THE member (of the Upper Jukskei Flyfishing Collective) expects a deluge of letters to the editor from Bambi huggers everywhere following a report by Business Day’s Andiswa Maqutu saying that recreational hunters would like to see low-priced game meat in supermarkets.
Generally, the member prefers his huggees to be of his own species, with the exception of the odd warthog on Friday nights after happy hour, but he has some empathy for wildlife huggers. What is better than raising a pinkie for another round of Pimm’s, while below, across the vast African plain the antelope roam?
The idea is to conserve all that, but the trouble is, it is not at all clear what all that means. If all that means the shrinking sprinkling of green freckles showing wilderness areas on the world map we shall have to reduce the planet’s human population by, say, 6-billion by next week. Some people might like the idea, but the obvious difficulties with controlling the volunteers in the euthanasia queue will scupper the effort.
So much then for biodiversity and long-term sustainability, except in the minds of the Bambi huggers or the world. They are the ones in the crosshairs of the deliciously ironically named South African Hunters and Game Conservation Association, who would like to see springbok, kudu and warthog nicely cling-wrapped between the kosher section and the snake oil fridge.
Very entrepreneurial, is what the member thinks, and the hunters do have a point. If you put a decent price on cutlets of Bambi, vast herds will spring up everywhere, just like cattle and sheep, conserved by commoditisation.
That is not just pie in the sky. The member has seen it working with his very own eyes when, on his way to the coast for a spot of estuary fishing, he gave a friend a lift from Joburg to her father’s farm in the Karoo. En route she told him the farm had been in the family since the 1820s and, for about 180 years, they raised sheep there. This way of life was to be continued, so the son in the family was packed off to agricultural college to learn what could be done about the farm’s rapidly declining productivity.
When the son got back from college there was trouble. “Pa,” he said, “what we have to do is cut down the barbed wire and the jakkalsdraad and get in some springbok.”
The oom looked down at his forearms scored crisscross with barbed-wire scars and thought, “Ja, well, that is the new SA for you,” but being a good Engelsman he overindulged his children and said: “Alright, Boetman, but just the western camps.”
The farm, is must be said, was a typical Karoo farm, about the size of Belgium stretching more or less all the way from Beaufort West to Middelburg, so Boetman was satisfied and over the next few years all the fences on the farm came down and the springbok came in, with the recreational hunters hard on their heels.
The result is startling. Where the typical Karoo farm gives dusty bossies that rise all the way up to your ankles, this farm has been transformed in a few brief years by the absence of sheep and the grazing habits of springbok into a paradise of high-growing mixed green veld last seen 180 years ago. Soon kudu migrated there from the national park nearby and predators followed.
“The best part,” said the oom when the member and his friend arrived at the farm, “is that I made more money in five years of sitting on my stoep than from a lifetime of raising sheep.”
That’s just one story, but the member knows there are many more similar ones unfolding all over the country. Just ask buffalo breeders Cyril Ramaphosa and Jaco Troskie. Bambi, even if he is technically a deer, is being saved by the bullet and a R6bn-a-year industry.
Generally, the member prefers his huggees to be of his own species, with the exception of the odd warthog on Friday nights after happy hour, but he has some empathy for wildlife huggers. What is better than raising a pinkie for another round of Pimm’s, while below, across the vast African plain the antelope roam?
The idea is to conserve all that, but the trouble is, it is not at all clear what all that means. If all that means the shrinking sprinkling of green freckles showing wilderness areas on the world map we shall have to reduce the planet’s human population by, say, 6-billion by next week. Some people might like the idea, but the obvious difficulties with controlling the volunteers in the euthanasia queue will scupper the effort.
So much then for biodiversity and long-term sustainability, except in the minds of the Bambi huggers or the world. They are the ones in the crosshairs of the deliciously ironically named South African Hunters and Game Conservation Association, who would like to see springbok, kudu and warthog nicely cling-wrapped between the kosher section and the snake oil fridge.
Very entrepreneurial, is what the member thinks, and the hunters do have a point. If you put a decent price on cutlets of Bambi, vast herds will spring up everywhere, just like cattle and sheep, conserved by commoditisation.
That is not just pie in the sky. The member has seen it working with his very own eyes when, on his way to the coast for a spot of estuary fishing, he gave a friend a lift from Joburg to her father’s farm in the Karoo. En route she told him the farm had been in the family since the 1820s and, for about 180 years, they raised sheep there. This way of life was to be continued, so the son in the family was packed off to agricultural college to learn what could be done about the farm’s rapidly declining productivity.
When the son got back from college there was trouble. “Pa,” he said, “what we have to do is cut down the barbed wire and the jakkalsdraad and get in some springbok.”
The oom looked down at his forearms scored crisscross with barbed-wire scars and thought, “Ja, well, that is the new SA for you,” but being a good Engelsman he overindulged his children and said: “Alright, Boetman, but just the western camps.”
The farm, is must be said, was a typical Karoo farm, about the size of Belgium stretching more or less all the way from Beaufort West to Middelburg, so Boetman was satisfied and over the next few years all the fences on the farm came down and the springbok came in, with the recreational hunters hard on their heels.
The result is startling. Where the typical Karoo farm gives dusty bossies that rise all the way up to your ankles, this farm has been transformed in a few brief years by the absence of sheep and the grazing habits of springbok into a paradise of high-growing mixed green veld last seen 180 years ago. Soon kudu migrated there from the national park nearby and predators followed.
“The best part,” said the oom when the member and his friend arrived at the farm, “is that I made more money in five years of sitting on my stoep than from a lifetime of raising sheep.”
That’s just one story, but the member knows there are many more similar ones unfolding all over the country. Just ask buffalo breeders Cyril Ramaphosa and Jaco Troskie. Bambi, even if he is technically a deer, is being saved by the bullet and a R6bn-a-year industry.
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