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DUKE (H. L.). Antelope as a Reservoir for Trypanosoma gambiense.
(Proceedings of the Royal Society. 1912. July 25. Ser. B. Vol. 85. No. B 579. Pp. 299-311), and
(Reports of the Sleeping Sickness Commission of the Royal Society No. 13, pp. 1-12.)
Further Observations on the Recovery of Trypanosoma gambiense from Tragelaphus spekei on the Islands of Lake Victoria Nyanza
(Proceedings of the Royal Society. 1912. Aug. 24. Ser. B. Vol. 85. No. B 581, pp. 483-486), and
(Reports of the Sleeping Sickness Commission of the Royal Society. No. 13, pp. 27-30.) KINGHORN (Allan) and YORKE (Warrington). Trypanosomes obtained by feeding wild Glossina morsitans on Monkeys in the Luangwa Valley, Northern Rhodesia. (Fourth Interim Report of the Luangwa Sleeping Sickness Commission, British South Africa Company.)
(Annals of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology. 1912. Sept. 12. Ser. T. M. Vol 6. No. 3 A., pp. 317-324.)
KINGHORN (Allan) and YORKE (Warrington). Further Observations on the Trypano- somes of Game and Domestic Stock in North Eastern Rhodesia. (Seventh Interim Report of the Luangwa Sleeping Sickness Commission, British South Africa Company.)
(Annals of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology. 1912. Dec. 30. Ser. T. M. Vol. 6. No. 4. Pp. 483-493.) BRUCE (Sir David). HARVEY (David), HAMERTON (A. E.), DAVEY (J. B.), and Lady BRUCE. The Trypanosomes found in the Blood of Wild Animals living in the Sleeping Sickness Area, Nyasaland.
(Proceedings of the Royal Society.
Pp. 269-277.)
7 June, 1913.
19482
(No. 127.)
SIR,
No. 33.
GAMBIA.
1913. Vol. 86.
No. B 587.
THE GOVERNOR to THE SECRETARY OF STATE,
(Received 9 June, 1913.)
[Answered by No. 36.]
Government House,
Bathurst, Gambia, 14th May, 1913.
I HAVE the honour to acknowledge receipt of your despatch, No. 55, of the 11th March last,* in which you request me to consider the question as to the desira- bility or otherwise of establishing reserves or sanctuaries of the wild fauna in this Colony.
2. I could, as far as my own opinion in the matter is concerned, have replied to your despatch by return mail, but I considered it wiser to obtain the views of two of my Travelling Commissioners, whose knowledge of the Protectorate and its fauna points to them as being more qualified than I am to usefully advise in the matter.
refer to Mr. H. L. Pryce, C.M.G., and Dr. E. Hopkinson, D.S.O.
3. Both the officers referred to concur in my view that the number of birds and wild animals killed in the Gambia Protectorate every year is too small to occasion any fear of an appreciable decrease in their numbers, and that, therefore, neither sanctuaries nor reservations are considered to be necessary in the region referred to.
4. I transmit herewith a copy of a document containing Dr. Hopkinson's views on a subject in which he is much interested. Whilst there is not the slightest likeli- hood of any species of wild animal becoming even appreciably diminished in numbers, much less extinct, in the near future in the Gambia, the Protectorate natives; on the other hand, must continue to suffer serious loss in both crops and
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• No. 12.
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cattle from the depredations of the hippopotamus, the hyena, and the wart-hog, so long as they are not permitted to own other than flint-lock guns. I would be the last person to advocate that firearms other than flint-locks should be allowed to be sold to the natives of Africa. At the same time, there is no doubt that it will become necessary for the Colonial Government, at no distant date, to consider what assistance should be given to the Chiefs and people of certain districts, where either life or property is imperilled by the animals referred to above, with a view to clearing the land of fauna which are of no practical use to any one and two of which are known to be hosts for the trypanosomes. During my last tour in the Protectorate I dis- tributed four carbines in the South Bank Province and four in the Kombo country, with a small amount of ammunition, in order to assist the Chiefs in certain districts to do something towards driving away the hippo and the wart-hog in the former case and the hyæna in the latter. The carbines are on loan, and are in the hands of Chiefs who can be depended upon not to abuse the privilege granted them.
SIR,
I have, &c.,
H. L. GALWAY, Governor and Commander-in-Chief.
Enclosure in No. 33.
Dunkunku, April 26, 1913.
I have the honour to acknowledge your letter of the 17th instant. 2. On the question of the protection of native faunæ I am particularly interested, and glad of His Excellency's invitation for an expression of my views on this matter in its relation to the Gambia.
3. I thoroughly value the importance of protection and protective laws as pro- viding the only means by which we can hope that many of the world's more interesting non-human inhabitants may be preserved under modern conditions. However, there are places from London downwards, where, owing to local or other conditions (size, cultivation, population, &c.), we cannot hope that such animals can possibly survive; while, too, in some of these places their preservation, even if possible, would be undesirable for various reasons. In such places preservation and protection would, at least, be wasted efforts.
Gambia seems to me to be one of those places where this holds good, and although I am as keen as anyone on the natural wild fauna of this and other places, I really do not think that in our Protectorate any protection is needed or likely to do much good, and that certainly no more than that given by the rules now in force can possibly be required. This for at least two reasons:(a) Our strip of country is too small to contain any large head of game, at any rate, while it remains as populous (and one might also say, popular) as it is. (b) Whatever large game we possess is not resident, but comes in at the end of the dry season for a short time only, and then with the commencement of the rains retires again from our water-providing river. Such big game, if it is to be preserved, must nowadays have protection where- ever it may be. Here, however, is it worth while trying to do this? The smaller game I leave on one side, as it, I think. seems able to look after itself fairly well in this part of the world, as will be seen below.
As regards (a), the word "populous." It may seem out of place as applied to the Gambia to any one comparing our population with our area, and thinking of so many inhabitants to the square mile, but it must be remembered that a very large proportion of our country consists of water or swamp, and of the remainder, iron- stone ridges, waterless and uninhabitable. As a matter of fact, in most places there are nearly as many inhabitants as the country can provide farm land for, and with- out farms, our people, all agriculturists, would be lost. Besides the fact that so much country is given up to cattle or cultivation, the bush left is by no means the unvisited peaceful sanctuary large game requires, for all of it is netted with paths and frequently visited by wood-cutters, bamboo collectors, and other suppliers of the people's daily or periodical needs. The country is, therefore, as a whole, in its present condition, quite unsuitable for big game, and this has undoubtedly decreased during the twelve years I have known the Gambia. When I first came here, one used, in certain places, to see water-buck and cob fairly frequently, roan and hartebeest occa- sionally, in their season, but for years I have never seen one of these animals. As I
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said above, all these larger animals are not resident with us, but come in for water and grass towards the end of the dry season, when the whole country behind is dried That their decrease is not mainly due to their having been shot I am sure, as our people (except, perhaps, the Jolas) are anything but good hunters or sportsmen by instinct. The animals have decreased simply because there is now no room for them, owing to increased numbers of people, cattle, and farms.
The riverside swamps, where formerly one might see some of the larger antelopes, are now covered with cattle, especially in May, just when the buck used to come in these swamps pro- viding the cattle, as formerly they did the buck, with the only water and grass available at that season, the rest of the country being brown and bone-dry. It is, no doubt, a pity, but when it comes to a question of limited food, the weaker party, the buck, must fall before the stronger and more cared for-the cattle.
The smaller antelope have, I believe, diminished but little in numbers during this period, and I am quite sure that feathered game has not decreased at all, except near Bathurst and a few other spots easily and constantly accessible to shooting parties. The toll taken by the natives is infinitesimal, and, as at home, the ordinary shooting by Europeans, intermittent in the various places as it is from the nature of their duties (a day or two and then two or three months rest), if anything, improves the shooting. It certainly does not diminish the number of the birds, if one can judge from one's own experience. It happens that for years the Commissioner of the Upper River Province was a particularly keen shot, and probably accounted every year for at least as many head of bush-fowl, our commonest game-bird, as the rest of us together. Yet at the end of his service there were just as many of these birds round his towns as there were at the beginning, and the whole Province justly bears the name of providing the best shooting.
As regards birds other than game, no protection seems needed for them, certainly no more than that already in force. Our egrets are not hunted for their feathers, and one is hardly ever killed, except as a curiosity by beginners, both black and white. Marabouts are protected by native custom in the neighbourhood of all Mohamadan towns, and it is in trees standing in the towns in which they nest in this country. They are, therefore, amply provided for, although during the non-breeding season the boys or other people may kill a few when away from the towns without wounding their elders' susceptibilities or feelings. These storks also are protected during the breeding season, or rather during the rains (these two periods with this bird not being really synchronous), by the Preservation Ordinance, and the same applies to egrets and crowned cranes. Vultures are protected (except in Bathurst) throughout the year. Hundreds, or rather thousands, of the small ornamental finches, waxbills, weavers, &c., are caught during the dry season by a few native catchers from Senegal, but, though they take cages-full away, their attempts have not made an atom of difference to the numbers of these little birds. A few bird-skinners, too, collect the commoner bright-coloured birds, like glossy starlings, rollers, and bee-eaters, but the numbers they account for are insignificant compared to the numbers left, though I must own that one bird, much sought after and always fetching as a skin a good price, is extremely rare here this is the golden cuckoo of Fogni and other more wooded countries. It's decrease in civilised Africa is said to be due to these skin- hunters, but I expect it has always been a rare bird, though, no doubt, its attractions have helped to make it so.
Whatever may be the case with the game animals and birds, many of those outside this category, ie., beasts of prey and other destructive creatures, are, I believe, actually on the increase, certainly not decreasing, especially during the last few years since the introduction of the preservation regulations, and more so within the last two or three, since the purchase of powder has become more difficult. How- ever these two factors may have affected the real game animals, there is no doubt that these others have benefited by them. Baboons are much too numerous everywhere, and wart-hogs also in many places. Both do an enormous amount of harm to the crops, the former to all, the latter specialising chiefly on the rice. There are always a few leopard about, but they are rarely killed, and hyænas, in certain districts, get every day bolder and more troublesome, frequently killing cattle nowadays quite close to a town. That these beasts are much bolder than they used to be, I can per- sonally vouch for, as one evening when coming home on a bicycle in Niamina I was followed by two of these brutes, which at times came unpleasantly close, and on another occasion this year one of my messengers travelling about 10 p.m. along the main road in Central Jarra had to take to a tree and spend the night there on account
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of them, as he had no gun, the only thing they seem to be now afraid of. A few lions come in every year about May, attracted, no doubt, by the water and the animals which must, at that season, be more plentiful near it than elsewhere. One hears of about the same number now every year as one used to, I think. Hippopotami in the South Bank Province have increased so much, and been so destructive to the rice and other crops in Jarra and Niamina, that I had to ask for the suspension of their protection.
All these destructive animals (and crocodiles also) I should like to see killed off in this country, if that were possible. They, and the maximum number of people, and the maximum number of cattle this country can carry are quite incompatible, and I consider, too, that if it comes to a choice between the people and the game, the latter, too, must go, if they cannot adapt themselves, without the help of coddling protection, to the changing circumstances, as bush-fowl and some of the smaller buck appear to be doing or have done. From this point of view I must confess to wishing that the natives, at any rate in places where the heasts are obviously too numerous, could be allowed to possess (under proper supervision and licence, of course) some more efficient weapons than the ordinary trade flint-gun, the only fire-arm now permitted. This gun, or at any rate the stamp obtainable now, when loaded with the particularly feeble kind of powder now purchasable, is a most futile weapon, and no use against a tough-skinned animal at anything over five yards. It seems only fair that the people ought to be allowed the best means they themselves can pro- vide for the guarding of their possessions. Everyone realises that our protectorate and our civilisation has done everything for the country, but this protection and this civilisation helps at the moment, but little, any individual cow against a hyæna or leopard, or any individual's farm against the onslaught of an army of baboons. As we cannot civilise the beasts, we ought to aid the people against them, until there are no more left.
Another argument which has been advanced against game protection, and which is attracting special attention just now, is the fact that the larger game animals provide blood for the tsetse flies, and act as hosts for the trypanosomes these flies carry, some of them as the only known extra-human hosts of the trypanosome of sleeping sickness. In the Gambia tsetses abound nearly everywhere-palpalis along the waterways, morsitans in the drier parts; and common and troublesoine as they are anywhere in their haunts, one finds them tenfold more so when one comes across a troop of baboons or herd of wart-hog.
At present, however, this argument does not appeal personally to me, for I feel we do not quite know enough about the matter to be sure of the results. I should think that if all the buck were destroyed there might still be enough smaller animals left (bats, monkeys, squirrels, &c.) to provide food for the flies, and that it is quite possible that the trypanosome might evolve other hosts under stress and pressure of circumstances, although at present they may only use certain species. Anyhow, the cattle surely would provide the flies with food.
In most places, therefore, I should be much against the killing off of the wild animals, harmful and harmless, together, until we know more about the matter and can feel sure that their slaughter would bring about the desired result and no other. Then, of course, they must go.
As this is so important an aspect of the case, and so much to the fore just now in reference to East Africa and the neighbourhood, it would almost seem that now, and in the Gambia, we have the opportunity of making a crucial experiment before trying it elsewhere. We have here tsetses and both human and horse trypano- somiasis, we know. As regards the former, the experiment would have but little value, as, for some reason or other, though Glossina palpalis is numerous, cases of sleeping sickness are comparatively rare; and also palpalis, at any rate, theoretically, should not be much affected by the disappearance of the larger animals other than crocodiles and other water-side beasts. With regard to G. morsitans and horse trypanosomiasis the case is quite different. In places where morsitans is most common, horses, will not live any time, owing to trypanosomiasis, and it is in such places that there are more wild animals than in less fly-infested spots. If then, when all the wild animals were killed off, this fly disappeared with them and equine trypanosomiasis became a thing of the past, so that horses thrived where now they die, we should have conclusive proof of the value of such action, at least against one