If You Shouldn't Shoot "Immature" Buffalo...

DRSS
Life Member SCI
Life Member NRA
Life Member WSF

Rhyme of the Sheep Hunter
May fordings never be too deep, And alders not too thick; May rock slides never be too steep And ridges not too slick.
And may your bullets shoot as swell As Fred Bear's arrow's flew; And may your nose work just as well As Jack O'Connor's too.
May winds be never at your tail When stalking down the steep; May bears be never on your trail When packing out your sheep.
May the hundred pounds upon you Not make you break or trip; And may the plane in which you flew Await you at the strip.
-Seth Peterson

19 January 2009, 09:26

Balla Balla

quote:
Originally posted by Brett Adam Barringer:
Because there is more to a trophy buffalo's horn dementions then spread. The SCI method good or bad takes into acount the bosses and the drop in addition the the length of the curl (tips).

Brett

To be brutally descriptive, the horns bosses and base can be likened a bit to the female breasts.

Small and firm with sharp tips, big with spread and low drop, it really comes down to the eye of the beholder, whatever each of us likes is the best and no tape measure can determine the quality, it can only detarmine the size

Cheers, Peter

19 January 2009, 17:45

Peter

Well, that is certainly an interesting analogy! I hope Linda Adams doesn't see this. It will only enforce her view that this is a male dominated forum!
Peter.

19 January 2009, 18:36

Mad Dog

Mad Dog

19 January 2009, 20:00

Die Ou Jagter

Peter Isn"t it?

19 January 2009, 20:11

MacD37

Three threads on this subject so far, and more in the works, I'm sure!

There is a big misconception about the Cape buffalo breeding habits. This alone dictates the damage done to a species by the taking of immature males from the herds. In the case of Cape buffalo I would predict that over 50% of the breeding is done my immature or younger bulls that stay in the herds. The Duggaboys pop in from time to time to breed. Since the younger bulls are breeding anyway, they are the mainstay of the population, and where did their genes come from? Simply because a younger bull, who hasn't reached his full age, and horn configuration, his condition of his age doesn't indicate what gene pool he comes from. The bull that sired him may still be breeding, but the gene pool is the same for both bulls. SO, the calf dropped by the cow bred, the young son, or the father bulls will be of the same gene pool.

When you have a cull, for population control, or to feed the locals, or shoot one for lion bait, they don't take any trophy bulls.

The taking of younger bulls does nothing to the herd, unless that's all you take. It is a fallacy that lions only take old bulls past their breeding life. I would predict that at least 60% of the buffalo taken by lions are calves, cows, and young bulls. Nature knows better than man where the proper cull is.

Now! With lion the taking of any breeding age male has a profound effect on the pride life in an area. If you take pride boss (the best trophy usually) you have effectively taken every cub in that pride, because the new "DADDY" will come in and take over that pride. He will promptly kill every cub in that pride. This makes the females go into estrus, and he puts his own gene pool to work. If, however, you take a large female there is little effect on the pride, as long as she isn't raising a pair of cubs.

With lions the way you take from the population has far more devastating effect on the over all population of the species than it does with the herding animals, Cape buffalo being a herd animal.

Nobody is suggesting here that one should only shoot young bulls, but many of the bulls discussed here are not that young, they are just not "OLD"! Shooting a bull that may be a little soft between the bosses is not an unforgivable sin, because he got his genes from some place, and make no mistake that bull has past those genes on down the line!

A bull not being the perfect bull to post for the critics to piss on, has little or no effect on the population of Cape buffalo at all!

19 January 2009, 20:31

Adrian Parham

Good post Mac.

19 January 2009, 20:41

surestrike

But then there is the Chifutti method of "improving" the herd. The shoot our culls at full trophy price and we paid Craig Boddington to tell you to do so method.

I am now counting the minutes before Dave Fulson sends me a reeducation e-mail.

21 January 2009, 06:11

Indy

Oops. I meant Rowland Ward, not SCI.

The Rowland Ward method measures only spread. Cows are eligible. I believe their world record is a cow. Young bulls often score higher than old ones.

22 January 2009, 11:02

Blair338/378

quote:
Originally posted by MacD37:
Three threads on this subject so far, and more in the works, I'm sure!

There is a big misconception about the Cape buffalo breeding habits. This alone dictates the damage done to a species by the taking of immature males from the herds. In the case of Cape buffalo I would predict that over 50% of the breeding is done my immature or younger bulls that stay in the herds. The Duggaboys pop in from time to time to breed. Since the younger bulls are breeding anyway, they are the mainstay of the population, and where did their genes come from? Simply because a younger bull, who hasn't reached his full age, and horn configuration, his condition of his age doesn't indicate what gene pool he comes from. The bull that sired him may still be breeding, but the gene pool is the same for both bulls. SO, the calf dropped by the cow bred, the young son, or the father bulls will be of the same gene pool.

When you have a cull, for population control, or to feed the locals, or shoot one for lion bait, they don't take any trophy bulls.

The taking of younger bulls does nothing to the herd, unless that's all you take. It is a fallacy that lions only take old bulls past their breeding life. I would predict that at least 60% of the buffalo taken by lions are calves, cows, and young bulls. Nature knows better than man where the proper cull is.

Now! With lion the taking of any breeding age male has a profound effect on the pride life in an area. If you take pride boss (the best trophy usually) you have effectively taken every cub in that pride, because the new "DADDY" will come in and take over that pride. He will promptly kill every cub in that pride. This makes the females go into estrus, and he puts his own gene pool to work. If, however, you take a large female there is little effect on the pride, as long as she isn't raising a pair of cubs.

With lions the way you take from the population has far more devastating effect on the over all population of the species than it does with the herding animals, Cape buffalo being a herd animal.

Nobody is suggesting here that one should only shoot young bulls, but many of the bulls discussed here are not that young, they are just not "OLD"! Shooting a bull that may be a little soft between the bosses is not an unforgivable sin, because he got his genes from some place, and make no mistake that bull has past those genes on down the line!

A bull not being the perfect bull to post for the critics to piss on, has little or no effect on the population of Cape buffalo at all!

Very informative and reasoned post, Mac.