African Hunter Published Books Guide to Nyati | Hunting the African Buffalo | Page 21

Great men with vision - like Clive Stockil - (an early protagonist of the CAMPFIRE concept in Zimbabwe), stepped in with philosophies and ideas which would transcend what many considered rational thinking. “Tear down the fences, remove the cattle, whither the crops!” This was God’s country and the time had come to restore the balance. In an unprecedented project which would see more than a million acres fenced and then re-stocked with game, Clive enrolled those other ranch owners in his grand scheme. Wildlife had survived there for centuries, it would flourish again. In 1993, a nucleus of buffalo were re-introduced into what had become known as the Save Valley Conservancy. Ten years later, they number over 2000 and contribute to a natural eco-system of which sport hunting is an integral part. While it may be easy to condemn the century of misguided development that went before, its contribution to the new era cannot be denied. That Clive’s father’s generation were instrumental in the removal of buffalo and development of cropping and cattle ranching through the last century, effectively establishing an infrastructure which in turn would provide the tools to realise this grandiose dream, is almost ironic. It can be considered an essential step in the evolutionary cycle which may one day see buffalo roaming Africa as they once did. With sport hunting, buffalo found a new and elevated value in southern Africa. Robert Ruark once wrote “In fear and trembling I will hunt Mbogo every time I see him, and I won’t shoot him unless he is a mile bigger than the ones I’ve got. I will hate myself while I crawl and shake and tremble and sweat, but I will hunt him. Once you got the buffalo fever, the rest of the stuff seems mighty small and awful tame.” And so it was, and will always be where man hunts buffalo. Little can compare to it, and hopefully, for this reason, buffalo will never again be persecuted through plan or ignorance. Man the hunter and super predator has become an integral part of the weighing scales in which Mother Nature balances all things, and by which the twenty first century man justifies that which was once natural. The reality is that game must still pay its way to justify its continued conservation while being subjected to careful control and XIX