Eastern Cape Parks plans to manage protected areas within the province according to sound ecological principles.
Eastern Cape Parks plans to manage protected areas within the province according to sound ecological principles.
The number of animals taken from or introduced to an area is based on the principle that the primary purpose of protected areas is to conserve biodiversity.
Given the small size and fragmented nature of the reserves and the artificial conditions created by fencing, disruption of natural movement patterns, the absence of large predators and the provision of artificial water, it becomes necessary to intervene and manipulate the indigenous large mammal populations.
Scientific Services Head, Dr Dave Balfour explains, “We have placed a fence around the protected areas where the mammals are, thus affecting their natural distribution. “Ideally they would move across the landscape in a way that suited them.
Fences prevent that, impacting on what happens to those animals and how they behave. “In some cases there won’t be enough of the right habitat and the population will decline.
In other cases there’ll be only good habitat, the animals will thrive and then will have to be managed.” The eradication of all exotic or alien species is part of Eastern Cape Parks’ overall management plan.
“We’ve been going through a process of, primarily but not exclusively, reducing the exotic species here. Nationally we define alien species as being animals that didn’t occur in South Africa.
Eastern Cape Parks takes the ecological definition as being what naturally occurred on that bit of land. “We take into account archaeological records, rock art, ecological requirements and expert knowledge,” says Balfour.
“Many in the Eastern Cape argue that if, for example, a goat, which is an exotic animal, can be kept here so can an nyala which is from Zululand. But there is a difference.
A goat, being semidomesticated, is very easy to follow up on and exterminate if necessary. Nyala naturalise themselves and become feral, once released they are virtually impossible to get rid of.”
Warthogs from Zululand (the common warthog) were introduced into the Eastern Cape in 1972. At the time it was understood that this warthog was the same species as the indigenous Cape warthog which had gone extinct in the mid 19th century.
The introduced warthog, however, with its functional incisors is ripping up the roots of grasses and is negatively impacting the natural environment.
Current research suggests that it is a different species of warthog and that it has lower front teeth which the indigenous animals didn’t have.
Removing these warthogs is proving impossible whereas getting rid of domesticated pigs, for example, is not a problem.
“Domesticated animals behave differently to wild animals and the release of indigenous animals into the landscape is quite different from the release of domesticated animals.” says Balfour.
For this year’s off-take, an estimate of predator impact (predator simulation) on indigenous herbivore populations has been used, for the first time in the Eastern Cape, to guide decisions on large herbivore management in the larger reserves.
The logic behind this is that large predators are an important component of natural systems and are known to have a major influence on the dynamics of large herbivore populations.
Currently none of the Eastern Cape Parks reserves have the full complement of natural predators and as a result the ecological processes related to predation have been compromised.
When ecological processes are compromised, there can be far reaching consequences for the dynamics of the rest of the system. In order to deal with this, management that simulates the natural ecological process is instituted.
