On safari with Drikus Swanepoel

Jan 15, 2021 | News

When and where were you born?
10 March 1985 in Windhoek, Namibia

How did you get into hunting – what was it that influenced you?
I was raised on a cattle ranch in central Namibia where hunting was part of growing up.

Drikus is a PH with Ekuja Hunting Safaris

With whom did you train, apprentice and learn from?
When I was in primary school, our cattle ranch was converted into a game ranch where various well-known professional hunters came to hunt on the ranch. Throughout my school career I made use of every opportunity to accompany these hunts and built up a vast amount of experience.

What was the most important thing you learned during those early years?
To be patient and always treat all the clients the same, whether it’s an elephant hunt or a normal plains game safari.

Any specific client experiences that stood out?
My first years of professional hunting were hunting plains game in central Namibia.
I had a Spanish-speaking client who tried to explain something to me for 30 minutes and I didn’t understand a word. All of a sudden, he started shouting and stopped the Land Cruiser. He jumped off and took a dump right next to the vehicle. Only then I realized what he was trying to explain the whole time.
As a professional hunter, each client brings a special experience with him. Whether it’s the excitement of hunting Africa for the first time or a collector getting that specific species that he’s after.

Anything you learned about what not to do?
Always try to avoid talking politics in the hunting camp.

Which countries/areas have you hunted since then?
Namibia, South Africa, Botswana and Zambia.

If you could return to any time or place in Africa, where would it be?
To the time where politics and uninformed keyboard warriors didn’t have a say in the hunting industry.

Which is your favourite trophy animal to hunt? And why?
Elephant. There’s nothing more thrilling than getting in the personal space of a big old elephant bull.

Tell us about two of your most memorable hunts.
Hunting my first 60-plus inch Kudu bull with a client in the first few years of my hunting career. In later years, taking two extraordinary elephants just a few days apart on a 21-day safari.

What are your recommendations on guns, ammo, or equipment for the first-time hunter to Africa?
Make sure that whatever gun you shoot, you are comfortable with and not afraid of the recoil. Always practice off shooting sticks.

Which guns and ammo are you using to back-up on dangerous or wounded game and tell us why?
500 Nitro-express as it has awesome stopping power.

How has the hunting industry changed in your opinion over the past number of years?
Social media and the internet have given people the right to have an opinion on Africa and how the hunting industry should be managed. Most of these people are true keyboard warriors and should not even had an opinion as they are ill informed and have no idea on what’s going on in Africa.

If you should suggest one thing to your hunting clients to improve their safari experience, with you, or with anyone else for that matter, what would it be?
Take time and effort to complete your questionnaire in as much detail as possible as a lot of hunting camps are remote.

What can the industry do to contribute to the long-term conservation of Africa’s wildlife?
Any animal must always have a value. The more valuable a specific species is, the longer it would be preserved.

What would be your ideal safari if you have one last safari?
Hunting all of the Big 5 with one client on one safari in what is left of wild Africa.

On safari with Johan Calitz

Jan 15, 2021 | News

When I think about my professional hunting career, I wonder if my yearning to be a hunter was not perhaps embedded in my DNA from birth, or whether it was a love cultivated from a very young age when my father introduced me to the sport of hunting.

Perhaps it was around the campfire when my father told me about the great hunters of old. Or during the early morning mountain reedbuck hunts, where my shoes broke the frost in the mountains of the Free State, daydreaming about showing people from faraway countries how to hunt African animals, instead of being a doctor, lawyer or whatever my father ‘s dream was for me. I am not exactly sure . . .

Learn more about Johan Calitz Safaris

My dangerous-game hunting experience started early in my life. I accompanied my father on many a hunting trip to the then Northern and Southern Rhodesia, where I could do the back-up shots on elephant and buffalo. My father’s friend and professional hunter, Hendrik Coetzee, was my biggest mentor. He was probably one of the last people who sold ivory for an income from which he later started his own business. It was he who encouraged my first tentative steps into dangerous-game hunting as a career.

I was 14 when I shot my first elephant and buffalo in the Zambezi Valley under the supervision of my father, Dr FJW Calitz and Uncle Hendrik, as he was known. It was a sweltering hot day in the Zambezi Valley. We found the tracks of a smallish cow herd early in the morning. By midday the heat was starting to wear us down. My shirt clung to my shoulders and my hair and forehead were drenched with sweat. The nervousness and anticipation took a heavy toll on me, and I was losing my concentration. Suddenly the huge, broad-shouldered frame in front of me came to halt. His right hand went up indicating that we should stop. The sound of breaking trees and heart-stopping vocal rumbling could be heard in the distance. We were very close. The reassuring voices of my father and Uncle Hendrik told me that everything would be fine. Days before this moment, I was taught different shot placements on elephant, and I knew that the position of the elephant and the surrounding environment would dictate the shot. We moved in for the final approach. I still remember my thoughts at that very moment: How is it possible for a man of 230 lbs (Uncle Hendrik) to move like a ballerina?

I could hear my father’s breathing behind me, and the knowledge that he was there calmed my nerves. The bush was thick – everybody called it jesse bush. I could see how Uncle Hendrik calculated each careful step to avoid unnecessary noise. Dad and I followed in his footsteps. Thinking back today, those were huge footprints to follow . . . literally and figuratively.

Then I saw grey figures in the bush ahead of me and knew that the time of reckoning had come. Uncle Hendrik stopped, motioned me in, grabbed me by the shoulders, like a Great Dane would grab a Jack Russell, and moved me into position.

An old cow loomed in front of us, presenting for a side brain shot. A whisper in my ear . . . I shouldered the rifle without a second thought and felt the recoil of the 9.3 x 64 Brenneke. The hind legs of the old lady collapsed, the trunk came up and whipped down, and she hit the ground, stone dead. At that moment I knew that I would like to become a Hendrik Coetzee!

Before I reached the age of 21, I had hunted most dangerous African game animals, including all of the Big Five. But I mostly hunted elephant as a young man. Somehow, these gigantic animals intrigued me more than any other species on the planet.

In the years that followed, people such as Ronnie van Heerden, who hunted with us from Robinson’s Camp in the Hwange National Park, Uncle Bruce Austin, who was one of the directors of Austin Braybrooke and McCloud Safaris, Barry Duckworth, Uncle Willie de Beer, Harry Selby and others, made such an indelible impression on me that I was determined to become a professional hunter and nothing else.

Years of apprenticeship under the hawk eye of Uncle Hendrik taught me the art of tracking, hunting and bushcraft. The hours I spent with the people mentioned above in the University of the Bush, watching, learning and listening, laid the foundations of my career as a PH.

In the seventies, there was no government control over professional hunting in South Africa, so hunting for a reward was quite easy in those early days. I guess my first client was my father. I started to outfit and conduct safaris for a reward during my student days. With my father, the reward most of the time was that I could hunt a buffalo, elephant, lion or leopard myself. Later I started guiding friends of my father’s from abroad and South Africa for a reward.

So I guess my career as PH started in the mid-70s. Up until 1985, most of my dangerous-game hunts for myself and/or clients were done in Zimbabwe. In the late 1980s, my dream came true when I started hunting with Guides and Outfitters Botswana. I later worked with Micheletti Bates Safaris and Vira Safaris. Johan Calitz Hunting Safaris has featured as my own entity right from the early years up until now.

All of God’s animals are my favourite. To watch the silliness of a warthog, the agility of a leopard, the brutal speed and force of a lion, the tenacity of a buffalo and the grandeur of an elephant bull is an absolute privilege.

I have hunted and guided many of the dangerous Big Five animals over the last four decades. Many a night I would lie in a camp bed, listening to the distant roar of a male lion, overpowering the more subtle sounds of the African night. With first light I would be ready to track the biggest cat in Africa with my trusted Bushman trackers.

Seeing the disturbance the big cat’s body caused to the dewdrops on the leaves and tall grass, looking at a track the size of a small plate in the Kalahari sand, following the king of the African bush from the freshness of the morning, through the sweltering heat of the day and finally finding him fast asleep in the shade of a smallish bush or tree, is hunting at its best!

You get into position, sometimes as close as 15 yards, heart pounding in your ears, weighing up your options and shot placements . . . To triumph over the king of beasts with just one bullet must be the most exhilarating experience!

Waiting in a blind during the late afternoon or early morning, alone with your thoughts, when suddenly a big male leopard appears on a branch, is electrifying. Following buffalo tracks into the famous date palm (Tsaro palm) and having a big black brutal explosion a few yards in front of you is as exciting as it gets.

Years ago I followed a wounded buffalo with a PH in Tanzania. The tracks of the lone bull disappeared into the dense brush in front of us. The trackers at our side tried to pick up the wounded buffalo’s tracks, when suddenly there was a stampede in front of us. The Tanzanian PH and I ran in the direction of the noise when the buffalo turned and brought the fight to us.

He was in full charge. Shots went off beside me as the buffalo came for us. Everything happened at once. I heard shots but it had absolutely no effect on the buffalo. I jumped in front of the PH while lifting the .500 Nitro Searcy, to my shoulder. I underestimated the quickness and tenacity of the buffalo that reached me before I could blink an eye. I fired from the hip but missed its brain. By then the buffalo was on top of me – it gored me, flung me into the air and then pushed me around on the ground for several minutes.

I heard a shot. The animal towering over me lifted its head from my chest. For a brief moment I saw the anger and pain in the beast’s eyes as his full weight crashed down on me, forcing the air from my lungs and crushing the bones in my body.

The PH and trackers rolled the dead weight off me. After a few hours on the back of a pick-up, I was flown to Dar es Salaam and then to Nairobi where I was operated on and later flown to the Garden City clinic in Johannesburg. Several operations and long weeks of slow and painful recovery followed. Yes, I have experienced buffalo hunting at its best . . . and its worst . . .

Rhino hunting does not particularly intrigue me, but I have been privileged to hunt these prehistoric beasts in some of the most rugged and most beautiful hunting areas in Southern Africa.

For me the greatest game animal in Africa to hunt is the elephant, particularly the elephant of Botswana, because of the massive size of their bodies and tusks. No other experience has brought me so much joy and satisfaction while at the same time causing so much emotional turmoil and pain, as hunting the big Botswana tuskers.

From the age of 14, I have hunted elephant in various countries. For the past 14 years my professional hunters and I have hunted over 700 of these magnificent animals in Botswana alone. We live, sleep, eat and dream big tuskers. This is what we do; this is all we want to do! It is physically and emotionally taxing, yet there is no greater life-altering experience than hunting the biggest land mammal on earth! It is hard work finding the right tuskers. You work under pressure; you operate within the secret folds of nature and against high expectations of your clients and peers. You see many elephant, some with broken tusks, small tusks or no tusks, but then you see the elephant that both you and your client know is the one! It is those moments that produce the firewood of your old age, of having lived a life worth remembering!

One of the reasons for Botswana’s healthy elephant population is the country’s vegetation, security, water, and little interference from mankind, but mostly because of the authorities’ sensible approach to wildlife management. The Government, together with the hunting industry, realises that cooperative and scientific management of the country’s wildlife resources will secure the co-existence of man and beast to the benefit of both. It is of the utmost importance that Government and the hunting industry join hands to ensure the survival of this magnificent species and to conserve the natural habitat it shares with other creatures.

The quality of the hunt and the quality of the trophies taken undoubtedly makes Botswana the best elephant hunting destination in Africa today. Interestingly, statistics prove that the quality of trophies has not only stabilized, but has steadily improved since the reopening of elephant hunting in 1996.

With careful planning, monitoring the movement of elephant throughout the year and assessing the hunt day by day, your PH will narrow down the odds for you and with a little bit of luck you will get your elephant in the right place at the right time. The combination of your PH’s knowledge and skills and your good shooting will turn your dream into reality.

It is said that the days of hundred-pounders are basically gone. Ninety-pounders, eighty-pounders, yes – it happens! Seventy pounders, yes – that happens more often. Sixty pounders happen a lot. The men that pursue big tuskers spend days, year after year, looking for that big one. You get despondent, you think of giving up, and then it happens – around the corner, your bull is suddenly there! The one you have always dreamt of . . . The year 2010 was such a year for us when one of our clients was blessed with a magnificent 104lbs tusker.

I have no regrets for having chosen professional hunting as a career. The opportunity to meet and guide clients is very rewarding. Each friend I have made over the years, who started off as a client, has a special place in my heart. The bond between people formed by life-and-death situations is unforgettable and unbreakable.

The financial rewards of being a PH aren’t great but one can make a decent living out of it if you put body and soul into it. The actual reward is being with your mistress, the bush, where you can live a life not unlike that of your forefathers and pioneers of old.

To wake up in the morning to the call of francolin on the other side of the canvas; to hear the chatter of monkeys and barking of baboons; to see buffalo in a herd counting hundreds; to see elephant in northern Botswana coming together from all directions to form a herd of a hundred individuals or more; to encourter 500 or more elephant in a single day from a makoro (dug-out canoe) on the river; to have the privilege of following sitatunga in a makoro that silently makes its way through the papyrus; to view the abundance of plans game around you; to encounter leopard and lion on a regular basis; to see the day end in all its splendor, watching the animals relax for a brief moment before sensing the dangers that might lurk in the night ahead; the deep roar of a big lion male making his presence known – all of this is priceless! Money can never pay for what we experience on a daily basis.

My only regret is probably the sacrifice one has to make, not being there for my family when they need me, and missing out on so much happening in their lives…

In a career that spreads over many years, it is difficult to highlight a single moment. What I do for a living is a highlight in itself. There are so many highlights, each with its own charm and reward. Is the taking of a 100 lbs elephant a bigger career highlight than a 66” kudu or a 48” buffalo? Is hunting with a king a greater honor that hunting with my dear friend, Abe, the plumber from Lena, Illinois, who shot all of his Big Five with me using the same rifle? For me, it is a highlight every time I see clients and friends taking a worthy trophy. Each moment is different, each reaction and smile unique, each happy moment a highlight.

Being able to guide my father and my son on the same safari during which each hunted a buffalo was very special. To watch the emotions on a 13-year-old boy’s face when he pulls the trigger on his first buffalo and to experience the emotions of a 65-year-old man shooting his last buffalo and last animal of his hunting life, is something one cannot put into words.

Being able to guide my son Cobus on his first elephant safari and to witness his happiness years later when his client shot a 94 lbs elephant, was very special to me. To have been with my friend, Jose Luis Dias, when he took his 94 lbs trophy was a highlight.

To have been chosen in the 90s to conduct one of the first professional hunting schools in South Africa was an honor. Standing next to people of the caliber of Kobus Schoeman and Ronnie Rowland in front of a class of bright-eyed want-to-be professional hunters left an indelible impression on me. I learned something new on each occasion, watching these two dear friends sharing their infinite knowledge and wisdom with the students. Playing a small part in shaping apprenticeships is a feather in my cap. Today, many of them are world-renowned professional hunters and very successful outfitters.

To have served on the executive committee of PHASA and BWMA is certainly a highlight. Having had the honor to feature on many podiums, videos and outdoor television channels, and especially Tony Makris’s very popular Under Wild Skies series is a great privilege. I can never thank then enough for the wonderful exposure this has given me. Being asked to write a foreword to Graig Boddington’s book on elephant is another highlight.

These are just examples, of course, less career highlights I experience as a PH.

The biggest highlight of all is being to be able to work and live so close with Creation and to be blessed with so many special friends and colleagues each enriching my life in so many ways and making me a more complete human being.

Botswana is an artist’s pallet and every hunter’s lifelong dream. The diversity of its fauna and flora, the sunsets, the people, the sheer abundance of animals and trophy quality, make it a great destination. I have hunted many other areas in my career, but the ease of getting to and from the hunting area, the true wildness and abundance of wildlife in different areas of Botswana, makes this country one of my favorite hunting areas.

The Okavango Delta with its extreme beauty, its rivers, streams, islands and palm groves was, and still is, a great place to hunt elephant, buffalo and other animals. Cat hunting is no longer allowed in Botswana, but the lion and leopard hunting in the Delta was an experience of ten lifetimes! The Delta is one of the most beautiful spots in Africa and my favorite hunting area.

Thousands of elephant roam the drier Chobe regions of Botswana and hunting these big beasts is an awe-inspiring experience. Nothing beats the sight of so many elephant each day and being spoilt for choice. The quality of the trophies taken each year in these drier areas easily puts them on par with a hunt in the Delta.

I agree that I am prejudiced. I have hunted Mozambique, Tanzania, South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia and other parts of the world, but the country that I chose to call home, namely Botswana, remains closest to my heart.

Thinking about the difference between an agreeable and a difficult client, I guess that it is all about expectations. A client may become difficult if you are not meeting his expectations, for instance by refusing to do things which are beyond the boundaries of legal and ethical practices.

A client can become difficult if his pre-hunt expectations differ vastly from the reality of the hunt. He may feel cheated if things are different from what has been promised. Prior to, and during a hunt, it is vital to play open cards with clients, create realistic expectations, address all possible grey areas and stick to the contractual agreement. That way you minimize, if not prevent, nasty disagreements and unhappy clients.

A difficult client can also be one that is disappointed with his PH’s call. A client that sets the end result as a marker and not the overall experience as his goal is often difficult to deal with. A person without respect for God’s creation and the laws of nature and the land he is hunting on is almost always difficult to deal with.

On the other hand, it is a pleasure to hunt with a person who is in pursuit of a holistic experience and enjoys the wonder and lessons of life and nature every day! This is a person who notices a beautiful bird, a female kudu with her young; a person who watches in awe as the dust and thunder rise from underneath the hooves of a buffalo herd; a person whose heart melts at the sight of lion cubs playing with their mother’s tail . . .

An agreeable client is a person who works hard, has realistic expectations, respects the environment and uses the full impact of his hunting experience and being close to nature as firewood for his old age. An agreeable client is also one that respects the decisions of his PH and trackers, and trusts them to come up with the best possible trophy available at the time without overstepping the boundaries of the law. An agreeable client is one that realizes and respects the fact that his PH will always try and act in his best interest without jeopardizing his or his companion’s safety. He is also one who is man enough to acknowledge the fact that nature has won if he does not get his trophy, and who then walks away with dignity, humbleness and respect.

To be able to hunt may be a God-given right, but to give it true meaning one has to realize that this right is a huge privilege that also comes with huge responsibilities. The quality of a hunt can be defined as that moment when man and animal become one, and man executes his right to take life in an honorable way with dignity and respect.

The quality of a hunt is when a PH and his client respect the laws of nature and wildlife, when they pursue an animal that is old and near the end of its life, and only take it if it meets the expectations of the client. The in-between, from start to end, is what matters. The true reward lies in the knowledge and satisfaction that both the PH and client practiced fair chase and hunted in a humane manner.

For me, the quality of a hunt is defined as a cocktail of emotions, of fear, anticipation, euphoria and of sadness. I regard each hunt that contained this mix of emotions as one that added quality to my life.

Gorongoza in Mozambique – Rising and Rising

Jan 14, 2021 | News

The story of Gorongoza National Park in Mozambique is a remarkable epic of hope and of restoration after destruction. It is the story of the resilience of nature and its wild creatures, given the human commitment to nurture and conserve wild places and wild animals. This commitment is the fundamental key to success. Protected areas cannot survive without the support of their neighbours – the people who live outside its borders. Understanding this is fundamental to successful management of any park, and Mozambique has been blessed by having the support of Dr Greg Carr, a philanthropist who understands that human development and conservation go hand in hand. This remarkable American has pledged to invest US$40 million into the development of Gorongoza over a period of 30 years.

The late 1960s saw the first comprehensive scientific studies of the Park, led by Kenneth Tinley, a South African ecologist. In the first-ever aerial survey, Tinley and his team counted about 200 lions, 2,200 elephants, 14,000 buffalo, 5,500 wildebeest, 3,000 zebra, 3,500 waterbuck, 2,000 impala, 3,500 hippos, and large herds of eland, sable and hartebeest numbering more than 500. Tinley also discovered that many people, and most of the wildlife, living in and around the Park depended on one river, the Vunduzi, which originates on the slopes of nearby Mount Gorongosa.

Because the mountain was outside of the Park’s boundaries, Tinley proposed expanding the Park to include the mountain as a key element in a ‘Greater Gorongosa’ ecosystem of about 8,200 square kilometers. In 1977 Tinley published his D.Sc. thesis, ‘Framework of the Gorongosa Ecosystem’ and in 2020 the Gorongosa Project made it available to all in a beautiful book format entitled Montane to Mangrove.

But in that same year of 1977, a civil war broke out in Mozambique that was to last for 15 years. The country was devastated, a million people lost their lives, and 95% of the large animals in Gorongoza were slaughtered. The wildlife paradise was reduced to ruins, a vast killing field littered with the bones of thousands and thousands of animals.

Greg Carr first visited Mozambique in 2002 and was impressed by the amazing landscapes, from mountains, forests, plains, swamps, lakes and wetlands, stretching all the way down to the mangroves of the Indian Ocean. In 2004 he signed agreements with the government, and started implementing his dream of restoring Gorongosa to its former glory.

Gorongosa has just published its annual report for 2020, and it makes for inspiring reading. You are encouraged to take look yourself; click here to view it.

The 60^th birthday of Mozambique’s flagship national park was celebrated on 23 July 2020. The official ceremony featured just 20 guests due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and one of them was the President of Mozambique, Filipe Nyusi. At the function the President was told that the Park’s restoration efforts had increased the number of large mammal survivors of the civil war from a few to over 100,000. They share the Park with over 6,300 other species of smaller animals and plants recorded so far and which continues to rise. As a birthday present, Greg Carr pledged that he and other donor partners (including USAID) will build 40 primary schools in communities surrounding Gorongosa. The Gorongosa Project already works directly with 50 primary schools and six secondary schools with youth clubs, and plans to increase the number of after-school clubs established in these schools.

Some highlights from the 2020 Annual Report include the following:

African Wild Dogs (Lycaon pictus) are the second-most endangered carnivore on the continent. In collaboration with the Endangered Wildlife Trust, a pack of 14 animals was introduced into Gorongoza in 2018 and then 15 more in 2019. With the addition of more than 50 pups born in 2020, Gorongosa Park’s wild dog population has grown to 85.

• During November 2020 an aerial wildlife count of the Park recorded nearly 90,000 animals in the survey area that covered 60% of the Park. This included the highest number of elephant (781), blue wildebeest (815), hippo (766) and buffalo (1,221) ever counted since the restoration of the Park began.
• Park Warden Pedro Muagura received the IUCN’s Kenton Miller award for taking bold steps to help preserve protected areas and natural treasures like Gorongosa National Park. According to the IUCN news release, Mr. Muagura represents “… a beacon of hope in regions which have had a turbulent history, affecting both humans and nature in profound ways over the past decades.”
  

  From novataxa.blogspot.com (photograph by Piotr Naskrecki)

• A new bat species (Miniopterus wilsoni) named for the renowned biologist and ardent supporter of biodiversity conservation, Professor Edward O Wilson, was discovered on Mount Gorongosa and in the mountains of central and northern Mozambique, and southern Malawi.
• Gorongosa established the nation’s first pangolin rescue facility and pioneered veterinary care and rehabilitation of the species in Mozambique. To date, 40 pangolins have been rescued and returned to the wild.
• The elephant population in Gorongosa crashed from around 2,500 to less than 250 individuals as a result of Mozambique’s civil war. Since the inception of the Gorongosa Project, increased protection of the Park has led to a remarkably fast recovery. The Park’s elephant population now numbers about 800 individual animals. This conservation achievement is complicated by the fact that 200,000 people live around the Park, and agricultural areas have expanded. Human-elephant conflict (HEC) has therefore intensified, resulting in crop destruction by elephants. The Elephant Ecology Project is doing research to help resolve these conflicts. Fifty trail cameras monitor elephant population size, structure and habitat use. ‘Beehive fences’ capitalize on elephants’ fear of African honeybees, and hives distributed along fence lines are a natural deterrent. Beehive fences and elephant-proof silos are key to the Park’s elephant and human coexistence initiative.

The achievements in the restoration of Gorongoza are both amazing and inspiring. You can learn more by visiting their Facebook page. There is also interesting background about the remarkable Dr Greg Carr that you can read here.

There are also many ways in which you can support the work of the Gorongosa team. Please contact them if you are willing to contribute in any way. contact@gorongosa.net

Dr John Ledger is a past Director of the Endangered Wildlife Trust, now a consultant, writer and teacher on the environment, energy and wildlife; he is a columnist for the African Hunting Gazette. He lives in Johannesburg, South Africa. John.Ledger@wol.co.za

Sitatunga

Jan 14, 2021 | News

This antelope has a relatively long-haired and shaggy coat; both sexes have white chevron between eyes. The bushy tail is brown above and white below, and have longer hooves than any other antelope (to 1 cm/7.0″). The extremely long hooves, capable of splaying widely, are an adaptation to assist walking on mats of floating vegetation and soft mud. When walking on hard ground they appear clumsy and vulnerable. Only ram carries the long, lightly spiralled horns. A number of subspecies are recognized. The western race (T. s. gratus) within Congo Basin has both sexes with abundant white spots and striping, eastern T. s. spekei rams have little or no white markings, although ewes are reddish with numerous white spots and stripes. The southern, or Selous’s sitatunga (T.s.selousi) have few white body markings in either sex.

Copyright Divan Labuschange

Copyright Divan Labuschange

Distribution

Northern race centres around the Congo Basin with a few outliers in West Africa, eastern race is in the Victoria and upper Nile Basin, southern race in the basins of Bangweulu, Zambesi and Okavango rivers. Hunting can be undertaken in Botswana, Zambia, Tanzania, CAR, Congo Brazzaville and Cameroon.

Conservation standing

In some areas they reach high densities, such as Bangweulu (>10 000) and Kasanka of north-east Zambia, Botswana’s Okavango Delta and northern Congo Brazzaville. West African and Kenyan populations generally considered threatened. In some areas they are heavily hunted and in some countries, such as DR Congo, they occur frequently in the bushmeat markets. Frequent burning of reedbeds has also resulted in the disappearance of, or major declines in, some populations.

Habitats

Dense reedbeds and well vegetated aquatic environments, but move into adjacent woodlands to feed. In some areas make greater use of woodland and known as woodland sitatunga.

Behaviour

Form loose groupings and not cohesive herds of one adult ram with several ewes and their young, averaging six animals. Solitary animals, especially rams, common, as are groups of young animals of mixed sex. Mainly day active, but usually only feed in woodland at night. During hottest hours lie up in the cover of reedbeds. If disturbed, or threatened, they take readily to deep water, and can swim well. Home ranges small because of abundance and richness of their food. Can reach high densities, for example in the Okavango it was estimated that there were 234 sitatunga in just 300 km2 (116 mi2), and even higher densities in Kasanka and Bangweulu.

Food

Papyrus, other reeds, aquatic grasses, dryland and floodplain grasses and occasionally browse in adjacent woodlands.

The western race of the sitatunga, here an ewe, is more distinctly marked than other races.

The gerenuk

Dec 11, 2020 | News

The most bizarre looking of the gazelles, the gerenuk gives a first impression of being of an impala with very long legs and neck. Which is why it is sometimes called the giraffe-necked antelope. The ears are quite large, as are the eyes, and the muzzle has a “pinched” appearance. The upperparts are rufous-fawn, with paler sides and a thin dark line separating upperparts from white underparts. Only rams carry the relatively short, robust, heavily ringed, tight lyre-shaped horns. It is one of only two antelope species (the other being the dibatag) that can stand vertically on the hind legs when feeding. Two subspecies have been named, the northern (L. w. sclateri) and the southern (L. w. walleri) gerenuk, with some being of the opinion that these constitute separate species.

Distribution

Extends from north-eastern Tanzania, eastern and northern Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia. Can be hunted in Tanzania and Ethiopia.

Conservation standing

Estimated numbers range from a low of 24,000 to a high of just under 100,000; largest population in Kenya and adjoining areas of Ethiopia. Has benefited from overgrazing by domestic livestock, as this has increased levels of thicket growth and bush encroachment. It still occurs across much of its original range but the population in Somalia is believed to be under severe pressure. In Kenya it is estimated that numbers have at least halved in recent years outside conservation areas as a result of poaching and competition for food with domestic livestock, especially goats. Such impacts in Ethiopia and Somalia are even greater.

Habitats

Arid thorn scrub and thicket.

Gerenuk ram shot in northern Tanzania

Behaviour

Adult rams are generally solitary, but small mixed groups consisting of a ram and a small number of ewes and their young. Ewe and lamb groups are also commonly seen. Although up to eight animals may be seen together, they are usually spaced several metres apart when resting or feeding. Home range of a single adult ranges from 2-6 km² (500-1,500 acres) with size depending largely on conditions and food availability. Ram territories average from 2-4 km² (500-990 acres), are permanently held, and intruding rams are driven away. Subadult rams are tolerated if they enter established territories as long as they are subservient. Animals are closely bound to their ranges and remain there throughout their lives. Very little work has been done on gerenuk densities but they are generally held to be low, a measure of the arid habitat they occupy.

Food

Browsers that take new leaf growth, buds, twig tips, flowers and pods, especially of Acacia tree and bush species. They are independent of drinking water.

Namibia Running Out of Patience with CITES

Dec 10, 2020 | News

At the Eighteenth Conference of the Parties (CoP18) to CITES held last year, five southern African countries, Namibia, Angola, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia proposed that the ban on ivory trade be lifted. These countries constitute the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA-TFCA) which holds two-thirds of the continent’s approximately 400,000 African elephants. The Conference rejected this proposal, which elicited a great deal of frustration with the body which is supposed to manage and facilitate the international trade in wildlife and wildlife products. Recently Namibia’s Minister for the Environment, Pohamba Shifeta, said that his country was running out of patience with CITES.

The Minister presented the keynote address at a national elephant conservation and management plan consultative workshop in Windhoek in November 2020. With a healthy elephant population in the country, Shifeta said Namibia’s elephant conservation efforts are being hindered by the decisions of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

“The most important incentive, namely the value that can be generated from trade in ivory, is currently severely compromised by the actions of animal rights groups who have influenced decisions at the Cites [conference] that undermine Namibia’s conservation programmes. For how long this is going to be the case is unclear, but our tolerance is being severely tested,” he said.

“Elephants are part of the natural resources of Namibia over which we have full sovereignty and there is a limit to how much external interference we will accept in the use of this resource. We favour a collective approach on the regulation of international trade but ultimately, we have to act in the interest of conservation and the rural people that are so important in determining the fate of elephants in the long term.

“Namibia has major stockpiles of valuable wildlife products including ivory which it can produce sustainably and regulate properly, and which if traded internationally could support our elephant conservation and management for decades to come,” said the Minister.

Namibia has been desperate to have the ban on ivory trade lifted so that the country can sell and benefit from its growing ivory stockpile. The environment ministry has previously expressed concern about the safety implications of keeping ivory stockpiles, as well as the cost thereof.

Both Botswana and Zimbabwe have burgeoning elephant populations, with the former being home to around 130,000 animals and Zimbabwe around 85,000. Natural mortality, particularly during the regular droughts that are normal in southern Africa, yields large quantities of elephant tusks. Hunting quotas for male elephants in both countries yield yet more ivory. By denying the right for southern Africa countries, who manage their elephants well, to sell their ivory on the international market, CITES is unilaterally denying these countries the opportunity to realise the full value of their wildlife resources.

The world should not expect these countries to continue to suffer economic hardship when they have the means to generate valuable income in their own hands. Since tourism and hunting have come to a complete standstill in Africa as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, people living in rural areas in wildlife management areas or adjacent to protected areas have suffered the total loss of revenue from hunting and tourism.

Botswana, had a quota of 400 elephant hunts for 2020, and Zimbabwe around 500. These lost opportunities are costing both countries millions of dollars. It should also be remembered that those 400 potential male elephants that could have been hunted in Botswana in 2020 represent just 3% of the available males in the country.

With financial hardship and even starvation stalking many people in rural areas of southern Africa, are their governments going to continue to look at their growing stockpiles of ivory and tell their citizens to carry on being nice to elephants?

I think not, and I suspect that 2020 will prove to be the year that CITES finally reaches the end of the road of tolerance by African countries whose economic wellbeing is being compromised, because they are not allowed to sell the products of their successful wildlife management policies.

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Dr John Ledger is a past Director of the Endangered Wildlife Trust, now a consultant, writer and teacher on the environment, energy and wildlife; he is a columnist for the African Hunting Gazette. He lives in Johannesburg, South Africa. John.Ledger@wol.co.za