Augusts in Africa

by Thomas McIntyre

  The argument made by many game breeders, ranch owners, professional outfitters, and booking agents, is that the Republic of South Africa may become the last place to hunt for the traditional game of Africa, because it has developed the perfect system to guarantee the preservation of the safari. Today, as this is written, the country has some 10,000 private preserves (14,000 if mixed livestock-wildlife properties are included) covering 17 percent of South Africa’s territory (other figures suggest 25 percent), versus 6 percent within the boundaries of national and provincial protected areas. Animals on preserves reportedly number 16 to 17 million, estimated to be four times the wildlife population of South Africa’s national parks. The claim of the preserve industry is that it is able to do more for the conservation of species and habitat than the public could ever do, because of the money those species and that habitat attracts from overseas hunters.

  There is nothing inherently perverse about hunting on private preserves for raised game. It is in keeping with ancient tradition dating back as far as at least the Romans’ vast latifundia that were maintained not only for agriculture but for game hunting, the wildlife considered the private property of the landlords. Hunting estates and royal forests are prominent features in the history of the Old World. Even Native Americans maintained what were in essence their own wildlife preserves by regularly torching the Great Plains and Eastern hardwoods (more timbered land is estimated to exist in North America today than in the time of Columbus). In Africa, the practice dates back at least half a century to game ranches in then-Rhodesia, and arguably as far back as pharaohs’ raising hippos in ponds to hunt. Private wildlife on private land is not at issue. Something less tangible, yet even more vital, is—perhaps the very soul of the safari.

  Preserve owners assure us, as quoted in the WSJ.Money article, that their calling represents an ideal of “breeding back the magnificent specimens that have been hunted out of existence.” They claim that they treat their individual animals with utmost care, darting, inspecting, and ministering to them, and keep the bloodlines broadly diverse to ensure robust genetic wellbeing. From the website of one of the most prominent breeders, a South African brewery magnate: “[The owner] believes that just as brewing great beer requires high quality ingredients and impeccable attention to detail, breeding exceptional animals requires focus on superior bloodlines and genetics as well as nutritional health. That philosophy has been applied in carefully building herds of excellent conformation and horn length.” In other words, this buff’s for you.

  “Magnificent specimens” are and always have been the exceptions, the freaks, and in no way emblematic of the health of a species overall; that’s why so relatively very few of any species ever make the book. Average is what most animals are and should be, a gorgeous monster nature’s way of saying that here’s one who defied the odds, or more accurately fell through the cracks, not that this is the way all are meant to be. As well, the notion of “hunted out of existence” seems a rather curious tack to be taken by a breeder of game animals which are destined to be hunted, especially when there is nothing in regulated, scientifically managed hunting on open land that leads to degradation. In North America, that can be seen in Boone and Crockett’s recognizing new world’s records of nearly all species, all unfenced, on a regular basis (the club’s latest whitetail book has 4,692 total new entries over the previous edition, for the planet’s most democratic big-game animal, and yet one of the most difficult to qualify as a record).

  It would seem that the breeder is talking about a different sort of hunting, the way society types refer to the wrong sorts of people. He seems to be saying that we can no longer depend on the wilds of Africa to produce big-game animals, at least not those we really ought to want, or deserve, to be hunting, or that no one truly wishes to be seen hunting out on open and, God forbid, publicly or tribally owned land. All of which does seem to lend further credence to the late novelist Jim Harrison’s long-held opinion that, “By and large, the greater part of African hunting has been the rich sportsman’s hoax on his gullible fraternity of hunters back home.”

  Another point of view of South African hunting preserves has to do with that stubborn word wildlife, defined as the “fauna of a region,” by which is meant the natural or endemic animals. The word “natural” can be ragged over when so much fauna is managed even on public land. It is difficult to consider the notion soberly, though, when it is applied to the denizens of “wildlife ranches” that may be subjected, as noted in a paper, “The Challenge of Regulating Private Wildlife Ranches for Conservation in South Africa,” in the journal Ecology and Society, to deliberate hybridization, breeding for recessive genes such as color variations, breeding for trophy size, unscientific intensive captive breeding of rare species that may lead to inbreeding, introducing wildlife species outside their native ranges, introducing invasive alien species (Himalayan tahr is one example in South Africa), burning and cutting native vegetation, and predator control to protect privately owned game, not to mention the disruptive impact of some 100,000 kilometers of game fencing on the movements of true wild animals outside the preserves. There is also the effect that conspicuous consumption has in fomenting public resentment toward hunters in South Africa, as when the deputy president of the ruling African National Congress admitted that his personal bid of $2 million for a buffalo cow was a “mistake” amid the runaway poverty of his nation.

  The directory, called the “Threatened and Protected Species Regulations,” or “TOPS,” is tightening wildlife-ranching practices in South Africa. Verboten now, for example, is the abomination of “green” hunting to collect replica horns, in which large pachyderms would be darted, sedated, photographed, and plaster cast more times than Jimi Hendrix, turning rhino into potential junkies, waiting for the man on acacia-shaded street corners.

  Bad practices and bad science, though, remain widespread; and there is the added caveat that a bubble is a bubble is a bubble. It’s hard to calculate how a business model is supposed to function, based on approximately 9,000 foreign hunters spending $124 million (2012’s number) within a herd of 16 million, placing the income potential from a single head of game at $7.75. What becomes of this wildlife when the bubble inevitably bursts? (In Spain’s boom years in the late 1990s, an overheated market for pure-bred Andalusian horses sprang up among the newly rich with pretensions of being grandees. With the coming of less palmy days, those horses from foreclosed, and often abandoned, haciendas were being sent to slaughter or worse, left to starve and die.)

  To the spirit of the safari, how real on the whole can the hunting be on some game ranches? In the article about the high cost of privately held buffalo, the fabulously wealthy landowners, described as roaming about on the earth in personal helicopters, were said to own properties of 3,700 to as much as 7,500 acres (some arithmetic shows an average size of 3,600 acres throughout the country). Arguably, the ranches described in the article are breeding, rather than hunting, facilities; but what is the true nature of an animal restricted to a life bound by five sections of land, when its normal home range can reach 25,000 acres, or 40 sections? Or in the case of some wildebeest and zebra, the quality of life in a fenced enclosure of conceivably any dimension when they evolved out of epic 1,800-mile clockwise migrations over open plains in search of new grass and the avoidance of crocodiles and lions?

  The Ecology and Society paper seems to be stating the obvious when it says that “ranches are businesses first and foremost, competing to attract customers.” So some hunters who can may turn to lavishly appointed lodges, Wi-Fi, swimming pools, airstrips, spa treatments, gourmet dining, perhaps a golf course off to the side, and quick jaunts in the Defender out to the north 40 for a spot of shooting. Or because of the marginal worth of much of the land in South Africa for farming and grazing, and the eliminating of agricultural subsidies to commercial landowners, the ranch might be a failed small-scale cattle operation where the owner is trying to stay above water with a few score head of fenced-in pla
ins game, hunted on an overwhelmingly depressing put-and-take scheme.

  Writer Thomas McGuane has given the Hunkpapa leader Sitting Bull the words “when the buffalo are gone, we will hunt mice, for we are hunters and we want our freedom.” In what way that applies to Africa, I am not quite sure, except to express the dubious notion that any hunting is better than none. It is supremely unfair that not every hunter was born early enough or with enough wherewithal, or was able to earn the means, to safari, if he so wishes, in Africa as it once was and remains so in many places. It would be excellent if there existed scholarships or grants that allowed a regular hunter to spend a month in the best parts of the Selous or northern Mozambique or the valleys of Zambia. I can think of any number of skilled hunters with kids to raise and bills to pay, who would be far more appreciative and deserving of a true safari than many of the clients of game ranches. The question is whether any kind of hunting in Africa is sufficient to impart the experience of the African hunt. Or is it enough if it lets you say, “I hunted Africa,” without mention of which Africa?

  A safari is not about head counts or trophy size or species lists, and certainly not about convenience. A real safari should be inconvenient in time and effort. So, never hunt on any game ranch in South Africa? Of course not. There are certainly ranches on which the wildlife is naturally reproducing and free to wander within substantial areas in which they may not even realize there are boundaries to their movements, and on which a hunter can have a genuine hunt and find that dream that comes down from Burchell and those who followed after him. And if the Angolas and Congos, along with the Chads (recently reopened, in fact, to hunters) and South Sudans can ever stabilize, that opens almost 20 percent of the African landmass to new safari exploration.

  Let’s not pretend, though, that in the context of Africa, what is slouching toward Cape Town is not the mass industrialization of the safari and hunting. Many speak offhandedly of the “hunting industry” to defend it as a major economic force, and as such not to be trifled with. Personally, when I hear the word “industry” linked to “hunting,” I thumb off the safety of my 375. And yet, I understand that industry may very well be the last-gasp for African wildlife. Traditional, hide-bound, command-and-control conservation has certainly proven that it is not.

  That is not a reason, though, not to recognize that there is a tangible difference between a game ranch and the veldt. Or that hunting on one is the absolute equivalent of venturing out onto the other. Or that somehow the methods and motives of all game ranchers, even with the state-of-the-art in genetic science, represent progress or an actual hope for the future. Or that the fences are only there to keep poachers out and not to protect and warehouse an asset. Or that because of this “something new,” we no longer have to worry about, or work for, keeping the real thing real.

  The African safari as it always was, or at least as near as can be found in the 21st century, is worth every effort to preserve, and not simulate. Just because the safari began in a broken heart does not mean it must end in one.

  There is the old African proverb, often quoted, that until the lions have their own historian, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. One could also look, though, to Wittgenstein’s belief that if a lion could speak, we could not understand him. Which means that it falls to the safari hunter not to glorify, but to attempt understanding, however inadequate.

  Is it proper to judge the safari to be something of value, worth keeping even today? Yes, if only because when it is gone, there will never be anything else like it again. And that is an immutable fact.

  Could there be another reason, some possible ulterior motive? Only that I am not yet finished with dreaming of another August in Africa, another walk from out of the sun and into the shade, another chance to see the buffalo, if only fleetingly.

  Epilogue

  Mapduzi anouira kusina hari

  (Squashes fall where there are no pots)

  THE HEADLIGHTS SWEPT across the empty orbits of the bare buffalo skull as we turned up the hill. Coupled curves of black horn dipped down on either side of a round stone carried up from the riverbed, the rock the almost-white of bone. Rory shifted down, the pitch of the lower gear rising as the Land Rover dug into the two-track road, disturbing the dust that reached my nostrils. Beyond the beams, the persistent flames of the leadwood stood in the fire ring, off to the side of the lighted main tent. The Land Rover accelerated a last time and came to a stop on the level place behind the tent. I opened the unloaded chamber of the 450 and climbed down from the left seat of the doorless vehicle, as Rory switched off the engine.

  It was too late to shower, and nearly too late to eat. There was time, though, for a gin and tonic with a little ice in the camp chair by the fire, and a plate of small toast pieces with wafer slices of local cheddar. I stood the Nitro rifle in the rack in the main tent and walked to the fire ring with the drink I had mixed.

  Rory came out later and stood at the edge of the firelight, smoking. It had been a good day, with game sighted, though nothing taken. We did not speak, wanting a respite from the hours together in the Land Rover and on the trail. After a while, one of the African staff called softly that supper was ready.

  At the long, red-varnished wooden table were serving dishes of sadza and oxtail stew. Rory spooned portions for each of us and handed a plate to me. We ate in continuing silence, satisfied, sipping glasses of red wine that left a tannin feel in the mouth. When we were done, one of the staff, dressed in khaki, gathered the supper dishes and took them away. He returned from out of the darkness with the tray of pudding.

  Rory unapologetically served himself first so he could be certain to skim off the skin that formed on the top of the heated custard, taking him back to mealtimes in public school. I took some pudding for myself and swirled the skinless custard from the china pitcher, drawing a recumbent figure eight over the dessert.

  Finishing, I lifted my pudding dish and scraped away the remnant crumbs and custard with the bowl of the spoon, the steel clanging against the ceramic. Rory lit a cigarette and leaned back in his chair, his naked scarred legs stretched out and his Courtney-shod feet crossed under the table. Saying good night, I stood, slung my rifle, gathered up my hat, and left the tent. Rory waved with the burning cigarette between two fingers.

  The hat in my hand pulled up so I could hook the sling with my thumb, was cold and stiff with drying sweat. In my other hand my flashlight pointed at the earthen path. A few new orange leaves had fallen since the path had been raked during the day, the ground crosshatched with grooves from the tines of the rake. The light played over the path ahead, until it carried me to the large square tent pitched on a concrete pad.

  I shifted the flashlight to my other hand and lifted the zipper on the mesh panels over the opening of the tent. Ducking in, I turned and zipped the panels closed and moved the flashlight back to the other hand. The day’s heat could be smelled radiating through the waxed green canvas. I crossed to the small oilcloth-covered table with the lamp, beside the bed draped with mosquito netting. Placing the flashlight on the oilcloth cast a blue circle of light, its bottom flattened by the tabletop, onto the canvas wall.

  I unclipped the lamp chimney and set it on the table, the flashlight shining through it. There was the odor of paraffin rising from the woven-tape wick folded in the glass fount half filled with clear liquid. From the box of Lion matches I shook one out and struck it on the side of the box. Lighting the flame, I extinguished the match with a flick, hearing it ring on the bottom of the aluminum ashtray as I dropped it in, a pale serpent of smoke coiling up from its head. I clipped the chimney back over the flame and adjusted it with the knurled brass knob on the side of the wick tube so soot would not blacken the inside of the glass. I switched off the flashlight.

  Unslinging the 450, I leaned it against the table. I undid the buckle on my belt, and holding onto the heavy, worn-leather ammunition pouch containing the long straight-walled cartridges, slipped the belt through the l
oops. Laying the pouch on the table, I placed the rolled up belt beside it.

  Kneeling on one knee, and then the other, I unlaced and removed my dusty boots and my socks, then pushed the boots under the table, out of the way. I took off my pants and shirt and folded them, laying them in a bundle on the concrete floor with the socks, unused to heaping them in a pile. The change of clothes for the morning sat on the wooden folding chair by the table, washed and dried and pressed with a smoothing iron heated by the fire, smelling of wood smoke and sunlight. I changed into a clean set of underwear from off the top of the stack on the seat. Folding the dirty ones, I placed them on top of the pants and shirt and socks on the floor, sliding bare feet into boiled-wool slippers.

  The clean underwear felt fresh on my skin. Drawing aside the white mist of the mosquito netting, I pulled back the blankets and top sheet and sat on the edge of the metal bed on the cool bottom sheet, my slippered feet on the small oval rug on the floor. For a minute I was motionless, welcoming the fatigue relaxing my muscles. Attracted by the lamplight inside the tent, large flying insects landed on the outside of the zippered mesh doors, flying off again with a clicking noise as they opened out their wings.

  Lifting my head when it lolled against my chest, I leaned out from the bed and cupped my hand above the top of the lamp chimney, feeling the rising heat. I blew sharply into my palm, and the flame guttered and died. Sliding the slippers off onto the rug, I drew up my legs and adjusted the mosquito netting around the metal bed, tucking the blanket under my arms.