Losing by Conserving?
OK, so I’ll admit being a bit skeptical about Nyalas causing declines in Coutada 11’s Chobe Bushbuck populations. This was a tropical paradise with, to my eye, food enough for all the browsers and grazers. As a scientist, I knew better than to fall into the logical, intuitive trap set by my own ignorance. I fell in anyway. The only way out was to observe Coutada 11, survey more PHs and scientists working in the concession, and dig into the scientific and wildlife management literature. Before you despair, I’m not going to recite tons of undigested data, but there are some cool observations that even scientists occasionally stumble over and report. Trust me, I’m a professional scientist and know of what I speak – often, we must stumble over interesting findings before we see them…
Professional Hunter, Dylan Holmes, provided the next brick in the wall of my education about the impact of Nyala overpopulation. The instruction came on my second Safari in Coutada 11. Dylan and I were not hunting Nyalas, but instead searched for one of the Chobe Bushbuck rams. The rams possess beautiful red-brown hides dotted with white markings on rumps, and an Nyala-like crest of long cream-colored hairs running from tail to neck. Driving across one of the many open Pans, my PH pointed to the edge of the rapidly approaching forest. I thought Dylan was trying to get me to see an animal, but that was not the case. Pointing he asked “Do you see how all the trees are bare of leaves up to about the head height of a very tall person?” With that, I stopped squinting into the shadows, looking for an animal shape, instead broadening my gaze to take in the treeline. Sure enough, each tree and large bush looked like someone had gone through with electric hedge clippers, leaving a horizontal line of vegetation beginning at about 7 feet off the ground. I hazarded a guess, “Nyalas?” Dylan nodded and once at the forest edge, brought the Land Cruiser to a stop to let me look more closely at the browse-line. The trees weren’t just missing a few leaves, the lower branches were completely bare. “Our Bushbucks are in trouble from all the Nyalas. It’s not that adult Bushbucks can’t reach nearly as high into the trees as an Nyala, it’s that they don’t get to the browse before the greater numbers of Nyalas strip it clean.” The addition of an exclamation point to this lesson happened as we rounded the curve into the forest; a cow Nyala stood at attention, flanked by three generations of calves and a mature bull.
The probable outcome of the battle between Coutada 11’s Bushbucks and Nyalas is clear. Given the seriousness of the battle’s resolution, culling of Nyalas, plus encouraging an increase of leopards through continued habitat conservation and anti-poaching, seems a logical management scheme for Zambeze Delta Safaris. Without intervention, from humans and leopards, an iconic spiral-horned antelope, the Bushbuck, could disappear from the wonderful Coutada 11 landscape.
Excerpt from Mike's Upcoming Book: BRINGING BACK THE LIONS: International Hunters, Local Tribespeople, and the Miraculous Rescue of a Doomed Ecosystem in Mozambique