Leakey backs elephant cull in South Africa

by Amy Judd | March 19, 2008 at 03:33 pm

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One of the most prominent conservationists in the world, who spent most of the 1980s campaigning for the suspension of elephant culling, is now calling it "a necessary part of population management." South Africa has too many elephants after a 14 gap of letting them breed and grow, but now the animals eating peoples' crops and drinking their water so they are becoming a problem.
Isn't there any other way though?

But Dr Leakey says there is also a responsibility to curb human activities that impinge on elephant habitat.

South Africa plans to allow culling after a gap of 14 years because of growing numbers of elephants.

The population is estimated to have expanded from 8,000 to 18,000 in little more than a decade.

The plan has aroused the ire of some environment and animal welfare groups.

Some are so opposed to the plan that they have called for tourist boycotts.

Necessary evil

Having made his name as a palaeontologist studying the origins of humanity in Africa, the 1980s saw Dr Leakey at the forefront of the movement campaigning for the suspension of elephant culling.

But now he sees it as necessary.