Elephant culling could start within the year to reduce the animals' burgeoning numbers in parks and reserves around South Africa.
This includes Kruger National Park where an estimated 14 000 elephants are putting growing pressure on several habitats with their huge appetites and destructive feeding habits.
Conscious of the enormous sensitivities surrounding the issue, the government has gone to great lengths to ensure it will be done with the utmost circumspection. But it has also spelt out the painful detail of how it will be carried out.
The process will start on May 1 when parks authorities can start submitting their elephant management plans, including the option of culling, to the respective MECs in the case of provincial reserves and, in the case of national parks, to the Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Marthinus van Schalkwyk.
South Africa has about 18 000 elephants, and several parks have more pressing elephant problems than Kruger.
But as South Africa's internationally renowned flagship reserve, it will command the most attention. The chief executive of South African National Parks, David Mabunda, has given the assurance that the process of considering the options for the 20 000km² park's various regions will be thorough and transparent. In some cases culling might be an option.
"We now have the procedures and processes in place. Our teams will do the necessary assessment. There will be no bloodletting," he said.
Announcing the decision to adopt culling as a method, Van Schalkwyk gave the assurance at a media briefing here yesterday that steps had been taken "to ensure that this will be the option of last resort that is acceptable only under strict conditions".
There was no intention of "wholesale slaughter".
Culling would be permitted only in terms of a culling plan prepared by the reserve owner and management with the assistance of an ecologist who is a recognised elephant management specialist.
The plan would need to show that the existing or projected elephant numbers were "incompatible with the agreed land-use objectives spelt out in the management plan and that a reduction in population numbers was therefore necessary".
It would also need to show that all other population management options, such as reserve expansion, contraception and translocation, had been rejected by an ecologist.
Promulgated under the Biodiversity Act, the National Norms and Standards for the Management of Elephants also prescribe the methods of culling. An elephant which is part of a cow-calf group may only be culled if the entire cow-calf group, including the matriarch and juvenile bulls, is culled. The same applies if an elephant is one of a group of juvenile elephants.
Culling must be done quickly and humanely, using a rifle with a minimum of .375 calibre and bullets with a full metal jacket monolithic construction with a minimum weight of 300 grains. Soft-nosed bullets cannot be used.
Van Schalkwyk said no consideration had yet been given to providing local communities with meat from the culled elephants, or to using any body parts in ways that would question South Africa's commitment to Cites (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species).
Tusks would be stored until such time as another selling-off agreement was reached. He pointed out that before culling was stopped in 1994, communities round Kruger Park used to be given the meat.
"We'll probably do something like that again, but we'll manage it carefully."
Noting how widely the government had consulted since 2005, Van Schalkwyk said: "I hope that stakeholders with widely differing views and from all points of the global compass will agree that the consultative process was comprehensive and that their views have been carefully considered, if not always adopted.
"There are few other creatures on Earth that have the ability of elephants to connect with humans in a very special way."
He thought the new legislation balanced the interest of elephants with all other aspects of biodiversity and social values. It included a "toolbox" of options for the animals' management.
Dr Rob Little, conservation manager of the Worldwide Fund for Nature, said the objective was to safeguard South Africa's natural heritage.
The International Fund for Animal Welfare, which opposes culling, said the legislation should be strict enough to ensure it is truly done only as a last resort.