Our Vanishing Wild Life: Its Extermination and PreservationHornaday, William T. (William Temple)
History
Our Vanishing Wild Life: Its Extermination and Preservation
Hornaday, William T. (William Temple)
Game-laws -- United States; Wildlife conservation -- United States
From what has befallen in South Africa, we can easily and correctly
forecast the future of the big game of British East Africa and Uganda.
Less than fifty years ago, Cape Colony, Natal, Zululand, and every
country up to the Zambesi was teeming with herds of big wild animals,
just as the northern provinces now are. As late as 1890, when Rhodesia
was taken over by the Chartered Company, and the capital city of
Salisbury was staked out, an American boy in the Pioneer Corps, now
Honorable William Harvey Brown, of Salisbury, wrote thus of the Gwibi
Flats, near Salisbury:
"That evening I beheld on those flats a sight which probably will never
again be seen there to the end of the world. The variety deploying
before me was almost incredible! There, within the range of my vision
were groups of roan, sable and tsessebi antelopes, Burchell zebras, [now
totally extinct!] elands, reedbucks, steinbucks and ostriches. It was
like Africa in the days of Livingstone. As I sat on my horse, viewing
with amazement this wonderful panorama of wild life, I was startled by a
herd that came galloping around a small hill just behind me."--("_On the
South African Frontier_," p. 114.)
That was in 1890. And how is it to-day?
Salisbury is a modern city, endorsed by two lines of railway. The Gwibi
Flats are farms. There is some big game yet, in Rhodesia south of the
Zambesi, but to find it you must go at least a week's journey from the
capital, to the remote corners that have not yet been converted into
farms or mining settlements. North of the Zambesi, Rhodesia yet contains
plenty of big game. The Victoria Falls station is a popular starting
point for hunting expeditions headed northeast and northwest. In the
northwest the game is yet quite in a state of nature. Unfortunately the
Barotse natives of that region can procure from the Portuguese traders
all the firearms and ammunition that they can pay for, and by treaty
they retain their hunting rights. The final result will
be--extermination of the game.
Elsewhere throughout Rhodesia the natives are not permitted to have guns
and gunpowder,--a very wise regulation. In Alaska our Indians are
privileged to kill game all the year round, and they have modern
firearms with which to do it.
And how is it with the game of that day?
The true Burchell's zebra is now regarded as _extinct_! In Cape Colony
and Natal, that once teemed with big game in the old-fashioned African
way, they are _counting the individual wild animals that remain_! Also,
they are making game preserves, literally everywhere.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account