By Jon Herskovitz
JOHANNESBURG Aug 15 (Reuters) – A South African province
home to thousands of elephants is planning a birth control
campaign for the pachyderms to prevent a population explosion
that could threaten plants and wildlife.
Unlike other parts of Africa where elephant stocks have
dwindled to dangerously low levels due to poaching and a loss of
habitat, South Africa has seen its populations steadily grow
through conservation, with the country pressed for room to house
the massive animals with hefty diets.
KwaZulu-Natal province, in the southeast, is looking to
expand a project running for more than a decade where elephants
populations have been controlled by injecting cows with a
vaccine that triggers an immune system response to block sperm
reception.
“Slowing the growth rate will allow time to be gained to
achieve other biodiversity objectives, such as land expansion,
without having to cull the elephants,” said Catherine Hanekom,
an ecologist for Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife.
South Africa, which had just over 100 elephants nearly a
century ago, now has more than 20,000, studies said.
The overpopulation problem is the most dire in neighbouring
Botswana, home to at least 133,000 elephants, where vast forests
have been lost to satiate their appetites. With a human
population of 2 million, it has the highest elephant-to-people
ratio in Africa, at one for every 14 people.
Adult elephants consume about 100 to 300 kgs (220 to 660
pounds) of food a day and most elephants in South Africa are in
fenced-in reserves where vegetation could be decimated if
populations grow too large.
“Because we have taken away opportunities, they don’t have
the chance to remedy the overpopulation naturally as they would
through migration,” said Audrey Delsink Kettles, an elephant
ecologist who has been leading studies for years on
contraception at Makalali Private Game Reserve.
Continued…
