The wild story of Table Mountain’s Himalayan Tahrs

Did you know there’s a shaggy mountain resident living rent-free on one of the world’s most famous landmarks? In fact, it’s not supposed to be there. But this is the intriguing story of the Himalayan tahr, a goat-like creature that’s been roaming Table Mountain for decades, ever since a few crafty escapees bolted from the old Groote Schuur Zoo back in the 1970s. 

The zoo was established in 1931 by the state using Cecil Rhodes' private menagerie, and closed around 1980. Today, the zoo is abandoned, but in its heyday, it housed lions, crocodiles and a shaggy-looking mountain goat called the Himalayan tahr. 

The zoo animals’ enclosures were not very big and wouldn’t be considered acceptable according to today’s zoo welfare standards. They were small and easy to break out of (and into). For example, in 1974 three inebriated UCT students who had just won a rugby game tried to steal a lion cub from the zoo. One of the students was bitten by one of the lionesses and rushed to hospital, where he took six months to recover.

Clearly, tipsy students have been doing silly things after rugby games since forever!

Similarly, other animals found ways out, including several Sambar deer. The tiny pens might have been why two of the Himalayan tahrs staged a breakout, escaped from the zoo and eloped to Table Mountain, where they didn’t ta(h)rry but immediately started a big family. This family has since grown into a whole population of tahrs that trot around and about Table Mountain.

This would seem like a fairy tale story for the tahr – to escape and live on one of the 7 natural wonders of the world, especially given that the Himalayan tahr is listed on the IUCN Red List as Near Vulnerable in its natural home (on the Himalayan mountains naturally).

But there is a twist to the tale.

The tahrs are not indigenous species in the fynbos of the Cape, and so there has been an ongoing debate about their right to live in other creatures’ habitats, particularly in the habitat of our very own little indigenous bokkies – the klipspringers. These tiny-hoofed, short-nosed, rock- hoppingantelope have first dibs to our mountain range. If the bigger, more robust tahrs are eating their food and scaring them away, then we need to do something about it, as the klipspringer deserves to live too.

However, it’s a bit like a Brexit situation - do we welcome the newcomers or exclude them?

There is no easy answer to that question, and it is important that we hear all different voices on the matter. Researchers at the University of Cape Town did camera studies to investigate whether the tahrs and klipspringers were competing with each other. It turned out to be very difficult to answer that question, firstly because it is very difficult to set up camera traps on sheer cliff faces, and secondly, the results showed that the tahrs preferred the sheer, cliffy rock faces whereas the klipspringer were found in the slightly gentler but rocky slopes of the mountain.

Tahrs are more common on the‘Backtable’ south‐western end and klipspringers are more common on the northern tabletop of the Table Mountain section. But it’s not clear whether the tahr displaced the klipspringer from the more sheer slopes in the past or whether they have always preferred different habitats. 

A few years ago the parks authority proposed to cull the tahrs and a little army of tahr-supporters raised their voices in protest. I remember wondering at the time where the klipspringer’s-friends were? Do the klipspringers not matter as much as the tahrs? Ethical questions that need to be pondered. Or, at least, for researchers to find the necessary investment to answer these conundrums.

According to SANParks, the tahrs’ generalist feeding habits, gregarious nature, and adaptability negatively impact native plant communities and soil structure. Has this had significant impacts on the mountain’s ecosystems? They are tracking tahr to find out more.

Is it possible that the klipspringers can live in some sort of balance with the tahr?  Professor Nicoli Nattrass from the University of Cape Town brought attention to similar issues with feral sambar deer (escapees from the same zoo) on Table Mountain, suggesting that it might be possible for sambar deer to be ‘eligible’ to stay on the mountain under SANParks’s‘Coordinated policy framework’ which accepts that in some circumstances, where alien species are not a significant threat to biodiversity, they may be ‘accepted as part of the cultural landscape and/or ecosystem of a particular park where they have been identified as historically or culturally significant’ (SANParks, 2023).   

The recent sightings of the tahrs in the Slangolie Ravine by hikers have sparked up all the questions again about the significance of the impact of tahrs on Table Mountain. It all comes down to the need to be engaging in research about herbivore-vegetation dynamics. We can be grateful that we have such a dedicated, diligent authority – SANParks – worrying about our klipspringers and beautiful fynbos, and that we have excellent researchers at our universities working to answer these difficult questions.

If you spot tahr on our mountain, please record it on iNaturalist or report to the SANParks Table Mountain National Park. Every little bit of information is a puzzle piece for the scientists to add to the jigsaw puzzle that is tahrs on our table.