BADPLAAS – Dubai World Africa, owners of Nkomazi Nature Reserve, has no intention of killing an elephant cow and its calf in the reserve – not today, not tomorrow and not ever.
The company reacted to a report in Beeld which stated that the lives of the animals were hanging in the balance and that the reserve had obtained permits to euthanise them after they had displayed aggressive behaviour by tipping over a game-viewing vehicle about six weeks ago.
The managing director of the company, Mr Nick Webb, spoke to Lowvelder about the incident and described the game-viewing drive on that particular day in early January, as “normal”.
“A herd of elephant was spotted and the tour guide parked the vehicle about 30 to
40 metres away. The whole herd of elephants walked past the vehicle and included this cow with her almost nine-month-old calf.”
The guests remained seated and was very quiet while the elephants moved past the vehicle.
“Without warning or provocation, this particular cow turned around and without showing any sign of aggression, which usually includes a flapping of ears or any trumpeting, she just grabbed the top bar of the vehicle and tipped it onto its side. She stood there watching them for a while and then without further ado, turned back to the rest of the herd and they all continued on their way.”
Nobody was injured.
“As procedure dictates, we reported the incident to the Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Agency and as a precaution we applied for a permit to have the animal euthanised if necessary, subject to evaluation by our most experienced wildlife expert. Never ever was there any final discussion to put this animal down. We might consider to translocate the animals to a larger reserve where there would be less contact with vehicles and the public, but not even that had been discussed.”
Webb explained further:
“We must remember that even with the best regulations, practices and procedures in place during game viewing, one can never completely rule out the possibility of incidents. That is the nature of nature.”
Webb commented that there had been some very unfortunate and misleading statements made on social media about this incident.
Senior manager of wildlife protection at MTPA, Mr Jan Muller told Lowvelder, “Very careful consideration by experts in the field of wildlife protection would always be called upon, before granting any permit to remove an animal.” He also said that the protection of wildlife was their responsibility as an institution and that they didn’t take it lightly.
