The Vanishing Herds

AFRICA, and particularly British East Africa, is generally considered the foremost stronghold of spectacular wild fauna in the world, an area teeming with vast herds which are composed of an extraordinary diversity of species. Earlier in the century, this was indeed the case. But the rapid pace of settlement and development has altered the image of a wild unspoiled Africa, particularly since the beginning of World War II.

Today, those immense herds are but mere memories, except for a very few in the famous national parks and sanctuaries. Large animals outside of the major parks are being rapidly and disastrously eliminated at an ever-increasing pace because of widespread destruction of habitat through settlement and ranching projects, shooting to control disease carriers (especially the tsetse fly), and poaching. Conservative estimates indicate that well over half of the original wildlife areas have been eliminated and that more than three fourths of the animals in the remaining areas have been killed. People in government and economic planning circles believe that over much of Africa all large animals will be completely wiped out during the next decade or two, except perhaps in fenced national parks and on a few tracts of marginal lands.

Raids on the African fauna south of the Sahara have been continuing ever since the earliest Arab and European explorers and merchants established footholds. The elephant was the first mammal to be exploited on a commercial scale by these early adventurers, and slaves often were required to carry precious ivory from the interior to the coast. In the east, the Arabs stripped the central Tanganyika area lying along the route to Ujiji of its finest ivory long before the arrival of the Europeans. And at a much later date, more than one million elephant tusks were purchased by one of several agents operating at the Red Sea port of Suakin. These tusks were carried by caravans from the Sudan and Ethiopia between 1853 and 1878.

During the nineteenth century, unscrupulous European hunters slaughtered much of the fauna on South African plains, and this was followed to a lesser extent by similar activities in East Africa. Little sporting ingenuity was required in those early days, for enormous congregations of wildlife blackened the veld. In East Africa, the impact of the European became critical during the early phase of World War 11. Large numbers of animals were killed off to feed the troops, many natives were armed for the first time, and jeeps penetrated to every last water hole. During the Italian campaign, some herds were extirpated by machine guns.

In addition, there have been numerous official government projects to destroy wildlife in the effort to control the tsetse fly. Notorious are the schemes in Natal and Uganda, and particularly Southern Rhodesia, where there have been decades of wasteful slaughter in the name of government fly control — some of it successful, much of it not. Since 1924, it is estimated that at least 1.25 million head of wild animals have been destroyed in operations against the tsetse fly in Southern Rhodesia alone. In the 70,000-acre Umfolozi White Rhino Reserve in Natal, over 110,000 head of all wildlife species except rhinos were killed from 1942 until 1950. It is important to remember that Africans have witnessed or actually carried out most of these controlled shootings under European supervision.

The European confuses many of the Africans. First he orders that all wildlife be killed off in a tsetse campaign; next he desperately attempts to preserve wildlife in other areas called national parks! Africans have seen the destruction of wildlife all across the continent and, more recently, they have started to play a major destructive role also. To understand why, it is essential to review some historical developments.

PRIOR to the coming of the European, constant intertribal conflict, famine, pestilence, and disease kept the human population at a low level. In the places where the herds covered the landscape, primitive man was, in every sense, merely a clever and effective predator. In other regions, tribal warfare made large areas unsafe for human occupation, and these areas became, in effect, wildlife sanctuaries. But the European changed all this. A civilized and orderly community was forged in a short span — only a half century in many parts of Africa. Law and order prevailed where previously they were unknown, and tribal warfare was stopped abruptly.

Modern medicine and science have eliminated or controlled most diseases, and improved agriculture has made the scourge of famine nothing but a memory. The result of this Western civilizing influence is an exploding indigenous population, a situation that will become acute as the population doubles in the next twenty to thirty years. Expanding population crowding onto limited land space with limited resources is a problem in other parts of the world; in Africa, a submarginal agricultural continent, it is a tragedy.

In earlier times, the African killed only what he needed, for strict codes were enforced by powerful chiefs and elders in many areas. In more recent years, the authority of the chiefs and tribal leaders has diminished at the same time that the staggering increase in the population occurred. While previously the natives hunted only for the village pot, today more and more Africans are engaged in poaching, some of them with techniques learned from the Europeans. There is now a sizable illegal traffic in biltong (dried meat), rhino horn, and ivory, and poaching for these items is so profitable that the income from poaching exceeds what a rural African can earn in any other way. The poaching is carried out with a pernicious assortment of snares, pits, ring fires, poisoned arrows, and muzzle leaders. Not less than 150,000 large wild animals have been killed every year by African poachers in and around the Serengeti National Park. Today in Tanganyika, many more animals are destroyed by poachers in a few days than are taken by licensed hunters during an entire year, for hunting safaris are now strictly regulated and are not permitted to destroy the breeding stock, whereas poaching is indiscriminate.

Hamstringing is widespread to preserve fresh wild meat on the hoof. In addition to the poaching of antelopes and buffaloes for meat, elephants are slaughtered only for their tusks and rhinos for their horns, which are in great demand in the Far East as aphrodisiacs. In many places, giraffe are killed only for their tail hairs, which make excellent fly whisks. Poaching exists on a scale inconceivable to those who have not seen the evidence.

A recent successful anti-poaching campaign in Kenya revealed the extent of poaching of elephants in the Tsavo National Park near the coast. In this relatively small area, 1250 elephant carcasses were discovered, and it was estimated that not less than 3000 elephants have been slaughtered with poisoned arrows in this region during the past three years. Since the total elephant population of the entire Tsavo region is now estimated to be but 4000, there can be only one result if poaching is allowed to continue on this scale. Many other species have reached a dangerously low level, also. Wildlife authorities estimate that in all Kenya today there may be fewer than 1000 black rhinos left. Yet ten years ago 900 black rhinos were shot in the Makueni area alone to make way for a new agricultural settlement scheme. And this winter thousands of animals perished in the floodwaters impounded by the new Kariba Dam in the Rhodesias.

Properly administered national parks are the bulwark of our faunal defense in Africa, but in addition, wildlife management projects, which would harvest an annual surplus of animals on a sustained yield basis, are needed in regions entirely unsuited for domestic livestock. The critical factor, however, is African participation.

Africans should be encouraged to conserve wildlife, if for no other reason than as a future meat supply. The present tribal attitude is that all animals are simply so much uneaten meat being held — and therefore wasted — for the pleasure of the resident Europeans and their visitors from foreign lands who like to take pictures or go on sport-shooting safaris or simply observe the enchantment and excitement of the African bush. Africans view properly constituted national parks as European institutions, a strange colonial custom of setting aside substantial blocks of land for the exclusive use of wild beasts.

Some native leaders reject many of the things connected with colonialism, including the national parks and wildlife conservation. How can we convince them that, from an international point of view, their respective colonial governments did a creditable job in developing the national parks? The future is rather gloomy unless we can interest a sufficient number of emerging political leaders, chiefs, and students in the important values of the wildlife and national park resources. Native leaders must be invited to participate in working out future wildlife conservation programs, and the tribes must be recipients of direct economic benefits accruing from the conservation of wildlife.

The great national parks and wildlife reserves of Africa — areas like the Etosha Pan Game Reserve in South-West Africa near the Angola border, the internationally renowned Serengeti in northwestern Tanganyika, the Garamba National Park in the Belgian Congo — are unique cultural assets having not only local value but a distinct international value, which is not comprehended by the Africans. Someday, as their interests expand, they also will regard these places as priceless living museums of natural history, without comparison in the rest of the world. They represent a cultural heritage belonging to the whole world, of which the people of Africa must regard themselves as trustees. Most modern nations maintain national parks and reserves, and our total cultural and scientific heritage would be much impoverished if any of the natural sanctuaries were destroyed. Eliminating them would be comparable to the destruction of the great art collections and cathedrals of Europe, or the temples and shrines of Asia, all of which are part of our total international heritage as civilized, perceptive human beings.

Anyone familiar with the African bush and back country realizes that at this stage it would be impossible to point out these facts to most of the rural people. Eight out of ten natives arc still in the bush, leading a simple tribal life bound by tradition, witchcraft, and sorcery. They think of themselves not as part of a nation but as members of a single tribe. Our only chance of achieving success depends on the cooperation of Africans in positions of authority. To maintain the superlative national parks which the European powers established is an urgent consideration in view of impending political developments throughout East Africa.

Wildlife will not be maintained by natives for sentimental reasons alone. There must be economic benefits, such as those derived from tourist receipts. Tourism has played an enormous role in saving wildlife areas from destruction, and in most of Africa tourism and wildlife are indivisible. This economic appeal is invariably convincing to people of all races, and a powerful argument can be made for the wilderness on this point alone, particularly in countries where tourism is the thirdor fourth-ranking industry.

The parks and reserves serve as catalysts in promoting travel and the importation of precious foreign currencies. Wild fauna is the most important element in the African scene, and to enjoy the greatest of wildlife pageants visitors have to enter the national parks and sanctuaries. Between these widely separated “islands” of wildlife, one views not the enchantment of animal life but the emerging, developing Africa — and, quite often, the effects of man’s abuse of his environment: overgrazing, woodland destruction, soil erosion, and declining fertility.

The present situation is critical, and unless adequate measures are taken soon, another decade or two may well see the almost total extinction of African wildlife except in a few token regions. Are these wild animals really worthy of preservation, or are they merely an anachronism, inevitably doomed to disappear before the advancing tidal wave of civilization?

Like many others, I feel that there is room for wildlife in certain parts of Africa, not just because these animals are attractive and nice to have around, but because they have a great part to play in the economic and cultural life of each country. A forceful international appeal for wilderness and wildlife in Africa is essential, and everything possible must be done to inform opinion in Europe and America about the urgency of the problem. Greater attempts must be made to arrest the tide of depredation and establish sound new programs with African participation. The spell of old Africa will forever be broken if the giraffe and wildebeests, zebras and gazelles on that magnificent acacia plain at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro arc allowed to vanish.