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R/£ Friends of the Tahrs 'staging a pantomime'
April 05, 2004 Edition -1
Jo-Anne Smetherham
In an unprecedented attack, 23 of South Africa's top environmentalists have accused the Friends of the Tahrs animal rights group of staging a "pantomime" in efforts to save the alien tahrs on Table Mountain.
The shaggy, goatlike animals are causing increasing destruction to the delicate mountain ecology and will inevitably have to be killed, the high-profile group wrote in a letter to a weekend newspaper.
"It is time to stop this pantomime and let the South African National Parks do their work," they wrote, referring to former culling operations. "The tahrs must go.
"The South African National Parks has so many vital conservation challenges upon which to spend their very limited money, to expect them to pay for the capture and relocation (of the tahrs) is wrong."
This demand was particularly illogical, said the group, when the justification was that the animals were "graceful" and "handsome".
"Why be kind to tahrs specifically? Why not a 'Friends of the Norwegian rat', or a 'Friends of the cholera virus'?"
Led by Working for Water chairman Guy Preston, the environmentalists drafted the letter in a bid for support for the Table Mountain National Park, which is facing a high court case brought by Friends of the Tahrs.
A-rated scientists, top alien species experts and conservation policy experts were among those who signed.
A pair of tahrs escaped from the zoo on Table Mountain 70 years ago and in decades bred to thousands. Culling was stopped after public protests.
In April 2000 the culling began again, but Friends of the Tahrs asked the Public Protector to intervene. National park authorities gave Friends of the Tahrs time to raise the money to relocate the animals, but the group did not raise enough.
The two parties have exchanged legal letters, but Friends of the Tahrs has reportedly not given its reply to park authorities, so a court date has not yet been set.
There were now more than 100 tahrs on Table Mountain, more than a quarter of them juveniles, said the letter. The longer the wait, the greater the number of tahrs that would have to be killed, at increasing cost.
Preston said it cost R10 000 an hour to keep a helicopter in the air to hunt or capture the tahrs, which were becoming more adept at hiding.
The tahrs have overgrazed some parts of the mountain, causing bad erosion, especially on Devil's Peak. They dig up plants, instead of eating only the leaves, and have eaten the young growth in some areas damaged by fire.
Friends of the Tahrs had not raised money to transport the animals back to their natural habitat. This would be a "highly questionable" practice, in any case, because the tahrs would probably carry African pathogens.
The signatories are: Global Invasive Species Programme director Phoebe Barnard, UCT scientist William Bond, Sue Milton of Stellenbosch University, Keith Cooper of Wildlife and Environment Society of SA, Cape Nature Conservation Board chief David Daitz, National Botanical Institute head Brian Huntley, world authority on invasive alien species Dave Richardson, head of a World-Bank sponsored programme to preserve the Cape Floral Kingdom, Tre-vor Sandwith, Ian Macdonald, Christo Marais, Naomi Mdzeke, Ahmed Khan, Nceba Ngcobo, Tony Rebelo, Patricia Holmes, Roy Siegfried, Khungeka Njobe, Rob Little, Bruce McKenzie and Dave McDonald, Brian van Wilgen of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and former National Parks head Mavuso Msimang.
Friends of the Tahrs spokeswoman Jeanne Wadee was overseas. Friends member Cecily Blumberg said in her personal capacity: "If the parties involved put their heads together in a spirit of goodwill, the funding would inevitably come about."
Another member Chris Mercer said: "Consultation must relate directly to the decision-making process, and Sanpark's legal duty was to spell out to the public what it intended to do ... That never happened in this case ... because the officials knew ... there would be a public outcry ... so it deliberately acted to stifle public dissent."
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