{"id":1826,"date":"2024-09-05T18:59:55","date_gmt":"2024-09-05T16:59:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.bosveldjagters.co.za\/the-role-of-hunting-in-nature-conservation\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T17:30:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T15:30:09","slug":"the-role-of-hunting-in-nature-conservation","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/dev.bosveldjagters.co.za\/en\/the-role-of-hunting-in-nature-conservation\/","title":{"rendered":"The Role of Hunting in Nature Conservation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"The<\/figure>\n\n

The role of hunting in nature conservation <\/h1>\n\n

Abel Botha<\/p>\n\n

There are people who frown when they encounter the words hunting<\/em> and nature conservation<\/em> in the same sentence, especially with the connotation that these two concepts could be related at all. Yet today, hunting is one of the most important facets or mechanisms for the effective conservation of nature. <\/p>\n\n

Years ago, before the impact of human overpopulation had a significant effect on nature, there was a reasonable balance in nature. It was admittedly a dynamic balance, in the sense that the scales sometimes tipped too far to one side in favor of, for example, predators, and then again in favor of herbivores and so on, until large-scale die-offs drastically restored the balance. The balance in the food chain was maintained because herbivore numbers were kept in check by predators; the plant material was never irreparably damaged. When droughts became severe, many herbivores died, other species migrated to better pastures, and the predators were always there to prevent the overpopulation of species. In this food chain, man was just another predator playing his role to help preserve this fine balance. <\/p>\n\n

As the human population increased, this balance was gradually disturbed until, in the last two centuries, species began to disappear and others began to appear on the endangered list. There are some people who claim that hunting was the cause of the disappearance of these species and of the large numbers of wildlife that previously populated our country. We as hunters deny that this is the case. Firstly, we look at the definition of hunting as we, as ethical hunters, describe it: Hunting is the tracking of an animal in its natural environment, and the stalking of this animal until the animal can be killed in the fastest possible way. According to this definition, the large-scale slaughter of animals was therefore not hunting\u2014rather an indiscriminate extermination, much like one would kill termites in your garden. This killing process was also not the cause of the extinction, but merely the mechanism through which it was carried out. What was indeed the cause of the disappearance of these species and animals was the large-scale destruction of habitat for farming purposes, cities, roads, railways, mines, and dams, through which man made nature adapt to him\u2014in contrast to the animal species that adapted to nature through evolution and change. There are many people who condemn hunting while earning their living in large metropolises where thousands of head of game probably occurred previously. <\/p>\n\n

The big problem in today’s time is therefore that the natural habitat of our wildlife species has shrunk so much that mechanisms that previously helped maintain the balance in nature can simply no longer happen: migrations can no longer take place unhindered, predators are not tolerated in urban and agricultural areas, and there is simply not enough land for fires to be allowed to clear certain areas of invasive bush. The vegetation of most remaining habitats is further threatened by overgrazing by domestic and wild animals. In South Africa, there was also the further problem that our ancestors established animals and plants in this country that were totally unadaptable to nature\u2014animals and plants increasingly contracted diseases that had to be treated with chemicals, which in turn almost destroyed other species, such as the oxpeckers that were wiped out everywhere in the country (except in the larger game reserves). Thus, man also wiped out his allies! <\/p>\n\n

Fortunately, more and more farmers are realizing daily that nature here in our country has already provided animals and plants that have been excellently adapted to our local conditions over the centuries. Listen to what Mr. Dennis Ball of the farm Shiawela near Bandelierskop says, who was a top cattle farmer for many years and has now switched to game farming: \u201cFrom the time I began to breed cattle, I was told: \u2018Breed an adapted animal\u2019. I constantly strove for this criteria and ruthlessly selected for this factor. One day, it was as if the Lord spoke to me saying: \u2018Stop trying to adapt this animal! It was not bred for this conditions. …..Look at what was naturally here, and then you will see \u201can adapted animal\u201d\u2019 The message was loud and clear: What was I fighting for? All that I have to do, was to allow what was naturally there to multiply.\u201d Mr. Ball then also discovered the most important ingredient for conserving nature: Conserve the soil, and all the other things will follow naturally<\/em>.<\/em> He realized that the wildlife that occurred naturally causes much less damage to the soil than domestic livestock, and his veld quality increased to such an extent in the experimental part of his farm where he removed all livestock, that he sold all his livestock in one day! Over time, he realized that he no longer experienced crop failures during droughts, that the same rainfall achieved more for his grazing, and that bush encroachment is on the decline. <\/p>\n\n

Research in Kenya has shown that 2,100 kg\/km\u00b2 of beef can be produced with traditional farming methods and 8,300 kg\/km\u00b2 of beef on a very well-managed cattle farm. In the same area, 15,000 kg\/km\u00b2 of game meat can be produced! <\/p>\n\n

Now you may well ask what the above has to do with hunting? Then we must first ask: why has 90% of the livestock that occurred behind the Soutpansberg in 1910 now disappeared to make room for wildlife? For only one reason: the wildlife became worth money. Where wildlife was previously regarded as a pest that ate the livestock’s grazing and caused livestock diseases and was sometimes mowed down or driven away indiscriminately, the same wildlife is now seen as income. A small portion of this wildlife can be sold live; the rest must be harvested or hunted. Most farmers have the wildlife hunted by domestic hunters. Not only does he get a better price for the buck, but he gains further through the daily rates he charges as well as fees for slaughterers, cold rooms, and vehicles. Furthermore, he has eyes and ears in the field that can watch out for poachers, snares, broken fences, or even deal with stray dogs. Because every true hunter is also a nature lover, he receives valuable information about his veld and his animals. The wildlife also provides much-needed foreign currency that enters the country in the form of overseas hunters. In 1997, the estimated turnover from wildlife sales was R500 million, of which hunting contributed R360 million. In 2001, biltong hunters alone spent R450 million in South Africa. The wildlife industry in South Africa is growing phenomenally. Most game farmers also get tourists outside the hunting season who further supplement their income (ecotourism had an estimated R40 million turnover in 1997, or one-ninth of the spending by hunters). <\/p>\n\n

Informed stakeholders in the Nature Conservation industry also wholeheartedly support the hunting of their surplus wildlife. Rather than culling themselves, hunters are increasingly used in nature reserves to remove surplus game. It is, after all, a simple biological truth that wildlife breeds and that their numbers must consequently be limited according to the available food resources, and judicious thinning of wildlife is best achieved through hunting. In this way, the habitat is not overtaxed and further production can take place sustainably. The funds collected in this way are desperately needed for the management of nature reserves and also for fighting poachers, which is becoming an increasing problem in Africa (look at how rhinos have been thinned out). For any right-thinking person, it is surely more logical to allow elephants to be hunted for a large income than to burn a pile of ivory (which could have made thousands of rands available for fighting poachers) in a large advertising campaign before millions of television viewers! Elephants, in particular, are used by so-called animal lovers as emotional propaganda in campaigns to raise large sums of money that are probably rarely ploughed back into nature conservation. An emotional approach to nature conservation by some media is then also often the biggest problem for conservationists who want to apply sound nature conservation practices. Thus, elephants are elevated in conservation status while plants and other animals that may possibly be on the endangered list as a result of overgrazing by elephants receive no attention in the media or from uninformed nature lovers. For instance, a park warden in East Africa refused to cull elephants in “his” area, with the result that the elephants totally destroyed their habitat, so much so that every single elephant in the herd (and many other animals) died, while a once subtropical habitat turned into a desert that also made the area unusable for virtually all other species. <\/p>\n\n

Adult elephants have no enemies in nature\u2014man is the only predator capable of thinning out the elephant. Riverine forests in Botswana and the Okavango are being destroyed because elephant culling is avoided as it provokes negative propaganda. Fortunately, common sense finally prevailed during the CITES summit from 9\u201320 June 1997, in that positive decisions were taken regarding the trade in ivory and rhino horn by the Southern African countries (South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and Botswana), and elephants and rhinos may therefore now be hunted legally on a limited scale and under controlled conditions. For Botswana, this decision may come too late, as their elephant numbers are such that simply not enough elephants can be hunted to save the habitat. <\/p>\n\n

In summary, it can therefore be said that hunting is the most important tool in the effective conservation of wildlife. Because of hunters who pay for the hunting of game, thereby making it worthwhile for game farmers and nature conservation agencies to conserve and increase wildlife, wildlife numbers in South Africa today are much higher than a hundred years ago. The hunter again fulfills his traditional role as predator. At the hunting associations of South Africa (there are 12 hunting associations across the country affiliated with CHASA\u2014the Confederation of Hunters’ Associations of South Africa), we strive to provide ethical hunters to the game farmer and Nature Conservation organizations to harvest their game. Therefore, we are constantly engaged in training (especially for the youth) and we are also constantly busy with numerous projects where we assist Nature Conservation organizations with certain projects. Nature conservation is close to our hearts\u2014it is logical, after all, that we will not be able to hunt if there is no game to hunt! Therefore, we conserve to be able to hunt, but also because hunters are the true nature lovers. Mr. M C Vermeulen, for his M Com and under the auspices of the Research Centre: Wildlife Industry at Potchefstroom University, conducted a survey among hunters. Of the various questions he asked hunters in his questionnaire, the answer to one question is characteristic of the hunter in South Africa: To the question: \u201cWhy do you hunt?\u201d by far the majority of hunters provided the following reason: \u201cTo be able to be in nature\u201d.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n

(see latest statistics on Hunting in SA at the bottom of the page in PDF format)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The role of hunting in nature conservation Abel Botha There are people who frown when they encounter the words hunting and nature conservation in the same sentence, especially with the connotation that these two concepts could be related at all. Yet today, hunting is one of the most important facets or mechanisms for the effective […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_bjv_visibility":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1826","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.bosveldjagters.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.bosveldjagters.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.bosveldjagters.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.bosveldjagters.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.bosveldjagters.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1826"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dev.bosveldjagters.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1865,"href":"https:\/\/dev.bosveldjagters.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1826\/revisions\/1865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.bosveldjagters.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}