A Bayaka family.

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Out there in the cut-throat alleyways of marketing, it seems that anything goes. No holds barred. If you can slander another operator, or another country, in order to secure that hunt deposit in your hand – hey, stick it to them. Distasteful, but true.

 

How many times have you heard something like this “I dunno Jim, you really want to book your hunt in South Africa? Are you really going to feel happy when you knock over your kudu in a 50 acre pen? Where he's got no chance?” Fortunately, thousands of hunters do their own research, and they find that South Africa does have game-fenced hunting – and they find that it also offers a huge choice of excellent safaris, just like all other safari countries.

 

But let's face it. South Africa has been sneered at, and spoken of in derogatory tones for many years because of game farms. Why is that? And what, really is the reality of this game fence issue? The reality is that game fences, game ranching, is the future of game conservation, and it is the future of safari hunting too. I have seen game fenced hunting areas in Denmark, Germany, USA and Canada. They've been around for a long time.

 

But how did South Africa become synonymous with fenced hunting when the fact is, that Zimbabwe, Botswana, Mozambique and Zambia all practice the same thing? I believe South Africans realised long ago that a catastrophe was looming – they saw that unless something changed, and changed radically, much of that country's wildlife would soon be gone forever.

 

So they were the first to start practicing controlled, fenced game ranching – and – therefore the first to receive criticism. As game ranches became more successful, more widespread in South Africa – so these fenced areas became more prominent in the public eye.

 

Many of the old hunting books – Selous, Cumming, Finaughty, tell about the amazing numbers, and variety of game encountered on journeys through South Africa. Cape lions, Harrisbuck, elephant, thousand upon thousand head of game found up on the plateaus of the highveld.

 

Part of Cumming's description of the huge herds of trekbokken, or migrating herds of springbuck reads as follows... “I beheld the ground to the northward of my camp actually covered with a dense living mass of springboks,… Like the flood of some great river… I have no hesitation in stating that some hundreds of thousands of springboks were that morning within the compass of my vision.”

 

But, just as the American Bison were shot right to the brink of extinction, so the wild game animals of South Africa were swept away by gunfire. Gordon Cumming wrote... “Each morning and evening we rode out and hunted the springboks, killing as many as we could bring home… The boers had likewise been out with their rifles, and shot as many as they could carry…”

 

This short-sighted slaughter went on and on, until most of the game was gone. But thankfully, just in time, things began to change. First, conservationists became alarmed, and they acted. Then, fortunately, the enticing gleam of money came to the rescue – not only conservationists began to husband wildlife, but farmers who had battled for years to pull their struggling sheep and cattle farms out of the red, farmers who grew old waiting for the rain to come at the right time, suddenly had a way out. Game did not require the same coddling care that domestic stock required. All that the farmer had to do was eradicate poaching, and ensure that the animals enjoyed sufficient cover, food and water. Then, when his populations reached optimum levels, he could sell that game – large mature males to trophy hunters, other animals cropped for venison sales, and, as the wildlife business expanded, other animals were sold in live capture operations. Proper, controlled game ranching became a robust sector in southern African agriculture.

 

We have much to thank game ranching for.

 

But the fact remains, the thought of hunting a game animal behind a wire fence, is still distasteful to many. Some hunters simply will not do it. And that is unfortunate, because soon they will have no where left to hunt.

My old man sitting on the right taught me to shoot dogs.

How are we fellows to keep warm? Africanis pups, Magondi Tribal Trust Land, Zimbabwe, winter of 1977.

How big must a fenced area be in order to ensure that the quarry has the same chance of evading the hunter as it would on an open, unfenced area?

 

South Africa is as beautifully diverse as Zimbabwe is – mountains, forests, savannah, desert, wetlands – it's all there. But basically, for the purpose of this discussion, we could break it down into two main veld types – the open grasslands – or highveld, and the lower, thicker bushveld areas.

 

If you stand in the centre of two thousand acres of open highveld – you would probably be able to see just about every part of the property. If you stand in the middle of two thousand acres of Pongola bushveld – you may be able to see one hundred yards – if you're lucky. So obviously, in order to be able to hunt ethically on the open highveld, the area would have to be considerably larger in comparison to the thicker, more rugged terrain.

 

Trying to lay down a figure, trying to recommend a certain acreage as “fair” or “ethical”, while considering what sort of terrain and vegetation covers a piece of land is impossible. We all have so many different views on what's acceptable and what is not when talking about hunting. Take the canned lion hunting saga for example – this “rule” will be debated forever.

 

But each one of us knows what he or she would accept as fair chase – so any hunter coming to Africa for the first time, should be ready to ask questions. Are you a member in good standing with your country's Professional Hunters Association? How big is your property? What does the terrain look like? Can you give me a written agreement which states that if the hunting is not fair chase, then we can request that your Professional Hunters Association arbitrate? And if the hunt is not fair chase, then I receive a reimbursement of my safari cost?

 

These questions will root out the fellows who run operations on small fenced “zoos”, the same shade of character who lets the animals out of the truck the day before you arrive.

 

Allied to all of this of course, is tradition. As hunters, our ethics are often formed by our historic traditions. A European hunter used to small hunting lots, or hunting with hounds, may well have a different value-set compared to say a Texan. Bow hunters familiar with hunting from blinds or tree stands will likely have different criteria to rifle hunters. Tradition driven ethics probably plays as bigger role in the decision making process as actual size of the hunting ranch.

 

 

But let's not taint the majority of game ranchers with this warning which is a warning about the few. We should rather doff our hat every time we come across a proper ethical well run fenced hunting area, we should doff our hat and say “thank you” – because fenced areas are our future.