African Hunter Published Books Guide to Nyati | Hunting the African Buffalo | Page 19

remove buffalo and other species completely from demarcated
corridors. A magazine once published in the then Rhodesia known
as Fishing and Outdoor Life printed an article in the August 1954
edition which read “...the total of game destroyed in 1953 was 19
734, bringing the total slaughter since the start of operations to 519
653 head. Since the inception of calculated game destruction 10 000
square miles have been cleared of tsetse fly.”
One of Zimbabwe’s Parks men - John Osborne - who was one
of the early rangers of Gonarezhou, was enlisted to assist in the
ongoing program. His briefing on joining the tsetse program was to
hunt elephant and buffalo which were considered conveyers of the fly
and needed to be eliminated within the defined areas. Those animals
which consistently broke the heavy?duty multi strand fences were to
be destroyed as well. John writes “I was about to be introduced to
one of the most horrific and futile exercises in our country’s history.
An embarrassment, in my opinion, to both agriculture in its widest
sense, and to Wild Life Conservation, for its pathetic challenge of
this disgraceful experiment.” There is not one intelligent African
today who would not now agree with these sentiments.
But still the slaughter continued. As Zimbabwe’s beef industry
grew through the 1970s, the threat from foot and mouth disease
(carried by buffalo) was just too great. At the height of the beef
industry in Zimbabwe, and what had become a very lucrative export
earner for the country and her ranchers, fate dealt a hand which would
change the buffalo’s fortunes forever. Drought ravaged the southern
continent, and with it came the collapse of most of man’s scratchings
in the African soil. Domestic stock and crops died as quickly as they
had sprung up. The carved up land - once pristine bush - struggled
under the burden of artificial development, and now even the wildlife
reeled at the drought’s effects... but it survived where nothing else
could. Although men of the time probably recognised that Mother
Nature knew best, they now accepted her challenge and instead of
fighting her will, men with vision took the reins, and set the land on
a new course, one which destiny would smile on.
XVII