Cry of the Kalahari

by Mark James Owens

  Diablo, the dominant male of the Springbok Pan Pride, was ousted by three prime males that we called the All-Stars. He moved about twenty miles west of Deception Valley, where he associates with two young females. Happy, Dixie, Sunny, Muzzy, and Taco, the females of the pride, together with Spicy, Spooky, and two lionesses from other prides, briefly came back to their old stomping grounds during the short rains. However, they are now once again scattered over more than 1200 square miles of sandveld north and south of Deception Valley.

  The entire Tau Pride, which had frightened Delia while she was checking for holes on the crude airstrip in Hidden Valley, were shot by ranchers when they left the reserve in the dry season.

  Pepper has grown into a young adult brown hyena who still visits camp to steal the water kettle, just like her mother, Star.

  Patches gave birth to four cubs late in 1980 and moved them into the clan’s communal den, where Dusty and Pepper helped feed them. Dusty lost a litter of her own and began nursing Patches’ cubs soon after they were brought to the communal den. Chip, the cubs’ half brother, assists in rearing them by provisioning and playing with them, but Pippin, their more distantly related male cousin, does not.

  Recommendations for the conservation of brown hyenas in the Central Kalahari are in Appendix C.

  The rains that fell on Lake Xau in late 1980 temporarily drew the wildebeest back into the reserve after thousands more had perished. But the respite was brief. Apart from a few scattered showers, the drought continued through 1984. The herds still migrate to Lake Xau, which is now completely dry.

  The boundaries of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve were drawn at a time when nothing was known about the shifting antelope populations. To conserve these animals, even in their present diminished numbers, a solution must be found for the migrating species.

  We wanted the research on the wildebeest to continue, so we requested funds for the Deception camp to operate as a small research station. The Frankfurt Zoological Society agreed to finance the facility and a team of researchers to further investigate the wildebeest problem. Doug and Jane Williamson1 are following up on our preliminary research on the antelope with a more detailed study of their range ecology. They report that, in 1983 alone, more than 60,000 wildebeest died, just in the area around Lake Xau.

  Publicity of the wildebeest issue has stirred considerable interest, and the Botswana government has received communications from all over the world expressing concern for the antelope. We have been told by an official in the Wildlife Department that the Botswana Ministry of Agriculture has agreed to allocate over one million pula to the Department of Wildlife and National Parks for research into the development of alternate water supplies for Kalahari antelope. The government has temporarily accepted the recommendation to freeze the development of settlements on the west shore of Lake Xau, thereby maintaining this migratory corridor for the wildebeest. The Kalahari Conservation Society has been founded in Gaborone, and discussions are continuing on the feasibility of developing water holes for wildlife inside the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.

  Unfortunately, a game scout camp has yet to be established at Lake Xau, and poaching and harassment of the migrating antelope continues to be severe, the local people chasing the wildebeest with vehicles, setting dogs on them, and shooting, spearing, and clubbing them to death.

  Recommended solutions to the wildebeest problem are described in Appendix A.

  Although we never saw Mox again, we eventually learned that he was working on an ostrich farm at Motopi, a village thirty miles east of Maun on the Boteti River. According to the farmer, Mox often sits around the evening campfire telling stories about Bones, about being treed by the Blue Pride, and about our bungled attempts at radiotracking Star for the first time. He still drinks beer and occasionally terrorizes the native women of Motopi; he also enjoys the well-earned title, Ra de Tau, man of the lions.

  We are presently writing and publishing our research results and completing our Ph.D. degree studies at the University of California, Davis. Soon we will return to the Kalahari to continue our studies of Pepper, Dusty, Blue, Sassy, Moffet, and the other animals we knew for seven years.

  We could have stayed in Deception Valley for the rest of our lives, filling up one field journal after another; its mysteries are for us an endless fascination. But such an indulgence would have accomplished little for the Kalahari. We had to process seven years of data, write, and publish our results for science and conservation. Just as important, we had to make the people of Botswana and the rest of the world aware of the wilderness treasures that lie in the Kalahari. None of this could be done from our tent camp.

  We had lived through some difficult times in the desert, but the most difficult task of all was leaving Deception Valley.

  Early one morning in December 1980, we bounced down the airstrip in Echo Whisky Golf and lifted into the desert sky. Boeing the springbok trotted out of the way and the hornbills in camp flitted about the trees. Neither of us could speak as Mark turned the plane north for a short run over the valley. We flew low over the trees where we had done surgery on Bones’s broken leg, and over the hyena den, where we could see Pepper, resting beneath an acacia bush. We lingered over the shoulder of East Dune, where Muffin and Moffet had killed Star, and over the small clearing on Cheetah Hill, where Captain and Mate had raised Hansel and Gretel. Then we turned south onto a heading of 163 degrees and flew away from Deception toward another world.

  Appendix A

  Conservation of Migratory Kalahari Ungulates

  IN DROUGHT, Kalahari ungulates, including wildebeest and hartebeest, migrate across the Central Kalahari Reserve and beyond its protection. The herds move toward the waters of Lake Ngami, the Okavango River delta, Lake Xau, and the rivers that connect these natural reservoirs. Besides water to drink, the antelope may also need more nutritious forage than can be found in the reserve during these dry times. Their migrations take them into areas where human settlement has increased over the last twenty years, and now there is direct competition between man and wildlife for such limited resources as water and grassland. In addition, fences erected to control foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) block the migrations and channel antelope populations into only a very small portion of previously available riverine habitat (see maps on [>] and [>]).

  Finding a solution to the conflict between people and the migrating desert antelope is not going to be easy. However, without immediate action, these ungulate populations may not survive the Kalahari’s periodic droughts. The following recommendations deserve consideration:

  1. Detailed research must be undertaken to qualify and quantify the role of cordonfences in the control of FMD. Little is known about how the disease pathogen is transmitted from animal to animal and, despite extensive experimentation, it has never been conclusively proven that wild ungulates can transmit FMD to healthy domestic stock.1 Thus, no one can be certain that wild ungulates are a reservoir of infection that is held in check by fences.

  Since the erection of the fences in the early 1950s, Botswana has experienced more than nine major outbreaks of FMD, which have spread over large sections of the country irrespective of the disease-control fences. In part, this has been due to the fact that FMD is caused by three different strains of virus, each of which may cause an outbreak in a different area almost simultaneously when environmental conditions are conducive. There is also good evidence that the virus may be spread through the air over considerable distances2 or in damp soil clinging to vehicles,3 which cannot easily be constrained by fences. So, there appears to be as much circumstantial evidence to suggest that the fences do not help control the development and spread of the disease as there is evidence to suggest that they do. What we do know, is that they have devastated migrating antelope populations all over Botswana.

  However, taking down fences may not be a viable long-term solution to the wildebeest problem. There is great pressure for human settlement along the shores of Botswana’s few rivers and lakes,
so that even if the fences were removed, Kalahari antelope would probably be blocked from water in the near future. The government has never seriously considered proposals to develop tourism and other wildlife-based industries in these areas, which would probably raise the living standards of local people and at the same time preserve a great natural heritage. To prevent yet another wildlife disaster, research is needed that would determine how new fences that are being planned will affect wildlife.

  2. Botswana should consider alternatives to fencing for disease control, the most obvious being a modern and efficient vaccination program. In the past, often fewer than fifty percent of all cattle in infected areas have been vaccinated during an outbreak. And, at least on one occasion, outdated vaccine was used. A new vaccine is currently under development in the United States that will provide cattle a lifelong immunity to foot-and-mouth disease.4

  There are other alternatives that would reduce the need for fencing and make the beef-export industry less subject to the vagaries of FMD: the development of more meat-canning plants in areas where FMD is endemic; stricter penalties, such as confiscation of cattle, for movement of domestic stock from one area to another during FMD outbreaks; and patrols using light aircraft instead of fencing along borders of quarantined areas.

  3. One partial solution to the wildebeest problem would be to extend a portion of the eastern boundary of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve to include the area around Lake Xau. If the government will not consider this, the area between the lake and the western shore of the reserve at least should be set aside as a permanent corridor for migrations, and further development of villages and ranches in this area should be frozen. The corridor would have to be maintained free from settlement even in years when migrations did not occur, but it could be used to support tourism, safari hunting, or other wildlife industry.

  4. A permanent game scout camp should be established in the Lake Xau area to prevent the poaching of migratory antelope.

  5. We do not highly recommend the use of boreholes in the reserve as a means of providing water for the ungulates. However, if such action is taken certain considerations should be made.

  a. The abundance of a grass species gives no assurance of its quality as a forage for antelope. Research is needed to determine if graze and browse plant species in the Central Kalahari Reserve contain enough protein and mineral nutrients to sustain antelope during drought. If they do not, merely providing migratory antelope with water will not ensure their survival.

  b. Artificial water supplies will tend to focus mobile antelope populations and, unless they are carefully managed, will result in regional overgrazing and desertification.

  c. Artificial water supplies will also attract people, who will settle nearby with livestock and crops. This would prevent access for wildebeest and aggravate the already sensitive problem of what to do about such growing settlements as Xade, which has developed around a borehole inside the game reserve.

  6. Pan and fossil riverbeds constitute only about eleven percent of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, but their soils contain essential minerals and the grasses have a more favorable protein/fiber ratio than do sandveld grasses. Even though these habitats make up a small portion of the total range, fifty-seven percent of all ungulates counted inhabited them during the wet season in years when rainfall was ten inches or more. Our results show that these fossil riverbeds are important habitat for wildlife and should be protected.

  7. The European Economic Community, and in particular Britain, which imports most of Botswana’s beef, heavily subsidizes Botswana’s cattle industry. EEC officials in Brussels rigidly insist on the veterinary cordon fences, despite the fact that no research has ever been done to demonstrate their efficacy in controlling foot-and-mouth disease; and regardless of the fact that in the thirty-odd years since the fencing program was begun, it has been directly responsible for the deaths of at least a quarter of a million wildebeest and untold thousands of other antelope. “Easy” money from these subsidies encourages overstocking that leads to overgrazing and desertification—and to further displacement of wild antelope populations. Many native people are becoming less able to meet their own needs for food and clothing, traditionally obtained from the products of wild animals, and they are growing very dependent on foreign-aid programs for subsistence. Meanwhile, the few wealthy cattle owners, those who own most of the country’s domestic stock, are growing richer.

  The European Parliament should revise this policy immediately. Foreign subsidies should encourage Botswana to develop wildlife industries, such as tourism, photographic and hunting safaris, game ranching, and others. The necessary funds could come from the annual beef “rebate” to Botswana, currently running at more than 14,500,000 British pounds. Wildlife industries are more sustainable over the long term because they are less likely to contribute to desertification, less expensive to maintain, and more likely to raise the standard of living of the general populace.

  Appendix B

  Conservation of Kalahari Lions

  1. The Predator Control Act should be amended to require that before ranchers destroy predators, they must provide proof that the predators have actually killed their stock. An immediate investigation should be made by the appropriate authority, and if sufficient proof of damage exists, the destruction of the predator concerned should be the responsibility of the government authority and not the rancher. The official should confiscate the remains of the predator, the sale of which should be used to maintain a fund for the remuneration of ranchers for damage to stock by predators. Skulls of all predators should be aged by the Department of Wildlife for much-needed data on population structure and dynamics.

  2. Based on our density figures, we recommend that Kalahari lion-hunting quotas be reduced by one-half and the price of a lion-hunting license for safari hunters be doubled. The skulls of all lions taken by safari hunters should be aged by trained personnel of the Department of Wildlife. (We remind the reader that this book is not a scientific treatment of our results. Complete and detailed accounts of density figures, range sizes, and habitat utilization will be published in appropriate journals.)

  3. Safari hunters should be required to buy a lion-hunting license only if they have already shot a lion. Many hunters are shooting very young lions simply because they have been required to purchase a license in advance and cannot find older males. Because of this, hunting pressure on male lions does not diminish even when there are no older lions.

  4. Laws against baiting and trapping of predators should be more strictly enforced. This practice results in the indiscriminate killing and maiming of animals that have not damaged domestic stock. Baiting is also an expedient method for drawing predators out of reserves and parks by poachers.

  5. The Department of Wildlife should have two to three times more men in the field to improve enforcement of existing laws.

  6. As discussed in detail in Appendix A, one of the most important measures for the conservation of lions and other wildlife in the Kalahari, is to readjust the Central Kalahari Game Reserve boundaries to include at least the western shore of Lake Xau. Though, as we have seen, Kalahari lions can live for months without drinking water, many of them have to leave the protection of the game reserve to locate adequate prey during prolonged dry seasons and drought.

  7. Until the above measures are taken, permission to shoot lions outside game reserves should be suspended in times of drought, when many of them must leave the protection of the reserve in order to survive.

  8. A tourist facility should be developed at the southern tip of Lake Xau. Such a facility could include accommodation at a lodge overlooking the lake, canoe trips through the papyrus to bird blinds on the lake, trips by canoe up the river for fishing and game viewing, photographic safaris into the Makgadikgadi Pans Game Reserve and the fossil rivers of the proposed Central Kalahari National Park, and game-viewing flights from a local airstrip. The Lake Xau facility could be utilized by tour operators as part of a packaged d
eal for tourists to visit the Kalahari, the Makgadikgadi, and the Okavango. It would greatly stimulate the local and regional economy, while at the same time conserving and advertising a unique part of Botswana that is still relatively unknown.

  Appendix C

  Conservation of Brown Hyenas

  1. Because they are scavengers in a semiarid ecosystem where carrion is often limited, brown hyenas naturally occur in small numbers. The species is seriously threatened by decreasing habitat, as more and more Kalahari wilderness is used for grazing cattle. The hyenas are commonly shot and trapped in Ghanzi, Tuli, and Nojani, and in most ranching areas. However, the threat they pose to domestic stock is probably exaggerated. With one or two exceptions, the few times we observed them hunting in Deception Valley, they never pursued anything larger than a rabbit. Even at the beginning of the rainy seasons, when springbok dams synchronously birthed their lambs, we never saw a brown hyena kill a springbok fawn. When one is found feeding on the remains of a domestic animal, it cannot be assumed that it is responsible for the kill. In many cases—perhaps in most—a brown hyena discovers or appropriates a carcass after a prey has been killed by other predators. Some ranchers in South Africa have begun to allow brown hyenas on their rangeland; the public must be educated to the fact that this species of hyena is predominantly a scavenger and does not usually endanger domestic herds.