the debate on elephant culling in South Africa

Elephant culling is the practice of controlling elephant populations by killing them, as human settlements encroach on their natural habitats in a battle for limited space.

The purpose of this publication is to provide an overview of the International Fund for Animal Welfare's (IFAW) views with respect to the ongoing debate around elephant culling in the Kruger National Park. Intended for government officials, decision makers and other interested parties, this document outlines the status of the debate in 2005 and highlights a number of inconsistencies in the arguments put forward by SANParks and others in favour of a resumption of elephant culling.

This document was written in 2005. For more recent updates on IFAW’s work to protect elephants in Africa, explore our active, top-priority projects:

• Elephant Nursery and Landscape Project - Zimbabwe
• Malawi Zambia Elephant Landscape Project
• Elephant Rescue and Rehabilitation Project - Burkina Faso
• Elephant Orphanage Project - Zambia
• tenBoma: Wildlife Security - Africa

Read the introduction of the executive summary of this publication below:

In September 2005 South African National Parks (SANParks) presented their Report on the Elephant Management Strategy to the Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism recommending that culling be approved as one of several methods of controlling elephant populations in the Kruger National Park (KNP) and elsewhere. 

All interested parties were invited by Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk to make further submissions on the issue before the compilation by his Department (of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) of a draft set of Norms and Standards which will form the basis of elephant management and policy in South Africa.

This document is scheduled to be published towards the end of 2005 and further comment is invited thereafter. A final set of Norms and Standards are expected to be published before the end of the first quarter of 2006. 

The Norms and Standards will be adapted for specific circumstances in other national, provincial and private parks. 

Elephant culling in the KNP was suspended in 1995 partially due to a change in management concepts and partially in response to high levels of international and local pressure from groups and individuals opposed to the practice. 

Since then the elephant populations in the KNP and in the approximately 80 other national parks, provincial, and private reserves have continued to increase. 

Prior to 1995 the population in the KNP was maintained at around 7,500 with a few hundred animals occurring in Addo Elephant National Park. 

Today South Africa has a total elephant population of about 17,000, of which about 12,500 occur in the KNP and about 1,500 - 2,000 in the private reserves along the western border of the Park. The balance are to be found in provincial parks, other national parks and private reserves other than those on the KNP's western border. There are free ranging elephants in seven of South Africa's nine provinces and they are absent only from Free State and Northern Cape.