'Make up your mind whose side you are on, the beautiful wild animals or the beautiful wild blacks. You can't have it both ways; when the two come into competition for living space, the wild animals always come off losers, unless we hunters can pay the bill for them.'

'I am always fascinated by the confused thought processes of your average shrieking liberal,' Sean intervened and Claudia turned on him gleefully, lusting for battle. 'There is no confusion in my mind. You are here to kill animals.'

'The same way that a farmer kills animals,' Sean agreed. 'To ensure a healthy flourishing herd, and a place for that herd to survive.'

'You are not a farmer.'

'Oh yes, I am,' Sean contradicted. 'The only difference is that I slaughter them on the range, not in an abattoir, but like any farmer, my chief concern is the survival of my breeding-stock.'

"They are not domestic animals,' Claudia contested. 'Those are beautiful wild animals.'

'Beautiful? Wild? What the hell has that got to do with it? Like anything else in this modern world, the wild game of Africa has to pay its way if it's going to survive. Capo, here, is paying tens of thousands of dollars to hunt a lion and an elephant. He is giving those animals a monetary value far above goats and cattle, so that the newly independent government of Zimbabwe is willing to set aside concessions of millions of acres in which the game can persist. I hire one of those concessions, and I have the strongest incentive in the world for protecting it from the grazers and poachers and making certain I have plenty of game to offer my hunters. No, ducky, legal safari hunting is one of the most effective arms of conservation in Africa today.'

'So you are going to save the animals by shooting them with high-powered rifles?' Claudia demanded scornfully.

'High-powered rifles?' Sean laughed softly. 'Another emotive liberal parrot cry. Would you prefer us to use low-powered rifles? Won't that be rather like demanding that the butcher uses only blunt knives to cut throats? You are an intelligent woman, think with your head, not your heart. The individual animal is unimportant. His life span is limited to a few short years. In the case of this lion we are hunting, probably twelve years at the very most. What is beyond price is the continued existence of the species as a whole. Not the individual, but his entire kind. Our lion is an old male at the very end of his useful life span during which he has protected his females and his young and already added his genes to the pool of his race. He will die naturally within the next year or two. Much better that his death produce ten thousand dollars in cash which will be spent on providing a safe place for his cubs to live, than having this wilderness encroached upon by swarming black humanity and their scrawny herds of goats.'

'My God, listen to you.' Claudia shook her head sadly. ' "Swarming black humanity", those are the words of a racist and a bigot. It's their land, why can't they be free to live where they choose?'


'And that is the logic of woolly-headed liberalism,' Sean laughed. 'Make up your mind whose side you are on, the beautiful wild animals or the beautiful wild blacks. You can't have it both ways; when the two come into competition for living space, the wild animals always come off losers, unless we hunters can pay the bill for them.'

From A Time to Die by Wilbur Smith copyright 1989

quote:

the wild animals always come off losers, unless we hunters can pay the bill for them.'

Wilbur Smith expressed so eloquently one of the main benefits hunting plays to the conservation of wildlife in Africa.

Thanks for that !

I always say the world would be a better place if more people read Wilbur Smith.
He's a horny old goat but he cuts through the bull.
Cheers to Wilbur Smith

Great quote. Wilbur Smith describes Africa better than anyone.Hes a True African, that has a deep love of his continent. thanx

quote:

Originally posted by African Hunters Quest:
I always say the world would be a better place if more people read Wilbur Smith.
He's a horny old goat but he cuts through the bull.
Cheers to Wilbur Smith

Very accurate statement. Thanks for the thread, Nitro.

Very well said!

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by African Hunters Quest:
I always say the world would be a better place if more people read Wilbur Smith.
He's a horny old goat but he cuts through the bull.
Cheers to Wilbur Smith


Very accurate statement. Thanks for the thread, Nitro.

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by African Hunters Quest:
I always say the world would be a better place if more people read Wilbur Smith.
He's a horny old goat but he cuts through the bull.
Cheers to Wilbur Smith


Very accurate statement. Thanks for the thread, Nitro.

All true!


A great writer that added to my determination to see Africa.


.

As someone who has never read Mr. Smiths writings.
Your little thread has stirred me to see what I have been missing.
Thanks

BTW does anyone here see that passage in the quotation as particularly "racist" or nasty?

Just interested. Thanks.



Personally I find it interesting and eloquent in expressing on why sporting hunting is essential to a lot of conservation of wildlife in Africa.

I see a devious agenda of carrying on a SMALL PART of a debate from your website from 2008 (that you censored) and now wanting to polute AR with your politics.

Why not CONTINUE this debate on your own website where it started? Why not put the full list of posts (before you censored it) there for all to see?

quote:

Originally posted by NitroX:
BTW does anyone here see that passage in the quotation as particularly "racist" or nasty?

Just interested. Thanks.



Personally I find it interesting and eloquent in expressing on why sporting hunting is essential to a lot of conservation of wildlife in Africa.

Just too damn terrible, it tripped a TROLL's circuit-board out.

NakiTroller

Please don't troll another thread and try to drive it off topic.

The questions here are:

1. The eloquent statement about hunting aiding conservation as recorded above; and

2. Whether any sane person would think those passages are "racist" and would cause a sane person to demand they be deleted.

Your obsessions of something like five years ago, well really they are all your own problem, in your own head.

And no, there was no censorship, all the posts are still there to be read.

I think the quotation above, though stands on its own as a great piece for people to read, and also draw together, hunting and how it conserves wild beasts in Africa.

quote:

Originally posted by NitroX:
NakiTroller

I think the quotation above, though stands on its own as a great piece for people to read, and also draw together, hunting and how it conserves wild beasts in Africa.

+1 lets not fight about CRAP lets read the piece for what it is a grant explanation for what WE do.

come now lets play nice

Wilbur Smith's writings about Africa along with PHC's gave me the desire to see Africa.

+1 for dropping the personal shit and keeping the thread on track.

quote:

Originally posted by NitroX:
BTW does anyone here see that passage in the quotation as particularly "racist" or nasty?

I agree with most all of what Wilbur Smith was saying. In fact the idea that hunters killing 2% of the animals pays for the survival of the other 98% is what I have been using to convert fence sitters for years(with great success, I might add)

The part that I have a problem with is the idea that it is either the wild animals or the people because you can't have it both ways.

That is simply wrong. When sport hunting is added to the equation you can have it both ways. Both the animals and the local people benefit.

Fairgame's work in his new area in Zambia is proof of this.

quote:

'Make up your mind whose side you are on, the beautiful wild animals or the beautiful wild blacks. You can't have it both ways ; when the two come into competition for living space, the wild animals always come off losers, unless we hunters can pay the bill for them.'

True.

Just go to the Omay, everytime you turn a corner, the "beautiful wild blacks" are there too, cutting grass, wood, poaching, fishing, sitting ... or the Matetsi, where a regular walking path next to the river is frequented every morning right on dawn, right when you want to find the buffalo there ... in both areas the "the beautiful wild blacks" are supposed to keep out of those areas.

While what you say is somewhat true, the fact the ever increasing black populations through over-breeding, are ever encroaching on the wild wildlife areas. For farming, wood cutting whatever.

Over breeding in any population is always a problem and needs management. Self-management for a human population obviously!

I constantly hear this argument that conservation is only possible when hunting is involved?

Now if this is so how can it be that large conservancies have been created by private individuals where no hunting for financial gain takes place ?

All of the so called big 5 reserves in the South African low veld operate under these premises.

True Alf.

I suppose hunting adds a revenue source to aid the financing of conservation, and additional jobs for locals to encourage their positive participation.

In an absence funding by the scarce taxpayer, if not the very wealthy benefactor? Or the super luxury game viewing clientele, which is a more limited market.

Also with non-hunting conservation parks, how are game numbers managed? Assuming it is not in some sort of "perfect natural balance".

Shooting by "culling officers"? I know that is how it is done in most places. Or perhaps game relocation? Perhaps poaching helps keep the numbers down?

John:

The premise that hunting per se conserves is a fallacy !

It has to be coupled to a narrow set of prerequisites and with other activities to become a tool in an armamentarium of practices to have value in conservation.

I personally have knowledge of and have personal experience of persons and institutions who have started and maintained huge and very successful conservancies without allowing hunting, not even culling. Excess is controlled by natural predation and by game sales.

My own father did not hunt, he enjoyed going with us on hunts, but never had a passion for it, yet he started, funded and maintained avery large conservancy. though there was an income from game sales and tourism the bulk of the financial burden as born purely from is primary occupation that had nothing to do with ranching or farming. This incidently was a common past time that he and most of his peers indulged in, almost all of his friends owned and operated game ranches and conservancies with funds gained from other occupations.

So, the game populations should be dependant upon the the beneficience of a wealthy few? Who is to guarantee that they will always be available?

Brice:

Did I say that? No !

What is pointed out was that it is a fallacy that it is only through hunting that game is conserved.

As to the beneficence of a wealthy few, what do you think hunting by visitor hunters is ? In terms of wealth visitor hunters are wealthy relative to the income of those who live in the country where hunting for financial benefit is conducted.

quote:

Originally posted by ALF:
John:

The premise that hunting per se conserves is a fallacy !

It has to be coupled to a narrow set of prerequisites and with other activities to become a tool in an armamentarium of practices to have value in conservation.

I personally have knowledge of and have personal experience of persons and institutions who have started and maintained huge and very successful conservancies without allowing hunting, not even culling. Excess is controlled by natural predation and by game sales.

My own father did not hunt, he enjoyed going with us on hunts, but never had a passion for it, yet he started, funded and maintained avery large conservancy. though there was an income from game sales and tourism the bulk of the financial burden as born purely from is primary occupation that had nothing to do with ranching or farming. This incidently was a common past time that he and most of his peers indulged in, almost all of his friends owned and operated game ranches and conservancies with funds gained from other occupations.

ALF,

Well put. Do you have any info on the conservancies you speak of? Appreciate it if you could email me a link or contact.

I and a couple of others are looking to unite under a conservancy format and the hunting would simply be one activity thats supports the model.

Best

Andrew

quote:

Originally posted by ALF:
there was an income from game sales

Was a large portion of that game sold to buyers who would use them in hunting operations?



While I applaud men like your father who preserved game and habitat through these large conservancies, I would think that the conservancies would not be comparable to the vast wild areas that are kept wild through hunting.

quote:

Originally posted by ALF:
John:

The premise that hunting per se conserves is a fallacy !

It has to be coupled to a narrow set of prerequisites and with other activities to become a tool in an armamentarium of practices to have value in conservation.

I personally have knowledge of and have personal experience of persons and institutions who have started and maintained huge and very successful conservancies without allowing hunting, not even culling. Excess is controlled by natural predation and by GAME SALES .

My own father did not hunt, he enjoyed going with us on hunts, but never had a passion for it, yet he started, funded and maintained avery large conservancy. though there was an income from GAME SALES and tourism the bulk of the financial burden as born purely from is primary occupation that had nothing to do with ranching or farming. This incidently was a common past time that he and most of his peers indulged in, almost all of his friends owned and operated game ranches and conservancies with funds gained from other occupations.

GAME SALES: and sold to put and take undertakings, especially mature males. So, HUNTING is still a big part of the equation. Females to new establishments which nowadays due to saturation are becoming fewer. There have a number of studies by several universities in SA to prove that hunting creates a bigger turnover than photo tourism. There are a lot more animals and a lot more hectares in hunting establishments than look and snap establishments. If you want facts and figures, I am sure you will find what you need in "GAME and HUNT."

Jason:

Game sales are held by auction and I are used to stock other properties and to expand genetic diversity. The prices fetched for various individuals on those sales are high, sometimes exceptionally high and this as a rule preclude them from being hunted , though their offspring later do end up being hunted or sold. It's akin to buying stud bulls in the beef industry, you don't buy a prize bull to slaughter it once it arrives on your property.

As to the size of properties maintained in the manner I laid out. What often happens is that various land owners get together and amalgamate individual properties under a corporate agreement. Each owner still holds full property rights but the conservation agreement is upheld under a corporate arrangement.

The major reserves in the Lowveld such as the Properties that fall under the Sabi Sands, the Timbavati, Klaserie, Umbabat and the most recently formed Balule reserves all function in this manner. They have been very successful. In their history there has been hunting allowed. So called "pot permits" were allocated and in some instances trophy hunting was tendered out to outfitters on a limited basis.

Over the years we personally have gone through the whole gamut, trophy hunting by visitor hunters, hunting for locals, game capture and sales, commercial lodges and tourism.... and then just for own use. The latter likely the most popular usage of land by most of my fathers generation and peers.

What is interesting is that almost to a person all that that I know who started out with ranches where they hunted they now no longer do so, it is as if ownership of game and conservation designated property takes the blood lust out of the person...... Personally we no longer hunted our own properties and yet every year we would hunt elsewhere.

quote:

Originally posted by ALF:
John:

The premise that hunting per se conserves is a fallacy !

It has to be coupled to a narrow set of prerequisites and with other activities to become a tool in an armamentarium of practices to have value in conservation.

I personally have knowledge of and have personal experience of persons and institutions who have started and maintained huge and very successful conservancies without allowing hunting, not even culling. Excess is controlled by natural predation and by game sales.

My own father did not hunt, he enjoyed going with us on hunts, but never had a passion for it, yet he started, funded and maintained avery large conservancy. though there was an income from game sales and tourism the bulk of the financial burden as born purely from is primary occupation that had nothing to do with ranching or farming. This incidently was a common past time that he and most of his peers indulged in, almost all of his friends owned and operated game ranches and conservancies with funds gained from other occupations.

Alf

Thanks.

That assumes there are predators available of course. If there is an absence of lion, I would think a number of species would experience minimal predation. Of course if elephant, only humans in a realistic sense.

Game sales would be covered by "relocation".

Of course your general overall assertions is quite correct.

quote:

Originally posted by ALF:

What is interesting is that almost to a person all that that I know who started out with ranches where they hunted they now no longer do so, it is as if ownership of game and conservation designated property takes the blood lust out of the person...... Personally we no longer hunted our own properties and yet every year we would hunt elsewhere.

Ha ha, I reckon dealing with clients would be the hardest part of the business.

Scriptus:

I know of no operation personally that does put and take hunting, not one ! And I can promise you there is not one of our personal circle of friends that farm game that will pay the prices you pay at the big auctions for an specific animal or brace of animals to have them shot. Our first rhino cost us 85,000 rands a piece...... they were treated like rock stars there was not way my old man would allow anyone to take a shot at any of them..... not even if you paid him double for what he paid for them.

John:

Clients !

The worst of the worst were our own hunters. Not the foreign visitors, not the game watching and bird watching warriors, nope it was the local "biltong hunter". One season only and we were done !

I would imagine another benefit of hunting is the control of poaching.

There are vast tracts of wild Africa that contain viable populations of wild animals that are simply not conducive to a viable and sustainable photo tourism sector - at least not enough to warrant the areas upkeep and protection. This is where sport hunting becomes useful in that it does offer the opportunity (if well managed) to generate sufficient funds to protect and maintain these areas essentially pristine.

Having said that, I don't see why it is so difficult to accept that there is room for both hunting and non-hunting sectors in wildlife conservation. Each one, if well managed, has the capacity to generate sufficient funds to warrant the protection of these wild places.

Eg, in Tz alone, the combined revenue received by Government from both sectors well exceeds several hundred million US$ annually. The potential is there to probably double this! At ideal capacity, they could probably earn over half a billion $ a year in DIRECT REVENUE. This to protect +-250,000 sq km of wildlife areas. Thats $2k / sq km with the ideal average according to some conservationists being $1k/sq km!

Both have a role to play, can coexist and should cooperate.

quote:

Originally posted by Bwanamich:
There are vast tracts of wild Africa that contain viable populations of wild animals that are simply not conducive to a viable and sustainable photo tourism sector - at least not enough to warrant the areas upkeep and protection. This is where sport hunting becomes useful in that it does offer the opportunity (if well managed) to generate sufficient funds to protect and maintain these areas essentially pristine.

Having said that, I don't see why it is so difficult to accept that there is room for both hunting and non-hunting sectors in wildlife conservation. Each one, if well managed, has the capacity to generate sufficient funds to warrant the protection of these wild places.


Both have a role to play, can coexist and should cooperate.

Spot on!
Niassa Reserve is another prime example of the above.

Vast tracts of Wild Africa ?

Where?

Most of the accessable subsag=haran African Countries have populations with population densities far exceding that of North America.

And the main difference is that unlike Western countries the population sits scattered over land on subsistance farms where energy source for cooking and heating is taken from the land in form of wood.

Land where game can potentially can be found is limited to islands and pockets designated as reserves.

If we look at some of the countries:

Kenya has a population density of 174 persons per sq mile, Tanzania 119, Zambia 44.5, Zimbabwe, 57

The USA has a pop density of 87.4 persons per square mile but the difference is that the population is concentrated into urban areas.

Canada has a pop density of only 3.4 persons per sq mile and roughly 90% live within 100 miles of the US border.

quote:

Kenya has a population density of 174 persons per sq mile, Tanzania 119, Zambia 44.5, Zimbabwe, 57

These figures must also largely apply to populations concentrated in urban areas, townships and cities.
I assure you there is a LOT of empty space and wild country out there (Tanzania).

I guess it depends on what one considers a vast tract....Alf, I think Bwanamich was meaning the 'reserves' you refer to....For example - Kariba gorge to Dande, from the river to the escarpment...I think most would consider that a vast tract, don't you? Luangwa, Kafue, the vast plains of Tanzania.....

quote:

Originally posted by ALF:

What is interesting is that almost to a person all that that I know who started out with ranches where they hunted they now no longer do so, it is as if ownership of game and conservation designated property takes the blood lust out of the person...... Personally we no longer hunted our own properties and yet every year we would hunt elsewhere.

Just to move this out of Africa for the moment, but I have noticed this same thing several times here in America. People would obtain a property, and even though they did/do a good bit of hunting, little if any was done on that property, something about having "their own animals" changed the equation in them.

quote:

by NitroX

Also with non-hunting conservation parks, how are game numbers managed? Assuming it is not in some sort of "perfect natural balance".

Shooting by "culling officers"? I know that is how it is done in most places. Or perhaps game relocation? Perhaps poaching helps keep the numbers down?

And culling or re-location cost the state, while hunting brings in much needed revenue and in many case supplies the locals with meat, and day jobs for the safari companies. Hunting solves all three problems and adds to the funds not deplete them.

quote:

Originally posted by ALF:
John:

The premise that hunting per se conserves is a fallacy !

It has to be coupled to a narrow set of prerequisites and with other activities to become a tool in an armamentarium of practices to have value in conservation.

I personally have knowledge of and have personal experience of persons and institutions who have started and maintained huge and very successful conservancies without allowing hunting, not even culling. Excess is controlled by natural predation and by game sales.

……………………….and what happens to the surplus animals sold off to balance the population? IOM, in most cases they are sold to private HUNTING ranches!

Shooting them now or shooting them later makes no difference, because culling takes place regardless no matter how it is done!

ALF I agree that hunting is not the “be all, and end all” to conservation, but it is the best way of making the renewable resource benefiting the people who live in the same habitat and compete with the wild life for food and space without poaching. Poaching simply doesn’t take into consideration whether an animal is over or under populated, or is in fact endangered.

To the poacher the animal is simply a meat supply, and no consideration is taken for it’s continued existence as a species. Hunting differentiates between viable, and endangered species, poaching does not. The private place you refer to usually do not have civilian populations living on the property other than the owner, having to compete with the wildlife for space and food.

..................................................................

The "vast empty plains " everyone is referring to here are basically reserves, for them to be empty they have to have a habitation restriction and human activity restriction on them. All of the "wild palces" hunted by visitor hunters are linked to this provision.

There are very few places in Africa today where if you get out to take a piss behind a bush someone does not pop out to take a look at you.

In South Africa all land is "owned" , ie there is not a square inch of land anywhere where title does not apply, whether private , government or corporate, Namibia the same. Zimbabwe the same, Botswana? that vast empty space down below the swamp.... all reserve.

The Niassa in Mozambique, it is a reserve.