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
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