I see the "green" stance nowadays is to only shoot "mature" buffalo bulls, specifically old bulls running in bachelor groups. It is in the eye of the hunter, I suppose, what is considered mature.

I listened from a distance to some guy in the Boddington booth at the DSC convention go on and on to some potential DVD buyer on why not to shoot young bulls, as this may ultimatley eliminate the gene pool.

Though shooting a mature bull that is now only running with other, old retirees may not change the gene pool of a regional herd of buffalo, it does not necessarily preserve the good genes, whatever those are, either.

Lions do not care about gene pools. Whether they kill a calf, cow, or bull, it matters not and only matters if they can indeed kill it. The locals have been spearing and snaring buffalo, and most everything else, for a zillion years. They apparently didn't worry about gene pools.

Assuming the calves that are dropped are half females and half males, few of the males will ever be riding the cows, and passing along their genes, as "herd bulls." So to preserve the "good" genes, which are presumably the herd bull's genes, one should never shoot a bull in a mixed herd, whether he is the herd bull or just another hanger-on. How could you tell which bull is which anyway?

From my limited experience the number of buffalo bulls that are members of bachelor groups are quite small. It would seem that the only way to have large numbers of old bachelors is to have large numbers of all buffalo and quit shooting, snaring, and poaching so many buffalo.

In the fight between greed for trophy fees, the desire to hunt, and preserving genes, where do you draw the line? Assuming that only dagga boy gets knocked off every year by one means or another, the lions are going to eat more young buffalo.

It seems to me that if one extrapolates this reasoning to its logical end, one could never shoot any buffalo regardless of age or social standing.

Personally, I shot mature and old dugga boys (except for the first one when I didn't know any better) but it would seem that just not shooting too many buffalo to begin with is a simpler solution.

And where does shooting cows for rations fit in? Like every cow elephant, every cow buffalo is going to be pregnant. The 2-fer hunts.

If one randomly shoots X% of the buffalo every year on the assumption that this is the undisturbed population increase each year including buufalo killed by wild dogs, hyena, lions, lightning, etc., then how can hunting not disturb the survival and gene pool of the predators? What happens to buffalo populations if none of the buffalo are ever killed? Do they eat themselves into starvation?

And what happens to the gene pool when a lion eats a 2-month old bull, or cow, calf that was a member of the "good" gene pool?

I aasume that limiting the number of buffalo shot to maintain a relatively constant buffalo population is what matters in the end, regardless of whether they are old, young, or somewhere inbetween. I wonder who is really qualified to predict that, if anyone.

And those trophy fees sound like they could get really expensive!

In the end , hunting by tracking Bachelor groups or single old bulls is the ultimate way to pursue the Cape Buffalo.
Yes?

Will!

We have all heard the old saying that predator only take the old, weak or the sick. Although there is some truth to that statement what is really happening is that the predator is taking the most vulnerable animal at the time of their attack. Now it may be the most vulnerable because it is weak or sick, because it is the calf of a young and inexperienced cow and probably less aggressive in protecting the calf, it is on the edge of the herd rather than in the middle, or something as simple as choosing to go around the right side rather than the left side of a bush at the moment of the attack. To a lesser extent The same applies to poachers that hunt with dogs. The dogs select the animal to run based on similar vulnerability although the poacher may pull the dogs off of an animal that they don't want to tackle with their spears. At Charisa as you probably saw the poachers tend to concentrate on cows and calves. We must assume in all of these cases that the animal made some mistake that made them more vulnerable than the rest of the herd and in the grand scheme of "Selection of the Fittest" they therefore have a week ness that was exploited. When man enters the scene the buffalo have a whole new prey base to adapt to. Deer and elk are much better at coping with hunters now than they were 150 years ago. We see elk changing their habits when wolves are re-introduced into previously non-wolf habitat. It just takes some time for them to adapt to the new predation regimen.

Human sport hunters are the most selective and may have the greatest impact on genetics of hunted populations because we select the largest breeding males. It is my understanding that bull buff often lose weight while maintaining dominance in the herd. They then go off by themselves to build strength and after they do they return to a herd to reestablish their dominant position. So hunting only single bulls or dagga boys does not insure that you are not shooting a herd bull. At some point as a bull ages he no longer has the strength to maintain dominance and often his horns wear down where they are no longer the awesome defensive weapons they once were. But for all that you are less likely to shoot a breeding age bull by hunting dagga boys. Also just because you shoot a herd bull doesn't necessarily mean you are shooting a breeding bull. In every herd there are bulls that are sub-dominant and they may never get to breed. What we can be assured of is that the strongest and fittest bulls in the herd will do most of the breeding.

It is not likely that hunting will eliminate a gene pool. There will always be a gene pool but he gene pool may not be as strong in assuring maximum survival as before. I think it is too complicated a system for us to spend too much time worrying about.

Theoretically, the best hunting system is one that mimics natural loses due to predation, disease or accidents and only takes the annual surplus assuming that the population is at or just below the carrying capacity of the range. But this system is one that maintains the population at the level of maximum production so there is a harvestable surplus. One could make the case that over population is a necessary biological affect that leads to natural changes in vegetation that has a positive affect on that vegetation. It is really a very complicated problem and one that we are just beginning to understand.

465H&H

quote:

Theoretically, the best hunting system is one that mimics natural loses due to predation, disease or accidents and only takes the annual surplus assuming that the population is at or just below the carrying capacity of the range.

No. When did you ever hear that letting nature take it's course was the best way to improve a gene pool? It doesn't happen with corn, cows, chickens or any other living organism.

"Theoretically," the best way to improve the gene pool would be to only shoot the bulls and cows that would produce trophies with less than maximal horn quality; if you know how to predict and do that, let us know.

Haven't hunted any buff, but, IMO, I'd rather have an old, scrufty looking buff on the wall, than a young bull w. a big spread. Given enough pressure on bulls w. big spreads, large bosses, etc, the pop. will trend away from those traits. -- I'm not sure sport hunters pressure buffs enough to really make a difference relative to the poachers and predators who hunt the easiest to kill.

Now, if the sport hunters are honestly taking bulls too old to breed, then it can't have any effect on the gene pool.

Sounds like a chest thumping sales pitch by the DVD hawker to me. Can hunting have an impact? Sure. Is it best to only kill those non-breeding old animals (of any specie). Hell yes. I hope we never reach the point of saturation in hunting such animals where we have to manage the herds like so many cattle in a pasture though! In the meantime as Will pointed out, there are too many unknown variables such as predation, poaching and weather for us to be much of a factor. The exception of course is on those ranches, etc. where the herd is managed like cattle!

Grumulkin!

It all depends on what you consider"best". Are we talking about what is best for the wild animal population or best for the hunter? As for your example comparing cows, chickens or corn to wild animals is ccomparing apples and oranges. How long would a chicken last out in the wild? They would disappear rather quickly as all natural instincts for survival have been bred out of them. That is why pen reared pheas ant seldom live for more than a few months when released in the wild but wild pheasants do just fine thank you. You assume that man knows better than nature. Many of the problems we have now are due to a lack of understanding of the biogical affects of our actions. Dams eliminating salmon runs, noxious weeds out competing native plants, brucelosis in our elk herds from domestic cattle and I could go on for years with other examples. I am not saying we can't benefit from our actions but often we %&#*( up. Nature seldom does.

465H&H

It seems that some areas where buff are hunted must have large numbers of past their prime (dagga boys) buffalo with worn down horns but attitudes intact. It further seems that the Zambezi valley and the escarpment areas of Zimbabwe may fit into this category. Such areas as Dande north, Chewore north and south and others. These bulls are or at least have been hard to sell. This is especially true if the nimrods have visited the skinning shed and seen some of the young just slightly soft bulls taken by others. Very few of the dagga boys meet the benchmarks set by SCI and Roland Ward while a much larger number of "herd bulls" do. So this creates a marketing snafu for the outfitters. This is not a value judgement on my part only an observation. Maybe reeducation (indoctrination) is the answer.

I got to thinking about the late 1800's (?) when the buffalo herds were nearly decimated by hoof and mouth deisease.

If those few remaining spread their genes to all the buff that exist today, I wonder how one could elimiante any gene pool from hunting either old, ragged bulls or herd bulls.

Will,

If memory serves the rinderpest epidemic was limited to southern Africa.

Brett

We need to increase the respect for age in a buffalo and decrease the respect for wide young bulls.

A 10 to 12 year old buffalo with a 38 inch spread should be more highly valued than a younger bull with a spread 40" or more.

If we shoot a 6 to 7 year old buffalo it will not have a chance to breed.

Something needs to be done to change the system of scoring.

If we shoot only older bulls there will, as a result, be less buffalo shot. The only problem would be the expectation of being sure to get a buffalo on every hunt.

A hunt with a length of 10 days or more is critical to the overall average success on older bulls.

quote:

Originally posted by Palmer:
We need to increase the respect for age in a buffalo and decrease the respect for wide young bulls.

A 10 to 12 year old buffalo with a 38 inch spread should be more highly valued than a younger bull with a spread 40" or more.



If we shoot a 6 to 7 year old buffalo it will not have a chance to breed.

Something needs to be done to change the system of scoring.

If we shoot only older bulls there will, as a result, be less buffalo shot. The only problem would be the expectation of being sure to get a buffalo on every hunt.

A hunt with a length of 10 days or more is critical to the overall average success on older bulls.

quit scoring them or dont even measure them in the first place. then when you finish getting everyone on board for that squash the I walked farther than you so my trophy is worth more to everyone line of thought.

GOOD LUCK

quote:

Originally posted by Will:
I got to thinking about the late 1800's (?) when the buffalo herds were nearly decimated by hoof and mouth deisease.

If those few remaining spread their genes to all the buff that exist today, I wonder how one could elimiante any gene pool from hunting either old, ragged bulls or herd bulls.

Just a food for thought – wild boars were shot out here in Slovenia in the middle of 18. th century, till 1912 when a pair of boars escaped from a high fenced farm and today we shoot up to 5000 boars/year – with our boar population being fairly isolated, most of those shot today are descendants of just 2 pigs – I know boars aren’t buffs, but how much and what kind of gene pool does one really need?

In EU we have a policy to spare perspective young trophy animals till they reach their peak for over 60 years now but average trophy quality didn’t improve as expected – one can still find “bad trophy†animals in numbers that are surprisingly high after 60 years of sparing the “perspectives†– I guess you can’t shoot out gene pool for better or worse

It turned out that it is all about survival of the specie i.e. far more important to have a stable population numerically well adjusted to environment than worry about genes. At the end it melts down to setting the proper quota of animals to be taken out and nothing more.

P.S. I still won’t shoot a soft bossed buff on purpose.

My question is: why doesn't this concern for only shooting older specimens carry over to other species?

People don't get criticised for shooting a youngish kudu bull with huge 1st curls which could have been a 55" trophy and 'spread its genes'...

Look what happened to us. After all, there was only Adam and Eve.

Crane, All this damn inbreeding!
We can't control what the wild animals do, but we can control what we do, IF we choose to do so! While many people profess to only value "the chase", with the "trophy" being incidental, given the choice, most folks would shoot the "bigger" animal. Where bigger does not mean necessarily wider spread or whatever, but the "choicest". Humans do seem to take from the top, whereas the conventional wisdom is that the predators take from the bottom.
Peter.

Adam and Eve,

It is a good point in that look at your kids. If it was only a function of genes all your kids would look exactly alike, be the same height, the same weight, and have the same smarts.

It makes me wonder whether all the incessant "gene pool" talk is just a hoax for the biology research money types. Kinda like global warming?

You shoot a PAC elephant bull at 15 years of age and his younger brother grows up to breed with cows, is the gene of the PAC bull really lost?

There are a lot of jokes about humans inbreeding (mostly Arkansas ) but I wonder if it really matters. Maybe so.

/

quote:

My question is: why doesn't this concern for only shooting older specimens carry over to other species?

IT DOES; ONLY OLDER MALE LIONS ARE NOW SHOT IN TANZANIA, BECAUSE, IMO, THERE WAS EXCESSIVE SHOOTING/DISEASE OF YOUNGER MALES.

I have to agree completely with Palmer.
For those in doubt about the effect of removing specimens with certain characteristics from a breeding population, please read "Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin

Although I put more emphasis on the hunt itself, believing that a good hunt ending in a charge is more exhilerating than trophy size.

I also believe I see too many huge bulls with soft bosses being shot simply because of their size, denying some hunter a rare opertunity for a fantastic animal in a few years as the bull matures..

A bull develops his full spread very early in life around 3 to 4 years old, the rest is the good stuff that comes later on like mass and hard bosses, then as he ages he slickes them off and really becomes a warrior, and the trophy of a lifetime but if ignorant or greedy men shoot them, this maturing does not happen, the tape becomes the evil of all hunters IMO.

The choice is the hunters, he pays the big bucks, but I personally would prefer that he used more descreation. Many hunters would use decresition but are mislead by the PH and it is his responsibility to make that decision and many do not make a decision based on anything but spread, some of those bulls could shave between the horns...

Many of the young bulls we see will never be any better than they are and if you see a 36" mature bull then shooting him is proper by all means, get his gene pool out of the herd. I run cattle and the gene pool is very important and the buffalo is just another big cow raised on milk..A 37 or 38 inch Tanzania Buff with a hard boss is an outstanding trophy IMO.

I have two Cape Buffalo mounted in my house, one is about a 37" hard bossed bull that tried his level best to kill me and the other is a huge proud old warrior of warriors that also had the same intentions but unfortunatly met his fate at 35 yards while looking for me and never made good his intent, I don't even know his width, but about 45 inches or so I suppose, not important to me..I am proud of both of those old dagga boys, Brave deeds by both man and/or animal are an emotional experience to me and these bulls get all my respect.

As to who shoots what and why they shoot it is a personal thing, and will remain so as it has for centurys. So be it, and we each must draw our own line in the dirt. I may not like it but I can live with it.

Darwin's theory is nice but according to biologists just one side of the coin:

Evolution

Here is another interesting point of view as well:

Living Systems, the Internet and the Human Future

As far as hunting and trophy dilemma is concerned:

quote:

Originally posted by Atkinson:
I also believe I see too many huge bulls with soft bosses being shot simply because of their size, denying some hunter a rare opertunity for a fantastic animal in a few years as the bull matures..

Very well said - IMO - here is more sence than in whole gene pool stew .

shooting solid boss bulls has nothing to do with maintaining or destroying the gene pool , its not chest thumping by a ph as someone has mentioned ...simply put , why would you shoot a whitetail at 3 years old that will be a far nicer trophy given a couple more years ..

the boss is an important aspect of a buffalo trophy and its a shame to see a buffalo with a great spread being shot before his boss is developed.

the soft boss bulls are often already breeding so its not about genetics.

the point is that a bull with a wide yet soft boss is not the trophy that an old bull not so wide spread is , and shooting the older guy will give someone else a chance at shooting the wider one in years to come ...

i

Here's an OLD, very mature bull that I shot, estimated to be 17 years old, big bodied, full of grey, with his horns worn down, but not the huge trophy that you typically see. He was with one other old dagga boy. But, an OLD TROPHY bull, and a mature trophy, in my book, nonetheless.

My goodness, some people here need to learn the basics of genetics (population genetics while you are at it).

A little knowledge is a very dangerous thing.

quote:

Originally posted by Copidosoma:
My goodness, some people here need to learn the basics of genetics (population genetics while you are at it).

A little knowledge is a very dangerous thing.

He is quite right! But Genetics was one of the most difficult zoology courses I took in college. So it isn't practical for all of us here to gain that basic knowledge.

We can look at what the quality deer management program has done in the US to increase antler size in whitetail deer. Their research may have some application to buffalo management.

If we want to increase trophy size we should be culling herd bulls whether soft bossed or not that do not have the potential to become large trophy bulls. The sooner the better as the fewer the number of cows bred by them, the less their inferior horn size genes will be transmitted to the next generation. But one thing we must consider is if maximizing horn growth is in the best interest of the herd. If it was then we should expect average horn size such as those in un-hunted populations becoming bigger and bigger each year. I'm not sure that has been demonstrated in those populations. Again as managers we must make the decision to manage for what trophy hunters want or what is in the best interest of the population.

465H&H

well said 465.

Important to note that what is good for the herd is not necessarily what trophy hunters want. We are very good at selectively breeding and managing things (the corn, wheat, chicken etc example) but these tend to not do so well in a natural setting.
I think that a goal of managing any population strictly for its trophy characteristics is doomed to failure in the long run (take a look at some of the bucks that are bred on game farms in the US

Genetics (evolution actually) works over averages, long time frames and lots of different selection pressures. A lion getting a calf is not the end of the story. If that cow has good genes (for survival, not necessarily for nice horns) she'll learn quickly and more of her calves will survive than will ones from weaker animals.

It really isn't as simple as "don't shoot young bulls"

quote:

f we want to increase trophy size we should be culling herd bulls whether soft bossed or not that do not have the potential to become large trophy bulls. The sooner the better as the fewer the number of cows bred by them, the less their inferior horn size genes will be transmitted to the next generation.

i agree wholeheartedly , the point is that people are not shooting SMALL soft boss bulls , its always the wide soft boss bulls ... those have the potential to go from great to excellent ...

not many people are happy with a narrow horned soft boss bull ...

quote:

Originally posted by Use Enough Gun:
Here's an OLD, very mature bull that I shot, estimated to be 17 years old, big bodied, full of grey, with his horns worn down, but not the huge trophy that you typically see. He was with one other old dagga boy. But, an OLD TROPHY bull, and a mature trophy, in my book, nonetheless.

If that is a 17 year-old bull, some of them I have shot must have been 150.

I helped Andy Hunter age some jaws once. Assuming that is accurate, most bulls get dinged at 7 or 8.

bill , you are right , most are taken at around 7 or 8 ...you start seeing that horn wear (the shiny boss guys) at about 12 years and upwards ...

a full mature boss is usually reached by about 6 years ....

quote:

Originally posted by 465H&H:
Will!

It is really a very complicated problem and one that we are just beginning to understand.

465H&H

I think it would be a hard sell to me that anyone could ever effectively manage a buffalo population. Big bulls turn up very year, both buff and elephant. One could have speculated that all the gene pool of big bulls in Tanz and Uganda were eliminated but they show up now and again. It seems that if they are allowed to grow up, that at least a portion of them have big horns or big ivory.

Assuming the young bulls do not get eliminated from over-shooting, it would seem that the genes, from whatever pool it comes from, will always compensate and produce big bulls at some point.

Taylor has a picture of a buffalo bull in one of his books, described as a big buffalo. It doesn't look so big to me. I defer to the guys that have an education in genetics or "population" genetics, but I think genes are smarter than humans.

It always disturbs me somehwat when I see these old bags getting off tranquilizing some aninal on Nature or some similar show under an authoritative umbrella that they know what the hell they are doing. How does the tranquilizing affect the animal? What effect does it have that every(?) lion in Mana Pools is wearing an electronic collar. If the population of lions in Mana Pools is on the skids, how much is that due to the "scientists" who think they know what they are doing?

Every year around here we get the dire warning not to shoot pintail ducks, or the population will be decimated. Every year the pintail population gets no better, or worse. How does not hunting them have any effect on their population? Hunting them probably wouldn't have any effect either, except give the agents ticket-writing practice.

Yeh, it's complicated. Not sure that anyone knows what the hell they are doing. Once the farmers quick poisoniong wild dogs they have come back with a vengence. You can shoot leopards and lions but wild dogs are still protected. Go figure.

quote:

Originally posted by ivan carter:

quote:

f we want to increase trophy size we should be culling herd bulls whether soft bossed or not that do not have the potential to become large trophy bulls. The sooner the better as the fewer the number of cows bred by them, the less their inferior horn size genes will be transmitted to the next generation.

i agree wholeheartedly , the point is that people are not shooting SMALL soft boss bulls , its always the wide soft boss bulls ... those have the potential to go from great to excellent ...

not many people are happy with a narrow horned soft boss bull ...

If this is the case ( and I think it is - both the genetics argument as well as the idea that no one shoots soft bossed narrow bulls,) wouldn't it be in the best interests of all concerned to incentivize the shooting (culling) of narrow, less desirable bulls. I would think some combination of reduced trophy fees and/or increased quotas would lead to hunters choosing to hunt these types of bulls. If a similar program seems to be working for tuskless cows, wouldn't it be possible to increase the opportunity/decrease the price for the opportunity to hunt buffalo in this way?

I think there is a lot of pressure to shoot young immature bulls simply because they have the "inches".

Not just pressure on the client whom might not be aware, or the client being worried about going home "empty handed" but also on the PH by the outfitter for revenue reasons.

There isn't a hunt out there where the trophy size for the area isn't a booking consideration in discussions between client and outfitter. Be it buffalo, deer, sheep or fishing, the desireability of the hnunt to all but the most genuine of meat hunters is governed by the possibility of shooting the big one.

As such expecting the relatively ignorant, (meant in the nicest possible way) visiting hunter to take responsibility for shooting the soft bossed bull is never going to happen. Some of us will take the time to make a "marginally" more informed decision, and insist on hard bossed bulls only, but many can't see past the tape measure.

Unless buffalo are treated like lions in Tanz, where only mature males are allowed to be shot then soft bossed buls will always be killed by visiting hunters because they have the inches.

Of course this has a flip side in that unless this is done in conjunction with culling of Cows and inferior soft bulls the overall benefits to the herd are probably somewhat limited. Herd management can't only be about shooting the small percentage of animals that is made up by mature Bulls.

Given I've never even hunted Buff, this is just the conclusion I come to with my common Sense approach but I'm sure there are others out there that know more of the science, and are better placed to comment.

Rgds,
FB

465H&H, is spot on.

If you want to increase a "wanted char." you need to shoot out the breeding age with the unwanted char. (aka whitetail farms)

I bought Bod. on buff and he hammers the point home. As long as there is a trophy system the guy paying the bill(the hunter)will determine what he wants to shoot if the PH wants a return customer.

Ed