The History of Gamebird Shooting in Southern Africa

The history of gamebird shooting in Southern Africa is relatively sparsely documented, presumably due to the fact that the classic African safari literature tended to focus on the hunting of big and dangerous game and consequently downgraded gamebird shooting to the occasional provision of a change in diet around the campfire. However, the advent of this history seems to have been intertwined with the history of the British colonial expansion in this region.

With Southern Africa today covering the territories of South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Angola and Zambia, the subcontinent offered the first settlers a total of 72 gamebird species, of which 36 eventually and due to their sufficient numbers, became recognised gamebirds in the region.

The first recorded case of gamebird shooting in Southern Africa dates back to 1775 and involved Greywing francolin shooting in the Langkloof area of the south eastern Cape in South Africa by a Swedish gentleman by the name of Anders Sparman. However, it was not until 1795 that gamebird shooting as a sporting activity took off in the country. With the dwindling Dutch mercantile power towards the end of the eighteenth century, the first British occupation of the Cape Colony took place in 1795 and with it brought British officers who came from a background of gamebird shooting in their homeland. They discovered that Greywing francolin were abundant in the southern and eastern regions of the Cape Province and when the British Settlers arrived in the Cape in 1820, many of them started shooting Greywing over pointers in the true English tradition.

Research indicates that in these early days, Greywing francolin occurred in coveys of 30 to 40 birds and were the preferred quarry of the large shooting expeditions that were regularly undertaken in the southern and eastern Cape. However, already in these days, the other ‘partridge type’ of francolin – that will still be attended to in this series – were also shot as they sat well for a dog.  Redwing francolin for instance, overlapped with Greywing in many areas and were also favoured due to their larger body size and inclination to sit much tighter than Greywing and despite the fact that their coveys seldom exceeded 10 birds. However, not so popular were the ‘pheasant type’ of gamebirds – that will also be attended to in this series – that favoured thicker cover and also tended to run instead of sit and therefore made them unsuitable for shooting over a pointing dog.

The steady growth in popularity of gamebird shooting in South Africa is reflected in various snippets on the topic. Perhaps of interest from a British perspective, is the following comment by W.W. Greener in his famous book The Gun from the year 1881: ‘In South Africa, where much shooting is done from the saddle, the barrels of 12-bores are often 36 inches in length. This extra length is necessary to get the muzzles clear of the horse’. In March 1896, the Barkley East Reporter reported that ‘since the shooting season commenced, tennis has been neglected. Our local sportsmen are having a good time: birds are plentiful and some good bags have been made lately’. Also the well known British imperialist and mining magnate, Cecil John Rhodes (1853-1902), who became the 7th Prime Minister of the Cape Colony in 1890, is reported to have been keen on gamebird shooting and frequently shot francolin over a pointer. Field trials for pointers and setters have since 1908 also annually been held by the South African Field Trial Club whose membership included equally illustrious names, such as the famous Field Marshall, Jan Smuts.

In summary, these references are echoed by the an academic study done at the well known Percy Fitzpatrick Institute at the University of Cape Town in 1998 and various articles in recent editions of Fieldsports.

The study amongst others concluded that ‘the gamebird industry in Southern Africa has great development potential and could become a significant source of income to rural communities, leading to better job security and farming practices, as well as providing refuges for wildlife in the rural landscape’.

These forecasts have recently also been confirmed by an article on amongst others pigeon and waterfowl shooting in South Africa in the Winter 2012/13 edition of Fieldsports in which the author enthused: ‘Over these two days, we accounted for more than 650 pigeon – fantastic sport to test us to the full’ and ‘Although it was too early for the hoards of geese and duck that frequent this area in the winter months of July and August, we nevertheless enjoyed an excellent flight, accounting for spurwing and Egyptian geese, and several species of duck including yellow bill and white-faced whistling duck’.

Dr. Willem Moore – Windhoek, Namibia

References:

Fieldsports, Winter 2012/13 and photos 

Griffiths, M.K.P. (1998). Identifying gamebird hunting ‘hotspots’: Implications for conservation. Cape Town: Percy Fitzpatrick Institute, University of Cape Town.

Vary, C. (2001). Gamebird shooting in Southern Africa. Johannesburg: Chris van Rensburg Publications (Pty) Ltd.

Wynne-Jones, A. (1993). The sport of shooting in Southern Africa. Houghton: Oberon Press.