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Kelvin Kemm
Dr Kelvin Kemm is a South African nuclear physicist and has been a CFACT senior advisor for over two decades.
South African conservation authorities have recently announced a revision in big game hunting quotas. This has caused the predictable reaction by the extreme green lobby who have demanded that all hunting be stopped. The debate is set to bounce backwards and forwards.
South Africa is an incredible place for game viewing of all sorts. The country is a huge variety of habitats, ranging from arid desert to lush tropical lands. The different geographic areas are exciting and intriguing in themselves, but they also support different ecosystems of fauna and flora.
Going out “in the bush,” as we say, is an amazing experience. Such trips produce the most amazing sensations of peace and tranquility. The feelings creep into your bones, where they stay forever. It is difficult to explain to someone who has never done it. Watching a sunrise and sunset out in the bush is really quite incredible.
South Africa has the most professional core of game conservation people in the world. They range from professional scientists to game rangers, to game vehicle drivers, and many more. Collectively, they have developed a huge array of professional skills. These range from using uncanny skill to track animals, to transporting elephants from one place to another over distances of hundreds of kilometers. Believe me, trying to catch a wild elephant or rhino without injury, and then transporting it, is no simple task. The conservation management of vast areas is a major exercise.
The population dynamics of the various species matters far more than the absolute numbers of animals. In fact, if one species starts to multiply rapidly for some reason, it will probably lead to the detriment of others. Lions have to eat, and if the lion numbers double, then the food has to double, or it will dwindle away.
Some people like to photograph animals. This activity is rather difficult, because you first have to find the animals, and then maneuver into the correct position with the sun at the correct angle. Then, as you line up your shot, the animal moves behind a bush. This type of photography is very much like big game hunting. Hunters often spend a day or more following the tracks of some animal. The hunting rules and procedures operate on a “fair chase” principle. You can’t just shoot from a moving vehicle: you have to track the animal on foot. Every so often an animal kills a hunter, so tracking an animal is serious stuff.
Hunting in South Africa operates within a strict legal framework, which is in turn linked to professional conservation management. Authorities generate conservation management plans in which the animal numbers are known. Part of such a plan is the limiting of population sizes if they exceed scientifically known stable quantities.
This is where hunting comes in. If it is determined that there is a surplus of elephants somewhere, then permits will be produced allowing a number to be hunted. Quotas are not static; they vary annually depending on each year’s management plan.
Hunting policy cannot be designed on what some group of people merely likes or dislikes. It has to be designed on professional scientific principles.
A management plan includes the existence of a range of game lodges. These lodges range from amazing, smart places integrated into the bush to romantic tents with their own outdoor showers and communal fireplaces, where local chefs create incredible meals under millions of stars, amid the wild calls of the nocturnal animal hunters.
These dramatic tourist venues have to survive financially, so they become part of the overall conservation plan. Hunting not only controls animal numbers but also brings income to the lodges. Villagers nearby also derive income from being guides or lodge staff. With an assured income, a tribesman will not need to kill an animal to feed his family or cut down trees for firewood.
In Europe, hunting forests were decreed and preserved as early as the 15th century. This led to many of these areas still existing today. People look after an asset.
With modern game conservation, the objective is to protect the asset for immediate benefit, but also for posterity. Part of the protection of the asset is the sensible integration of big game hunting into the overall conservation management plan.
So, it is counterproductive for some short-sighted green groups to try to stop professionally managed hunting. Stopping hunting can do more harm to animal herds than the controlled hunting quotas.
We want to continue to experience the incredible calls of the wild. Sitting around an evening campfire as a lion roars in the dark is something which penetrates one’s soul.
This article was originally published by CFACT.
