CO885-(25-26) — Page 45

65178

69

43

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

885/25

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

1915-16

1916-17

1917-18

1918-19

1,152 389

214

378

The

These figures, of course, refer only to game killed by European sportsmen. How far the War, or the reduction in the numbers of the game in one locality, are contributory reasons for this continued decrease, it is hard to estimate. real reason is to be found in the following facts: (1) The professional elephant hunters who were responsible for most of the killing in the first year of the experiment soon found that the job was no longer profitable and decamped; (2) the European sportsmen who visited the area had been in the habit of confining their attentions to one particular part of it, and have now found that the game have become very much wilder and also possibly scarcer in that immediate neighbourhood. Large As to the final result of the experiment, I cannot find in what has been achieved so far anything that would warrant the respect of any hope of success. tracts of the free area are natural game reserves, stretches of wooded country with plenty of cover, ample water (for the needs of game) in small dambos and water- holes, except for a few months in the height of the dry season, and quite devoid, at present, of human inhabitants. Any sportsman wishing to follow the game into these deserted places would be forced to take with him all water and food required by himself and his men, at least from July to December, and the type of sportsmen who are prepared to do this have not as yet visited the area, nor is it within the bounds of probability that they will do so in sufficient numbers to effect extermina- tion or serious reduction of the game. The professional elephant hunters may be put out of the reckoning at once, and the casual visitor from British South Africa territory has neither the time nor the desire to go beyond the well-known haunts in the vicinity of villages and the bigger streams.

The desirability or the practical utility of the continuance of the free-shooting experiment, or the still vexed question of the connexion between big game and tsetse fly are not within the province of this report, but I think enough has been said to force one to the conclusion that the proofs of the present achievements of this experiment are scarcely more convincing than the prospects of its ultimate

success.

54632

No. 45. NYASALAND.

COLONIAL OFFICE to TROPICAL DISEASES BUREAU AND IMPERIAL BUREAU OF ENTOMOLOGY.

[Answered by Nos. 46 and 47.]

Downing Street, 3rd November, 1919. SIB,

WITH reference to the letter from this Department, of the 11th of October, 1915, I am directed by Viscount Milner to transmit to you the accompanying copy of a despatch,† with enclosure, from the Governor of Nyasaland, reporting on the result of the experimental removal of restrictions on the shooting of game in a specified area in Nyasaland. It will be recollected that this experiment was made after consideration of the recommendations of the Inter-Departmental Com- mittee on Sleeping Sickness.‡

2. Lord Milner will be glad to be furnished with your observations on the despatch, and to be informed whether you would recommend that the experiment should be stopped or continued.

3. If you consider that the experiment should continue, His Lordship will be obliged for any specific recommendations which you may wish to make as to the area in which it should be carried out, conditions to be laid down, etc.

4. A similar letter has been sent to the Director of the [Imperial Bureau of Entomology] [Tropical Diseases Bureau].

I am, &c.,

H. J. READ.

*L.F. transmitting copy of Nos. 17 and 19 in Miscellaneous No. 815. No. 44. [Cd. 7849.]

SIR,

No. 46.

NYASALAND.

IMPERIAL BUREAU OF ENTOMOLOGY to COLONIAL OFFICE. (Received 14th November, 1919.)

British Museum (Natural History),

Cromwell Road, London, S.W., 13th November, 1919. I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of 3rd instant,* transmitting a copy of a despatch from the Governor of Nyasaland with reference to a game destruction experiment carried out in that Protectorate.

2. I have always considered that an experiment of this kind would be of little value unless it was conducted within a fenced area under the supervision of skilled observers, and I am of opinion that it would be useless to continue the experimental removal of shooting restrictions in the district selected in Nyasaland.

3. In the comparatively limited fly-belts of Southern Rhodesia a policy of this description may, no doubt, lead to practical results, but I do not consider that the experiment is worth trying in the country to the north of the Zambesi, where the fly-belts cover such very wide areas. As the British South Africa. Company appear to contemplate a carefully controlled experiment of this nature in the Sebungwe district it seems all the more unnecessary that useless destruction of game should be permitted in Nyasaland.

I have, &c.,

GUY A. K. MARSHALL,

65444

SIR,

No. 47. NYASALAND.

TROPICAL DISEASES BUREAU to COLONIAL OFFICE. (Received 15th November, 1919.)

Director.

Imperial Institute, London, S.W., 14th November, 1919. I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of 3rd November,* together with copy of a despatch from the Governor of Nyasaland reporting on the result of the experimental removal of restrictions on the shooting of game in a specified area in Nyasaland.

2. The proclamation of this free-shooting area took place in May, 1915, as a consequence, the Governor writes, of the recommendations contained in the Report Reference to the of the Interdepartmental Committee on Sleeping Sickness. Committee's Report shows that there were two separate recommendations :

(1) The suggested experiment of game destruction in a limited area.— The Committee laid down that if the area comprised the whole of an isolated fly-belt it should not be so large that there would be great difficulty in driving out and keeping out the game, and if it were a portion only of a fly-belt a boundary fence was an essential part of such an experiment. (Report of the Interdepart- mental Committee on Sleeping Sickness [Cd. 7349], 1914. London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, paragraph 92.)

(2) "Until direct means of checking the fly have been discovered, the food supply of the fly and the chances of infection should be lessened in the vicinity of centres of population and trade routes by the removal of wild animals, and that for this purpose freedom be granted both to settlers and natives to hunt and destroy the animals within prescribed areas and subject to prescribed conditions (paragraph 124).”

3. I imagine that it was the second recommendation on which this experiment in Nyasaland was based, but the conditions are not those laid down by the Committee. Rather they seem to combine some of the features of each. The proclaimed area comprises 2,516 square miles, that is to say, it is larger than the county of Norfolk and only very little smaller than Devonshire. Large tracts of it are described as natural game reserves and as quite devoid of human inhabitants. Moreover, instead

F 2.

* No. 45.