11 Aug 2020

It is estimated that there are between 1 200 and 1 500 elephants in the Bobirwa area.

The Minister of Environment, Natural Resources, Conservation and Tourism, Ms Philda Kereng, said this when answering a question in Parliament on August 10.

Ms Kereng said, due to the difficulty in measuring carrying capacity for wild herbivores in natural, open and variable systems, the concept of carrying capacity could not be applied to wildlife management such as the case with Bobirwa where elephants were mobile due to forage resources and water.“The carrying capacity concept was borrowed from livestock ranching where grazing resources could easily be quantified and related to the number of cattle a given area can support over a defined period,” she stated.

She said the elephant population in the Bobirwa area fluctuated because of movements depending on rainfall and range conditions and therefore it was difficult to make a scientific or management determination as to whether the elephant population in Bobirwa had exceeded its ecological carrying capacity or not.

Ms Kereng further said the focus of elephant management in the Bobirwa area was on managing impacts that elephants had on people and their environment.

She stated that this was achieved through hunting of elephants in hotspot areas and translocation to other parts of the country.

“An example of this is the recent translocation of 18 elephants from Tuli Block to Makgadikgadi Pans National Park due to negative impact on vegetation. Efforts are underway to engage farmers in the Tuli block on their offer to maintain the Tuli Backline fence which is intended to reduce conflict in the area,” she explained.

Furthermore, the minister said the Elephant Management Plan which was currently being finalized also proposed interventions such as the use of barriers or obstacles around water installations and the upgrading of fences in the area to make them elephant proof among others.

She was answering a question from MP for Bobonong, Mr Taolo Lucas, who had asked the minister to update Parliament on the estimated number of elephants in the Bobirwa area and to state whether the population of elephants had not exceeded the carrying capacity of the available land in the area.Further, Mr Lucas asked the minister to state the nature of elephant population management strategies employed in the Bobirwa area. ENDS