The author spent two years, 1963–65, as schoolmaster on Tristan da Cunha, during which he spent four weeks on Nightingale Island. On the main island he found that bird stocks were being depleted and the islanders taking too many eggs and young; on Nightingale, however, where there are over two million pairs of great shearwaters, the harvest of these birds could be greater. Inaccessible Island, which like Nightingale, is without cats, dogs or rats, should be declared a wildlife sanctuary.

“Gorongoza is, without any doubt, one of the most marvellous wild life sanctuaries in the world. The variety and abundance of animals is wonderful. Nobody should let slip an opportunity of seeing this place where old Africa has been safely preserved.”

These were the words of admiration which Mr. Victor Cahalane, chief biologist of the United States National Parks Department, entered in the visitors' book after his visit to the Gorongoza Park.

Large body size is dangerous. The Pleistocene megafauna disappeared, it is now believed, at the hands of man. Large body size may help elephants and giant tortoises to avoid predators and to cover large areas in search of food. But this size also means that, because they must feed continuously, they need a large area of land to sustain them, and that the long gestation time and dependence of the young on their parents reduce population turnover. Only a very low harvest can be taken of such animals. The African elephant, if it is left to the mercies of poachers with automatic weapons, must become extinct.

For very many years the areas west of the railway line comprising Kibwezi, Makindu, Kiboko and Simba have been the mecca for numbers of the native poaching fraternity. A change exists. Now that game preservation has been strictly enforced, these skilled Wakamba hunters and experts in the use of bow and poisoned arrow have taken badly to existing conditions. Game animals ranging from elephant to dikdik in the past went through bad times in a grim endeavour to survive. Their drinking places during periods of excessive drought had their quota of poachers' hides, either hollowed out in mother earth or built on adjacent trees. Twang of bowstring had brought about in the minds of wild creatures a note inherited, conveying fear and alarm. Nothing on four legs was spared—females and young—easy food.

The many people who left India at the advent of Independence, especially those who knew her rivers and forests, must surely ponder over what “things” are like now. They may have read of the deforestation, the effects of the jeep and the shot-gun (although neither of these are really new), or they may just have heard, vaguely, that “things are not what they were”.

The following note on the Great Indian rhinoceros appeared in The United Services Journal, November, 1849. Though it bears out Mr. Shebbeare's opinion, given in the last Oryx, that in general this rhinoceros uses his “tushes” not his horn in attack, it does also suggest that the horn may sometimes be of use as a secondary weapon.

Until 1952 there was no agency in India directly concerned with the preservation of the country's wild life, and the Forest Departments of the various States were only able to extend a limited measure of protection within certain of the reserved forests under their jurisdiction.

At the end of 1952 the constitution of the Indian Board for Wild Life, consisting of non-officials as well as of officials, to advise the Central Government in New Delhi, was an important step forward in nature conservation in India. It was followed within a very short time by the constitution of State Wild Life Boards in nearly all the States of the Indian Union. By now several States also possess separate Wild Life Departments, within the Forest Department, concerned solely with the preservation of wild life.

In the last thirty years at least three million crocodiles have been killed in Africa for their skins – and the figure may be much higher. As a result the Nile crocodile has declined seriously almost everywhere, and hunters are now turning to other species, none of which are anywhere abundant, to supply the trade. Only Zimbabwe has established viable crocodile farms, but even these were able to cull only 2253 animals for hides in the three years 1978–80.