The Cederberg

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  21st January by bilbo_baggins

  Ah, just noticed that there is a tool bar in the comments area now, maybe the 100 char is an error

  
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  23rd January by ttbko

  Notwithstanding the sun, you look frozen!!!  However, its gorgeous! P

  
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  9th March by Velo Yellow

  Hi, Dr. G. Many thanks for your kind remarks on my Yala photos, much appreciated. Yellow wattled lapwing are resident in Sri Lanka, but I don't know if they breed at Yala or not. The red wattled were far more common, but again, I don't know the status. Our guide didn't know a swallow from a shrike, so didn't help much!
  
  I've some photos of bee eaters, taken at Yala. Our guide insisted that they were all the same species, but even I could tell that they are not. I've made a guess at what they are, but would be much obliged if you could apply your expertise!  Thanks in advance. George.

  
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  17th March by Angela R

  Hi
  
  
  
  Just found your message, only taken a month!  Case for the old alerts???
  
  
  
  I have been looking at the site but have to admit am losing a little of the old enthusiasm.  It doesn't seem quite the same somehow. 
  
  
  
  Haven't had a trip since going to the Cotswolds last September and nothing until Yellowstone end of June.
  
  
  
  Trading in my camera plus a load of the old lens etc for a Lumix G10 on Saturday plus a zoom lens, Graham will decide which (!).  Hopefully may get some inspiration to go out and snap once again.
  
  
  
  Didn't come to Destinations, didn't seem much point as with retirement looming at the end of the year I am not sure we will be able to do the trips we have in the past.  However will be making the most of Yellowstone and Christmas in my beloved Luxor.
  
  
  
  Thanks for the message, nice to know that I have been missed.

  
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  23rd March by LizP

  Hi DrG
  
  Thanks for looking through my photos.
  
  In response to your question. I visited Zambia in 2005 and unfortunately only had a few days in Livingstone. It was a trip that combined Cape Town, Livingstone and then a reserve in Limpopo. In Zambia we stayed at a place on a hill over looking the bush with the spray of the falls in the distance. Some of the rooms are open sided and that was definately an experience. Sharing my bed with lots of beetles as my mossie net had trailed on the floor!!
  
  The accomodation arranged all our trips and so did the normal touristy things like the falls, sunset boat trip and a visit to the local village. Sorry couldn't be of any more help for your up coming trip. Hope you enjoy it. Very jealous as I want to return and check out the view from the Zimbabwe side.
  
  Love your panoramic pictures.

  
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  2nd April by Fintown Trekker

  Yes Jon....long time no captions from me.... Tks for the compliment but you don't seem to have lost it either! Moreover, you seem to have at least got over the weariness of frustrations with the new site. I like that zoom thingy they now have on photos but it still ain't the quality of goW. And as for the captions how much patience do you need to edit 300 (measly!) characters in a straight line continuing text field? Seems to be a lot of design flaws still but at least with the old timers (ha!) there is still the spirit of comraderie - cheers fella back in the old colours! Yeah who could forget the FITBYC!

  
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  9th May by Angela R

  Hi Jon, hope you had a great trip.  Missed you and as I said I wondered where you were.  Looking forward to the pictures. 
  
  
  
  Am starting to wind up to our Yellowstone trip next month, new Lumix G2 camera is a great success and am hopeful of getting some good pictures.  At the moment Yellowstone is still under 5 ft of snow they have had such a bad winter but the chaps on their facebook page assure me that it will have greened up by the time we get there and that the snow will have retreated to the upper levels.  That should make for good photography as the waterfalls will be in full snow melt flood and the baby animals will be around.  Can't wait!

  
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  12th May by Sergeant_Pluck

  Hey G-man,
  
  
  
  Yeah, I hear you - I grew up on a farm too, shooting and fishing, stalking, wildfowling etc. I understand the concept of the relationship between hunting and conservation, although the older I get the less water the argument holds. Understanding animal behaviour is one thing, but (contributing to) creating exactly the conditions by which a protected reserve is neccesary is another.
  
  
  
  Let's face it, when Selous was out there in the early 20th Century with his .450, knocking over Jumbos, say, like skittles, he wasn't labouring under the illusion that he was actually protecting the species. Even when these hunters realised that elephants were running out, the only reason they started to maintain protected areas was to set them aside for hunting anyway!
  
  
  
  You are right that without such protection now, many more animal species would be extinct, but protection would have come about without hunting. If nobody ever hunted elephant, the encroachment of humanity over the 20th Century would have neccesitated protected reserves anyway. No, it's still with a wry smile that I note Selous's name on a conservation reserve.

  
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  20th May by DrG

  Hi Sarge…. I take on board your views here, but aren’t we lucky to have the benefit of hindsight? I would argue it was more insightful to appreciate the ‘need’ to conserve game in those times, for whatever reason, without the much broader picture of game numbers (at the continental scale), the benefits of modern communication, and the 100 odd years of scientific endeavour. 
  
  
  
  OK, so they wanted to carry on hunting… but hunters require game to hunt, so for a different reason, species are still conserved. No true hunter hunts to extinction. There is evidence that such hunters were well aware that they were grossly exacerbating the reduction in game, ie adding to albeit much more efficiently the reduction in game as compared to the indigenous hunters, but that with the introduction of modern weaponry and a burgeoning human population, indigenous hunting efficiency was only going to increase. Hence, many turned to the conservation angle. Plus Selous may have been a prodigious hunter, but he was not a bag hunter like Roosevelt for example! The contributions Selous made to science were remarkable… although that sort of ‘collecting’ is now frowned upon (again a change in view with the benefit of hindsight), it is how much of our ecological science began.
  
  
  
  You say protection would have come about without hunting. Maybe so….I have grave reservations. I doubt there would have been adequate interest in game numbers without hunters for there to be a perceived decline perhaps until it was too late, or a strong enough lobby for the set aside of areas without hunters. The problem is exactly that you have highlighted. Encroachment would mean that it would be impossible now (and probably true for 50 years ago) to set aside the sort of area of land that is required to maintain adequate ‘natural’ populations and allow for processes such as migration… we are struggling to maintain a migratory pattern ‘as was’ in the Mara-Serengeti system today; a considerable area. And game numbers today are dismal compared to say 30 years ago, yet hunting (ignoring poaching) has nothing to do with that. Much smaller areas, the game parks and reserves have to be strictly managed, animals moved from one to another (leading to genetic pollution) or culled on a regular basis to prevent damage to the ecosystem.
  
  
  
  No, without people like Selous, I doubt we would have the chance to see relatively natural systems like the Mara-Serengeti, or the old hunting concessions around the Okavango delta… we’d be stuck viewing tightly managed, mini-populations in game reserves such as those that pepper South Africa. Each to their own though.
  
  
  
  Cheers, DrG

  
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  25th May by Sergeant_Pluck

  I remain unconvinced, to be honest. While I understand how (people like) Selous could be considered conservationists, I think the logic of how they attain such status is a little foggy. Selous not a bag hunter? Hmm – well, he certainly made a fine living as Africa’s premier guide for bag-hunters! (Including, I believe, Roosevelt, for at least part of his epic 1917 safari)

  
  

  True hunters may not hunt to extinction, but this is hardly out of any conservational motivation; at least conservation in the way I understand it. Conservation solely in order to maintain a species so one can continue hunting it doesn’t qualify in my view. On the other hand, look at what happened to the North American bison population. Leave an encroaching human population around animals and look what happens! The bison  were virtually wiped out in what, 50 years? Look at things like that and you think that without the Selouses of the world, there’d be no animals left full stop.

  
  

  Having said that, I think you’re quite correct in what you’re saying about the current state of reservations around Africa.However, I think these (like the British hedgerow) are more an accidental by-product of 19^th and early 20^th Century hunting than any considered strategy for conservation. All Selous wanted was a natural space to keep taking his (bag-hunting) clients in – the fact that this has actually led to easier conservation in the present day does not him a conservationist make.

  
  

  Contribution to science? Yeah, maybe. Towards the end of his life, he was certainly concerned more with scientific study than with hunting trophy bulls. Although, that type of collecting, while invaluable for scientific knowledge, goes a certain way to creating conditions where a conservation strategy is necessary anyway. Strikes me as being rather a chicken and egg situation – you can protect such species when you study them and learn about them, but if you’d’ve left them alone in the first place, you maybe wouldn’t need to protect them as much now anyway. Then again, we’re back to the bison example!

  
  

   The book I got was this one.
  
  
  
  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Frederick-Courtenay-Fusiliers-Classic-Reprint/dp/1440061807/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid
  
  
  

  
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  10th June by DrG

  Ah conflicted SP.... don't let logic or definition of conservation get in the way. Far rather a Selous than a tree-hugger in my book! Still, every little helps. Cheers for the book link, J

  
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