JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA — South Africa announced Monday that it would allow the killing of elephants as a population control, a move strongly condemned by animal welfare groups.
Beginning in May, the government will lift a 13-year ban on elephant culls, usually carried out by shooting entire herds, including youngsters, from helicopters.
The move could hurt the country's tourist industry, with animal welfare lobbies calling for a tourist boycott to protest culling.
South Africa slaughtered more than 14,500 elephants from 1967 to 1995, before halting the practice because of international pressure.
"From 1 May there will no longer be as a policy a moratorium on the culling of elephants. We will allow culling in certain parts of the country. But there is no intention of wholesale slaughter," Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk said Monday.
The guidelines call for humane killing, specifying that a rifle of at least .375 caliber be used. Sharpshooters usually kill entire herds because of the complex social structure of elephants and because the young need to be taught social behavior by adults in order to survive.
Animal welfare organizations, which strongly oppose the reintroduction of culling, said there was no humane way to kill elephants. Animal Rights Africa vowed to campaign for a tourist boycott.
Though elephants are endangered in other parts of Africa, the population in South Africa is robust. But the issue of culling is emotional for many, because of elephants' intelligence and elaborate social behaviors. Elephants have been known to grieve for their dead.
South Africa has 18,000 elephants, including more than 12,500 in Kruger National Park, one of the country's major tourist attractions. SANParks, the agency in charge of parks and national game reserves, called for culling in a 2005 report to the government, arguing that too many elephants threaten other species.
Van Schalkwyk said Monday that there was also concern about elephants' effect on the landscape and the people living near the herds.
Before culling, reserve managers will have to prove that they have excess elephants and that killing is the only effective option.
"We don't support culling in any shape or form," Christina Pretorius, Cape Town-based spokeswoman for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said in a telephone interview. "We don't believe there's any humane way to cull.
