Jul 7, 2020 | News
In May this year, elephants started dying in the Okavango Delta region of Botswana, a country known for its large and burgeoning elephant numbers. With a population estimated at some 135,000 individuals, Botswana has the largest concentration of these pachyderms in Africa. But there are no fences between neighbouring countries, so Botswana’s elephants are able to move between that country, Angola, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. To date, an estimated 400 elephants have apparently died, without any cause having been pinpointed to date. A mystery indeed.
The Botswana government has come under fire for not finding out what is killing their elephants, but reports say that samples are now being examined by several different laboratories. It should be remembered that the movement of humans and goods in southern Africa have been negatively affected by the COVID-19 ‘lockdowns’. The following reasons for the elephant mortality have been considered:
Poaching? No – dead animals have not had their tusks removed, so poaching seems unlikely.
Persecution? Many rural folks in Botswana are very disgruntled with elephants which destroy their crops, houses and often people at times. Some may be tempted to take revenge on elephants for this reason, but no evidence of gunshots is visible on any of the carcasses examined.
Poison? A number of elephants were killed in neighbouring Zimbabwe when a waterhole was poisoned with cyanide. But such poisoning incidents usually affect other species drinking water from the same waterhole, or scavengers like vultures that feed on poisoned carcasses. No such evidence is forthcoming from Botswana.
Toxic algae? Some blue-green algae are known to be toxic to mammals, but again, if this was the cause we would expect other species drinking from the same waterholes to be affected. They are not – this thing is apparently elephant-specific.
Anthrax? This disease is known to kill elephants, but during an outbreak, many different species are usually affected. There is no evidence that anthrax is the culprit.
Starvation? No – Botswana has had reasonable rains, and the elephant carcasses do not appear to be emaciated. Starvation normally affects the very young and the very old, but the carcasses examined so far seem to be subadults and adults in good condition.
A new, previously unknown virus affecting the nervous system? In the outbreak area, elephants have been seen to be walking in circles. A number of the elephants have apparently collapsed face-down and died like that, indicating a very sudden onset of a fatal neurological event.
This last one got me thinking about events many years ago when my friend and colleague Dr Peter Mundy was studying vultures in then Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) for his Doctoral degree. He kept a number of different species in captivity for his research, and had the sad experience of quite a few of these birds dying of what he described as ‘epileptic fits’. Affected birds would stagger about in circles, falling on their backs with convulsions and quickly die. The mysterious agent responsible was spread from affected birds to healthy individuals.
Brain tissue from the dead birds was sent to Dr Bob Swanepoel, a very good veterinary researcher in the country. However, due to various circumstances beyond his control, Dr Swanepoel could only get around to examining these specimens several years later, when he was working at the Onderstepoort Veterinary Research Institute in South Africa.
He found evidence of a virus in brain tissue that probably caused this deadly neurological syndrome in the affected vultures. Unfortunately, nothing further has ever been done to conduct more research on this particular avian disease.
Living in the age of COVID-19, it seems clear that a virus from bats managed to transfer to humans in Wuhan, China, possibly via pangolins. Given this potential for interspecies transmission of viruses, is it possible that Peter Mundy’s vultures picked up their deadly virus from eating dead elephants that had succumbed to the same agent? And that the same or a similar virus has now resurfaced in the elephants in the Okavango Delta? What happens to disease transmission when animal (or human?) populations grow too large? Again, I am reminded of an epidemic of rabies that decimated the very large population of Kudu in Namibia many years ago.…
Hopefully the mystery of Botswana’s elephant mortality will be solved, sooner or later. But these things do take time, as critics of the Botswana government should be reminded. It took many years, and the near-extinction of the vultures in India and Pakistan, before it was finally discovered that the birds were being killed in their thousands by Diclofenac (‘Voltaren’), a drug commonly used to treat sick cattle in both countries. When some of these medicated livestock died, they were consumed by vultures, with devastating results. What a terrible outcome for these magnificent birds, which “Even when bloody, have done no creature harm”.
Dr John Ledger is a past Director of the Endangered Wildlife Trust, a consultant and academic on energy and the environment, and a columnist for the African Hunting Gazette. He lives in Johannesburg, South Africa.
John.Ledger@wol.co.za
Jun 8, 2020 | News, Newsletter, RSS Feed
The theme for this year’s global environment day is biodiversity, meaning the components of the natural world that work together to constitute the living planet. The number and variety of species in the world is astonishingly huge, with only a fraction of the species known and described. The rate of extinction of species is a cause for concern, particularly as the major reason for extinctions is the superabundance of human beings.
Now, at this time of the pandemic of COVID-19, it may not be very fashionable to campaign for the conservation of a virus that is causing so much misery and disruption to the human population. But biodiversity in its broadest sense includes viruses, bacteria, fungi, arthropods and other forms of life that can cause harm to other living organisms. The very core of biodiversity is that every conceivable lifestyle will be exploited by organisms of different kinds in order to survive and replicate themselves. So, we have parasites, predators and prey making up the web of life that we call biodiversity.
Humans have learnt to cultivate and farm a variety of plants and animals to provide a reliable source of food. But many humans still depend on foraging for wild plants and hunting of animals for their daily sustenance, and many such people live in Africa. As more and more humans migrate to the cities of the continent, seeking better lives and the benefits of modern civilisation, they also retain their taste for bushmeat, and commercial trade in wild plants and animals thrives in the urban centres of the world. Here the concentration of humans makes the rapid spread of harmful organisms such as viruses that much easier. There is strong evidence that the COVID-19 virus originated from bats in China.
Various epidemics or pandemics have afflicted humans for a long time. More than 100 years ago the Spanish Flu spread around the world after World War I ended in 1918. My own grandfather was one of its victims. And who can forget the poliomyelitis epidemics of the 1940s, that killed many and left many others crippled for life? The South African Poliomyelitis Research Foundation was established in Johannesburg with funds raised largely from the public. In parallel with efforts in the United States of America, a vaccine was achieved simultaneously in both countries in 1955, and a mass global immunisation campaign has seen the disease disappear from most of the world.
Hopefully the COVID-19 virus will likewise be conquered in time by the development of a vaccine. It is rather ironic that modern medicine has been able to extend and prolong life for many people suffering from various ailments, but this older group of humans seems particularly susceptible to the ‘new’ Coronavirus.
With travel, tourism and hunting at a complete standstill, we can but fervently hope that the success story around the polio vaccine some 70 years ago will soon be repeated. And perhaps on World Environment Day, we also need to recognise that not all the wondrous expressions of biodiversity out there are good for us!
Dr John Ledger is a past Director of the Endangered Wildlife Trust, a consultant and academic on energy and the environment, and a columnist for the African Hunting Gazette. John.Ledger@wol.co.za
May 8, 2020 | News, Newsletter, RSS Feed
Garth Owen-Smith lost his battle with cancer on 21 April 2020, and so ended the life of an extraordinary man who has left an indelible mark on the practice of wildlife conservation in Africa. For 53 years, from his first visit to Namibia in 1967, Garth devoted his life to changing the way in which wildlife policies and attitudes to rural communities were implemented.
Colonial attitudes and philosophies brought to Africa saw rural Africans as ‘poachers’, to be pursued and punished by the equivalent of the European ‘gamekeepers’, whose job was to protect the ‘Royal Game’ within the areas designated for their protection. In this way most rural Africans were alienated from wildlife and denied access to the wild resources that they had traditionally utilised for centuries.
Garth Owen-Smith’s story was published in African Hunting Gazette 23.2 in 2017. His early years in Namibia (then ‘South West Africa’, administered by South Africa since 1921 after World War I) were characterised by ongoing friction with government officials who regarded rural communities as incompatible with wildlife conservation goals. Garth’s view was that unless these same communities were treated as legal custodians of the wildlife they lived alongside, there was no hope for nature conservation in Africa. His philosophy was articulated in a seminal article entitled Wildlife conservation in Africa: There is another way!, published in Quagga # 17 (1987), the journal of the Endangered Wildlife Trust.
r the years, Garth suffered considerable deprivation and hardship, but stuck firmly to his convictions. With his anthropologist partner, Dr Margaret Jacobsohn, steady headway was made, which escalated rapidly after Namibia’s independence in 1990. The new regime was very supportive of the notion of communities having ownership and responsibility for the wildlife on their land, and the concept of ‘conservancies’ was widely implemented.
By 2017 there were 83 registered conservancies in Namibia, covering 163,000 square kilometres of land, over which wildlife was now managed as a valuable and sustainable resource through tourism, live game capture and sales, subsistence hunting and trophy hunting. Today Namibia leads the African continent in its enlightened wildlife conservation policies, which have ensured the increase in numbers of rhinos, elephants and a myriad other species that have benefitted from the conservancy concept.
It is not often that individuals can play a major role in shaping far-reaching national policies, but Garth-Owen Smith was one of them, and we salute his legacy and his memory with gratitude and appreciation for a life truly well-lived.
Dr John Ledger is a past Director of the Endangered Wildlife Trust, a consultant and academic on energy and the environment, and a columnist for the African Hunting Gazette. John.Ledger@wol.co.za
Apr 9, 2020 | News
Apr 3, 2020 | News, Newsletter, RSS Feed
While the world goes into “lockdown” in an attempt to slow the spread of the virus, international travel, tourism and hunting activities have ground to a halt. The flow of money that used to reach rural African communities in the form of hunting income has dried up. What are these custodians of African wildlife resources going to do?
The tourism and hunting industries are generally not sufficiently organised to have reserve funds to pay workers in their industries at such unexpected times of stress. Large numbers of employees in safari and bush camps all across Africa have lost their jobs.
It is to be hoped that those operators that have made good profits during the good years will support their loyal employees during this stressful time. The NGOs that work with rural communities also have a vital supporting role to play. Nobody knows how long it will take for international travel to resume, and for visitors to return to Africa. But it will happen, sooner or later, and the challenge is to weather the storm until it is spent.
Until then, it is important that the valuable wildlife resources of Africa be protected against exploitation by the criminals who are already advantaged by the CITES bans on trade in ivory and rhino horn. Because no legal trade is allowed, only the illegal trade is allowed to flourish, thanks to the lunacy of CITES and the animal rights activists that seem to determine policy there.
Government conservation agencies are under extreme pressure to maintain their presence and uphold law enforcement among rural communities that have lost their incomes from tourism and hunting. What they can do is ensure that such communities have access to protein from controlled and sustainable subsistence hunting of non-threatened species. In this way the wildlife of Africa can at least support the lives of their custodians until such time as the currency-based economy returns to rural regions.
Those rural communities that have nurtured their wildlife populations over the years for the benefits of ecotourism and hunting, can now turn to their valuable assets as a sustainable source of food in times of need. They deserve nothing less.
Dr John Ledger is a past Director of the Endangered Wildlife Trust, a consultant and academic on energy and the environment, and a columnist for the African Hunting Gazette. John.Ledger@wol.co.za
Apr 3, 2020 | News, Newsletter, RSS Feed
Tintswalo Safari Lodge has launched free virtual safaris that are available on its social media channels to all its followers. Says Lisa Goosen, CEO of Tintswalo: “The national lock-down in South Africa has been very challenging for humans, but in the bush, nature continues undisturbed as it has since the beginning of time. The conservation of our nature reserves and protection of our precious wildlife remain a priority for the Tintswalo family. Within the greater Kruger region, the Tintswalo wildlife management team in the Manyeleti Nature Reserve is ‘on the beat’ in the bush throughout lockdown and continues to monitor and safeguard our vulnerable fauna and flora.”
Tintswalo’s conservation patrols have presented the unique opportunity to bring virtual safaris to viewers at home. “We invite you to enjoy the freedom to escape for a while, focus on positivity and take delight in the wonders of the African bush as inspiration for planning your next Tintswalo safari,” says Goosen.
The game-rich Manyeleti Game Reserve is known world-wide for its Big 5 sightings, but also for its birdlife and many smaller species and other interesting creatures.
Tintswalo’s ‘On the Beat’ virtual safaris include video footage of actual sightings, as well as some of the exhilarating encounters experienced by its game rangers on patrol. Videos are uploaded daily on all Tintswalo’s social media channels.
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Mar 25, 2020 | News
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Jan 30, 2020 | News, Uncategorized
Richard,
I hope this email finds you well. I just finished reading your editorial in the Winter 2019 issue called “The Safari…Experience It.” Thank you for such a thought-provoking description of the safari experience. I found myself getting wonderfully lost in your work as I reflected on the amazing flora and fauna that are Africa. In all of my world travels, Africa is the most amazing and enchanting land I have every visited. The people, the geography, and the diversity of wild game is second to none in the world.
In a few short months I will be making my fourth safari to South Africa to hunt the Cape Buffalo and a few planes game. I never want to wish away a day of this precious life, however, while anticipating my next safari I am sometimes like a small child waiting on Christmas morning. On my first safari in 2014 I was the hunter that was whisk away from the airport in Johannesburg to endure the 4 hour trip in the dark to the outfitter’s lodge. This set what proved to be a rapid pace to hunt my list of “most wanted” and “opportunistic” game. During the middle of the week I called timeout and took a day for my wife and I to do a photo safari to Pilanesberg. It was wonderful. We slowed down and enjoyed the sights, sounds, and smells of the park. This reset the tone for a much more enjoyable finish to this first adventure. I was hooked. I was in love with Africa.
On subsequent safaris, upon arrival at Johannesburg, we started with an evening at the Afton Safari Lodge with the journey resuming the following morning. This is the way to go after a long international flight. In case you are wondering, I already have my Afton reservations for my visit later this year. Prior to my third safari, I made a commitment to always take someone with me who has dreamed of visiting Africa and has never had the opportunity to go. Last fall a friend of mine (74 years old) told me he had dreamed of visiting Africa since he was a child but never had the opportunity to go. I immediately went to work getting the 2020 trip scheduled. I then called him and said, “Guess what Lew, you’re going to Africa!” After he realize this was real, he has been so excited. Can’t wait for him to have the Africa experience. My wife is going to join us to accompany him on two photo safaris (I will be on the first one with them in Kruger for four days). They will go on a second photo safari while I hunt for a few days.
Richard, I mention this because your editorial described exactly how I approach each visit and what I so want my friend Lew to experience. I don’t want him to just see it. I want him to experience it like nothing he as ever experienced before. I encourage hunters to go and experience Africa. I emphasize that you don’t have to break the bank to experience the essence of what this amazing continent is all about. As a hunter, you can pursue an impala and a warthog and go home having one of the most amazing hunting experiences of your life.
Thank you for being a tireless evangelist for hunting Africa. For as long as I have my health and the resources I will return to Africa. Not to pursue an endless list of animals but to experience Africa just as you described.
Lavon
Lavon R. Winkler
Jan 30, 2020 | Electronic Magazines
Jan 15, 2020 | News
You’d think with birds this ubiquitous, the “experts” could come to an agreement. That doesn’t seem to be the case.
By Ken Bailey
Sitting on my desk are five of the most universally accepted and highly regarded books describing the birds of southern Africa. I’ve looked up in each of them the species of birds similar to the Hungarian partridge common to North America and Europe. In trying to determine the commonly accepted names of the dozen or so most familiar of these gamebirds, there is no consensus.
Some books refer to them as grey-winged or red-winged francolin, others as greywing or redwing francolin. This spelling difference is not an unforgiveable offense, so let’s not get too concerned about it. The real problem lies in the fact that some books describe these two species as partridge, not francolin, reserving the francolin name for a list of other specific species. Unfortunately, the confusion doesn’t end there.
Take the widely distributed bird of the dry savanna named for the English ornithologist of the early 1800s, William Swainson. Two of the reference books refer to this bird as a Swainson’s francolin, two others as a Swainson’s spurfowl. Keep in mind that each book describes both francolin and spurfowl distinctly, so it’s not just a case of them using the terms interchangeably. No, the fact is there seems to be little concurrence on which birds should be called francolin, which should be referred to as spurfowl, and which are partridge.
To further confound the issue, it appears that the scientific names for these birds, the Latin-based Genus and species names you see printed in italics, have also changed in recent years. Don’t worry, I won’t bore or confuse you by describing how these names have changed. What’s important to understand, however, is that scientific names are used, in part, to specifically identify a species for the expressed purpose of eliminating the potential confusion caused by regional differences in common names. When scientific names change, as they can and do for legitimate reasons, one of the unintended consequences can be a furthering of the incompatibility as to what the accepted common name will be for any given species, at least until all the reference books and field guides catch up. Often, the laymen on the ground, in this case hunters, outfitters and PHs, never do become “current”; like most of us they’re creatures of habit.
Of course, at the end of the day, most within the hunting community would say that all of this confusion surrounding what we call these birds is much ado about nothing. After all, in the field, when you’re swinging a well-balanced double on a hard-banking bird, neither your guide, your tracker, the dog handler or even the bird dog gives a hoot about what you call that winged target, nor whether you spell its name with or without a hyphen. All they care about is that you dust the bird they’ve worked so hard to put in front of you.
No matter where you hunt in the popular areas of southern Africa, from Tanzania to the Cape, there is one or more of these species available. (For our purposes here, I’ll call them all francolin, as that’s the name for them I learned on my first African safari more than 30 years ago.) They’re common and widely distributed birds that you’ll undoubtedly encounter whether hunting the peaks of the Drakensburg Mountains, stalking the thornbush of central Namibia, or walking the miombo woodland of the Selous. Most often, hunters, focussed on more important game, note them only in passing. That is until a knot of francolin flush noisily from underfoot when you’re closing the distance on a buffalo or kudu, scaring you half to death and simultaneously alerting the animal you’re hunting that something untoward is afoot. At those times, francolin are considered little more than a nuisance.
What many are missing, however, is how sporting francolin can be as game birds. I’m constantly surprised by how many hunters, even wingshooters, overlook francolin, focussing instead on doves and pigeons, guineafowl or geese. And it’s not that you shouldn’t pursue those species, but rather that it’s well worth the effort to dedicate some time to francolin.
The crown prince among these birds is the grey-winged partridge, often regarded as one of the premier upland birds in the world; they’re spoken of in the same sentences and with an equal reverence as the renowned red grouse of the Scottish highlands or the robust capercaille of Eurasia. Greywings make for a physically demanding hunt, as they’re generally found in montane grassland habitats above 5000 feet. That makes for lots of ups and downs as, even in the best habitats, coveys are generally widely dispersed. These hunts are invariably conducted behind well-trained pointing dogs and, while you may be forewarned of an impending flush, uneven footing and the greywing’s tendency to flush downslope makes for challenging shooting. You earn every grey-winged partridge you manage to collect.
While you have to make a dedicated effort to find and hunt greywings, and their close kin, redwings, most other francolin are found in the same habitats where you’d typically hunt big game. You’ll encounter them across an array of habitat types although they’re predominantly associated with arid bushveld, savanna or grasslands, often adjacent to gullies or dry riverbeds.
On a recent hunt in central Namibia, the leopard gods were smiling on us and we finished earlier than anticipated. With time on our hands we elected to dedicate a day and a half to hunting birds, including red-billed francolin. These birds are widespread across Namibia and Botswana, and can also be found in northwestern South Africa. They’re reluctant fliers by nature, preferring, much as Hungarian partridge do, to run and hide beneath thorn thickets. We didn’t have a lean and graceful pointer at our disposal, so we engaged the next best thing, our PH’s rambunctious Jack Russell terrier. What he may have lacked in bird dog refinement he more than made up for in hell-bent enthusiasm. Whenever we’d see a redbill or two scuttle into a thornbush, we’d send Bushy in after them. Invariable they’d flush, offering a shot or two. It proved to be great sport and an enjoyable and relaxing way to spend time after the intensity of hunting leopard.
On a hunt in Limpopo in 2018, we hunted Swainson’s and crested francolin behind a brace of fine English pointers. Over two days we experienced hunting that rivals the best upland bird hunting I’ve enjoyed anywhere, with 20 to 25 flushes each day.
As noted, some species of francolin would rather run than fly when pressured. This split personality is largely responsible for the conflicting stories you hear about hunting them. Certainly dogs, particularly pointing breeds, are a huge asset whenever you’re hunting francolin, but the dogless hunter can also enjoy fine sport if he’s determined. Admittedly, in bushveld habitats hunting francolin without a dog can be difficult. Where they’re found in grassland habitats, alternatively, they’re much quicker to flush, and if you’re willing to put in some miles on your boots, the gunning can be both rewarding and fruitful.
Some species get an undeserved bad rap, and francolin appear to be one of them. My advice is to not listen to rumor and innuendo, but hunt them and see for yourself. Their meat is absolutely superb and the shooting can be terrific; what more could you ask of a game bird?
As to all confusion about whether to call any given species a francolin, a spurfowl or a partridge, I guess we’ll all just have to wait until the scientists and those who write the bird identification books to reach some sort of agreement. Until then, perhaps Shakespeare said it best. Does not a rose by any other name still smell as sweet?
