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‘The Fertile Brain and Inventive Power of Man’: Anthropogenic Factors in the Cessation of Springbok Treks and the Disruption of the Karoo Ecosystem, 1865–1908

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2011

Chris Roche
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Abstract

The demise of springbok treks, the irruptive migration patterns of the species in South Africa's Karoo region, has long been attributed to the rinderpest epizootic understood to have coincided in both time and space with the last of the great springbok treks. This is incorrect. Instead the cessation of springbok treks can be attributed to a variety of anthropogenic factors. This article first examines and then rejects the case for rinderpest, before introducing alternative causal factors such as the increase in livestock and human populations, the effects of fencing and the double impact of hunting and concomitant drought. These factors, it is argued, acted in concert to effectively remove the conditions necessary for springbok treks and thereby end the phenomenon. It is suggested that the local extinction of this phenomenon – a keystone species and process – is an important and heretofore unconsidered element in the decline of the Karoo ecosystem.

On attribue depuis longtemps la disparition de la migration irruptive du springbok dans la région sud-africaine du Karoo à l'épizootie de peste bovine qui semble avoir coïncidé, temporellement et géographiquement, avec les dernières grandes migrations du springbok. C'est faux. En effet, on peut attribuer la fin de la migration du springbok à divers facteurs anthropogéniques. Cet article commence par examiner puis par rejeter l'argument de la peste bovine, avant de s'intéresser à d'autres facteurs causaux comme l'accroissement de la population humaine et du bétail, les conséquences des clôtures et le double impact de la chasse et de la sécheresse concomitante. Il soutient que ces facteurs ont agi de concert pour supprimer efficacement les conditions nécessaires à la migration du springbok et donc mettre fin à ce phénomène. L'article suggère que la disparition locale de ce phénomène (une espèce et un processus clés) est un élément important et jusqu'à présent négligé du déclin de l'écosystème du Karoo.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 78 , Issue 2 , May 2008 , pp. 157 - 188
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2008

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