go unmanaged, because then we'd just destroy the habitat."
The Cape of Good Hope SPCA's wildlife inspectors were being consulted about the management of the rabbits, guinea fowl and cats, the head of the organisation, Alan Perrins, said.
About 3 000 rabbits were caught and put down in the operation launched in November, but a count by UCT's Animal Demography Unit in February put the number that remained at about 5 000.
The then-manager of heritage resources on the island, Shaun Davis, said it was unlikely all the rabbits would be culled.
CapeNature had not been involved in the management of Robben Island's animals recently, spokeswoman Liesl Brink said, but its position remained unchanged. It did not support the translocation of invasive game species, and no live rabbits were to leave the island, although some fallow deer could be moved to the mainland under strict conditions.
Perrins has said the island's fallow deer population has grown to an unsustainable size. It was reported earlier this year that the deer could be sterilised.
A renewed attempt to manage Robben Island's feral animals - including rabbits, guinea fowl and cats - is set to begin, and a marksman has been chosen for culling operations.
Robben Island Museum interim chief executive Henry Bredekamp said yesterday that details would be announced on the island today, and sharpshooter John Kieser confirmed he had been contracted to cull.
Kieser is contractually not allowed to give details about the Robben Island operation.
He said he was a "conservationist and an island ecologist" and experienced in animal control.
"I was involved in the removal of rabbits from Bird Island in Algoa Bay. I started before that at Marion Island, where I worked in the cat eradication programme."
Les Underhill, director of the UCT's Animal Demography Unit, said guinea fowl would not have occurred naturally on the island.
"The island has been hammered hard under the weight of all these additional species."
The rabbits and deer had "grazed the plants into a kind of a desert".
It would not, however, make sense to adopt too purist an approach to the island's ecology, Underhill said.
"I don't think we're looking at a classic nature reserve set-up here.
"We can't just remove every invasive species - somehow we have to manage to capture the cultural and biodiversity history of the island, although they don't all strictly belong. Clearly, we can't allow the population to go unmanaged, because then we'd just destroy the habitat."
The Cape of Good Hope SPCA's wildlife inspectors were being consulted about the management of the rabbits, guinea fowl and cats, the head of the organisation, Alan Perrins, said.
About 3 000 rabbits were caught and put down in the operation launched in November, but a count by UCT's Animal Demography Unit in February put the number that remained at about 5 000.
The then-manager of heritage resources on the island, Shaun Davis, said it was unlikely all the rabbits would be culled.
CapeNature had not been involved in the management of Robben Island's animals recently, spokeswoman Liesl Brink said, but its position remained unchanged. It did not support the translocation of invasive game species, and no live rabbits were to leave the island, although some fallow deer could be moved to the mainland under strict conditions.
Perrins has said the island's fallow deer population has grown to an unsustainable size. It was reported earlier this year that the deer could be sterilised.
- This article was originally published on page 1 of The Cape Times on September 18, 2009
