Culling elephants would only be considered as a last resort, after contraception or translocation, a senior official in the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism told MPs on Tuesday

Leseho Sello, a chief director in the department, was briefing the Portfolio Committee on Environmental Affairs and Tourism on national norms and standards for management of elephants.

Translocation and even contraception, she explained, are the preferred ways of managing South Africa's growing elephant population.

While these are the preferred options, South Africa had not removed from the table the option of culling the animals, Ms Sello said.

But the Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, had instructed that culling be considered only as a very last resort, she said.

The Draft Norms and Standards were published in the Government Gazette on Friday 2 March, 2007 for public comment, and the closing date for submissions was 4 May.

The chief director in the DEAT conceded that massive international pressure against culling - led by a variety of animal welfare groups and others - made it a very unattractive option.

The culling of these huge but gentle beasts is a very delicate and extremely emotional issue for many people, she said.

The process of developing a strategy to deal with the increasing numbers of elephants in South Africa began after reports from stakeholders including South African National Parks that pointed to ever-larger numbers of the giant beasts in the Kruger National Park.

The increase in elephant numbers presents a threat to the sustainability of the environment that the elephants need for survival, she said, adding that fauna was being diminished to the point where large sections of the park could become barren.

This would reduce the animals' own food sources and ultimately result in a situation where the growth of the population could then threaten their survival, she said.

The overpopulation of elephants presented a problem not only to South Africa but was effecting Namibia, Botswana, Zambia and Tanzania as well, Ms Sello said.

Anti-culling lobbyists had sent the minister many petitions against culling and some lobbyists had even threatened to organise tourist boycotts of the country should the government use culling to reduce elephant populations, Ms Sello told MPs.

Given that tourism is a major contributor to South Africa's gross domestic product - and with eco-tourism being one of the fastest-growing areas of this sector - this makes it an undesirable option.

In pragmatic terms, "it is not wise to fix one problem and thereby create an even bigger one", Ms Sello said, adding that a moratorium on culling had been in place since the mid-1990s.

However, one could not conserve elephants at the cost of other species, she said.

Translocation of the animals remains a key option but is also one that needs to be handled sensitively, because the social nature of elephants means that entire herds would need to be moved to single destinations.

This makes the translocation option an expensive one, leaving MPs to consider creative ways of handling the issue while bearing in mind the costs involved.

While many of South Africa's neighbouring countries also have large populations, the chair of the committee pointed out that countries emerging from recent wars had radically reduced animal populations and they would benefit from such translocations.

Such countries include the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola and Mozambique, with the latter already being a recipient of several elephants.

And other countries were also continually approaching the ministry "asking for animals", said Ms Sello, citing Tunisia as one such country.

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