ETHICS IN DAMAGE CONTROL

We need to briefly look at abuse to animals and the clashes between ADC and the Greens. The reason for some of the worst criticism that the damage alleviation industry has to endure is caused by individuals that do not adhere to basic animal welfare standards. There is an element of malice in such acts. This has to be condemned in the strongest possible term. Even though the animals may cause serious damage it is not done through malice. Even if the animals have to be killed it has to be done with compassion and as humanely as possible. The handeling of captured animals that are live-captured has to be as professional as possible and with the least amount of stress possible.

The great majority of people involved in ADC (farmers, and organizations) are decent people that do not act in malice or willfully cause any unnecessary stress to captured animals. An element that might receive more attention in this respect is training - the better informed people are the less animals will suffer. When a person suffers damage and does not have a reliable solution they would often take desperate measures that would not happen when they feel comfortable in handling the situation well.

Equipment has to be matched to the target animal as far as the size and strength is concerned. The configuration of the of any equipment that touch and restrain an animal has to be suitable. Thus a capture cage must never be covered by expanded metal. The animals get their toes cut or claws extracted by such material. Cats that had all their claws cut in such a way cannot be released in nature as they would not be able hold on to their prey to secure food for themselves. Leghold traps must have broad jaws with rounded edges and springs to match the size animal. The most commonly sold leghold trap in South Africa has narrow, sharp edged jaws and springs that are to strong. If it does not break the leg in closing, the blood supply is cut off and the animal looses its foot. The sharp edges breaks the skin and cuts into the muscles. The sale and use of such equipment is unethical. In our modern world proper traps can easily be imported from America or Europe. 

There are laboratories in Europe and on the North American continent that are dedicated to setting standards for traps that include the time till death for lethal traps and the extent of injuries that are tolerated for non-lethal traps. The standards have been developed to such an extent that the European Parliament has promulgated a law that specify the injuries and times as mentioned above for certain species. The law also includes provision for penalties to member states that allow these standards to be broken. More importantly it also has provision for boycotting tarding partners that does not comply to these standard. We still time, but not for to long, to clear up our act in this respect or we may face boycotts of our wool, meat and some other industries.

As discussed under Important Concepts, not all individual predators cause damage. The next unethical issue, therefore, focusses on the practice of private proble animal contractors that offer as service and get paid by individual carcass of the target species. This leads to killing as many as possible in as short a time as possible. Often getting a packet out of the deal but not necesaarily solving the problem. There is a trend for these operators, especialy those that call & shoot, to be hesitant to revisit farms, because they know that the animals learn quickly, and that consecutive visits will prove progressively less profitable.

Another aspect in which private operators excell is to kill enough animals to make a good living and make the producers feel that they are benefitting, but not totally solving the problem. Thus ensuring work for the future. This leads to ongoing control and the resulting ethical issues, even though by more thourough work the problem can be stopped. There is a seroius tendency not to be willing to except, and employ new techniques that stem from research that make control more effective. Unfortunately this trend is encouraged by producers that feel comforted by seeing dead problem animals, instead of demanding reduction in losses. It is bad for business and therefore ignored. However it would be beneficial in reducing conflict and animal welfare issues.

The next aspect under dicussion is the trend, encouraged by the Greens, but also by some more serious or even professional conservation bodies to "jump to conclutions" and thereby promoting equipment or methods that seem to work well but have not been properly investigated and proves to be environmentally damaging. The issue around the poison 1080 serves as an example. The little knowledge that was freely available presented 1080 as an humane and almost ideal poison for damage control of mostly dog like animal like the jackal. Proper investigation of this toxin, however revealed a totally different picture and exposed 1080 as an exteremly inhumane and environmentally damaging substance.

The opposite - not acting to obvious problems because no scientific proof and thereby allowing for serious damage to our environment. Case in point is the issue of elephant management in South African National Parks. Anybody with even elementary understanding of the population dynamics of herbivores know that these animals will increase underfavourable conditions to the extent they will become drastically destructive to their environment when conditions are not at their best. Mother nature used to deal with this problem by mass die-offs under extermely distressing conditions of those animals. Only the strongest survive this ordeal and are able to repopulate when conditions turn for the better. Human culling to maintain such populations within the carrying capacity of reserves are invariably much more humane than Mother Nature's ways. By not culling habitats are destroyed and an untold number of species suffer from and dissapear because of the detruction of their habitat. This causes much worse welfare issues than culling by professional conservators can even be imagined to be accused off. This actually is a serious threat  to our natural haritage - through their ignirance an focussing on individual animals the Greens endanger whole habitats and populations of animals.

The last unethical issue I want to deal with curently is a growing practice in South Africa, whereby Green individuals proclaim some very common problem species as endangered and set up rehabiltation centers for these animals. Funding is secured from international green sources by marketing their dedication in saving this species. Emotional blackmail invariably forms part of their strategy and publications and web-sites contail countless photographs of baby animals. By appealing to maternal instincts they succeed in maintaining an comfortable lifestyle without having to do an honest day's work. The animals mainly involved is the two larger primates (Baboon & vervet monkey) and some of the medium to large predators. A serious delterious conservation aspects of these operators include the mixing of subspecies in the animals in captivity, before release and releasing subspecies in totally wrong  areas. Again this obsession with saving the lives of individual animals make a big mess of principles of conservation as set by the Word Conservation Union (IUCN). Much more harm is done than the humane destruction of the individual animals would even do.

The most disconserting aspect of the influence of the Greens is the fact that even goverment departments responsible for conservation seem to be listening more and more to the demands of the Greens (This group mostly consists of individuals with no formal background in conservation, but lives on emotion), instead of to the rational guidance by professioanally trained and dedicated  conservationist, often with decades of experience.

The last statement can be illustrated by quoting from Frank Herbert in Dune.

"The thing the ecologically illiterate don't realize about an ecosystem, ... is that it is a system. A System!"

"...the highest function of ecology is the understanding of consequences."