MOB 743 Game ranching in South Africa Prof. G.N. Smit Dept. of Animal, Wildlife and Grassland Sciences Copyright: Prof. G.N. Smit The contents of this

MOB 743

Game ranching in South Africa

Prof. G.N. SmitDept. of Animal, Wildlife and Grassland Sciences

Copyright: Prof. G.N. Smit

The contents of this presentations is for use by MOB743 students only. It may not be distributed or altered without the permission of the copyright holder.

INTRODUCTION

- Game ranching in South Africa is the commercialization of wildlife by private landowners.

- The establishment of game ranchers’ organizations on provincial level in the seventies and a national organization in 1982 resulted in game ranching being acknowledged as part of the agricultural industry in 1986.

- The enforcement of the Game Theft Act in 1991 vested the ownership of game, which was under the control of ranchers on their farms, in the game rancher.

-The rich wildlife resource of southern Africa is unique and the South African game product in relation to a specific natural environment is without competition in the world.

SOME STATISTICS ON GAME RANCHING

- Currently about 5 000 game ranches and more than 4 000 mixed game and livestock ranches in South Africa. These cover 16.8 % of the country’s total land area, compared with 5.8 % for all officially declared conservation areas.

- Index of the growth of the game ranching industry:

- During 1991 the sale of wildlife amounted to R 9 million, of which 68.0 % were sold by conservation authorities.

-These live sales contributed only 2 % of a total estimated value of R 4.7 bil. of the game ranching industry of SA in 2008.

- During 2000, the income from live animal sales was R 180 million, with most of the animals sold by private owners.

- During 2008, the income from live animal sales was R 94 million, with an average price increase of 4% per year.

SOME STATISTICS ON GAME RANCHING

- The other sources of income were:

Recreational hunting - R 3.1 billion (66 %)

Trophy hunting - R 510 million (11 %)

Translocation of game - R 750 million (16 %)

Taxidermy - R 200 million (4 %)

Meat production - R 42 million (1 %)

-The region in South Africa with the most wildlife ranches is the Limpopo Province, with almost half (49.0 %) of all South Africa’s exempted wildlife ranches. It is is followed by the Northern Cape (19.5 %) and the Eastern Cape Province (12.3 %).

GAME RANCHING AND CONSERVATION

- Formal conservation areas comprise a very small percentage of South Africa (< 6%), with more than 80 % of South Africa (105 million hectare) available for agriculture and forestry.

- Land under private ownership potentially very important in conserving specific plant and animal species, unique ecosystems.

- Conversion of cattle/sheep to game NOT synonymous with conservation.

- With the correct scientific approach and sound management, game ranching can be highly economical and contribute to the conservation of our valuable natural resources.

- Game ranching is often perceived as “an easy farming system”. There are no camps and thus no grazing system to be applied. The truth, however, is that game ranching is far more complex than generally anticipated.


- With a multi-species system the number of variables is much higher and thus require a broad knowledge base and an active rather than a passive approach to management.

- There is growing concern among some conservationists about the over commercialisation of wildlife and the impact that this may have on conservation of species and ecosystems.

- Some concerns are:

- Cross breeding of closely related species and sub-species,





- Deliberate breeding of colour mutations,





- Breeding of scarce and endangered species for trophy purposes by people without the necessary knowledge, and





- Introduction of game into areas and habitats where they did not naturally occur before.

Non-ecological reasons

- Cessation of control boards and protection of the red meat industry (importing of cheap red meat and suspension of subsidies to cattle farmers).

REASONS FOR THE SWING TO GAME RANCHING

- The increase in stock theft (small stock more susceptible than large stock and also area-bound).

- Labour legislation and labour problems.

- Greater possibility for a secondary income (non-consumptive utilisation) from game ranching, which is independent from animal production (eco-tourism and accommodation fees).

- The possible income of foreign exchange by foreign hunters and tourists (especially important due to a decrease in the Rand exchange rate and our unique game product).

Ecological reasons

- Decreased production of stock due to the gradual deterioration of the natural veld subject to continuous over utilisation of veld and climatological droughts.

- The whole plant spectrum can be utilised with a larger variety of game species, often without direct competition to each other.

- Game is more disease- and parasite resistant.

- Game is also less susceptible to the effect of droughts than stock.

- Game can cover longer distances with less energy loss to look for food.

WARNING LIGHTS IN THE GAME INDUSTRY

- Slow down in the establishment of new game ranches that decrease the demand for live game / more animals on offer .

- Rumours of limiting the establishment of new game ranches through legislation.

- Political instability of the region that influence foreign visitors (hunters).

- Too many small "game ranches" and the perception that game ranching is easy - not ecological sustainable.

- Children, especially those in cities, grow up without the traditional rifle and hunting culture (hug them don't kill them).

- New legislation on gun ownership - negative influence on local hunters and hunting industry.

- Biodiversity legislation and TOPS (Threatened or Protected Species) regulations.

Two important questions

- With what type of game species can I stock my ranch with its unique opportunities and limitations, and

ECOLOGICALLY SUSTAINABLE, SCIENTIFICALLY BASED GAME RANCHING

- How many of every game species can I keep?

Factors determining which species can be kept

- Habitat suitability

- Buying costs

- Maintaining genetic integrity

- Purpose of the ranch

- Fencing requirements

Factors determining the number of game

- Availability of food, water and shelter

- Social behaviour of game species

HERBIVORE GAME SPECIES – HABITAT REQUIREMENTS AND DIET SELECTION

PRINCIPLES, TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

High-density and low-density game species

- Largely determined by the social structure of different species.

-Herds vs. small family groups or solitary.

Classes of consumers- Bulk feeders,

- Concentrate feeders,

- Grazers,

- Browsers,

- Mixed feeders.

Classification based on impact on vegetationType I: Species which are capable of causing an initial drastic change in the vegetation and in the physical environment.

Type II: Those sensitive species that are negatively influenced by the actions of the Type I and Type III species.

Type III: Those species that are favoured by the actions of the Type I species. They further modify the vegetation and perpetuate this new state by their selective feeding habits.

Type IV: Species that are influenced by the actions of Type I and III species, but which have little further impact on the vegetation.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BODY SIZE AND TIME SPENT ON FEEDING

- Body size often closely related to metabolic rate.

- Small species have a faster metabolic rate than larger species, subsequently also a higher food requirement.

- Smaller species may thus spend more time feeding than larger game species.

- A positive relationship exists between the size of an animal and the daily food intake in relation to body mass.

- As a rule the smaller the animal the larger the daily food intake in relation to body mass.

Daily food intake in relation to body mass

THE IMPORTANTANCE OF PLANTS AS FOOD RESOURCE

THE ECOSYSTEM

THE CONCEPT OF PLANT SUCCESSION

Infiltration of rain water

Rainfall runoff losses

Pioneer

Prisere

Sub-climax Climax



- Plant succession has been defined as a progressive development of vegetation in an area through a series of different plant communities, finally terminating in a climax community:

PRINCIPLE OF STABILITY, RESILIENCE AND DOMAIN OF ATTRACTION

Stable

Unstable

TECHNIQUES TO DETERMINE THE PRODUCTION OF THE GRASS LAYER

INTRODUCTION

- Estimates or actual measurements of the production of the grass layer are often required for:

- Evaluating the productivity of the grass layer,

- Calculation of the grazing capacity for grazers.

- It is a quantitative measurement.

- Can be measured directly (harvest method), measured indirectly or estimated.

TECHNIQUES

HARVEST METHOD

- Harvested plant material is dried to a constant mass (usually at 70oC) and weighed.

- Sampling is done by harvesting all rooted grasses in quadrats of a known size (0.25 m2 - 1.0 m2).

- Grass dry matter (DM) per total quadrat size is then expressed as kg DM per hectare.

TECHNIQUES

HARVEST METHOD

Advantages of the harvest technique

(i) Probably the most accurate technique,

(ii) The contribution of individual species can be determined.

Disadvantages of the harvest technique

(i) Labour intensive and time consuming,

(ii) Specialized apparatus like a drying oven and an accurate scale is required,

(iii) It is a destructive technique that results in the removal of plant material.

TECHNIQUES

THE DISC PASTURE METER

TECHNIQUES

THE DISC PASTURE METER

- Based on non-destructive indirect measurements.

Advantages of the disc pasture meter

(i) Once the calibration is done it is a fast and simple method that can be done by unskilled persons,

(ii) The large area that can be covered ensures good representative sampling,

(iii) Except for the calibration procedure it is non-destructive.

Disadvantages of the disc pasture meter

(i) Yield estimates cannot be done on a species basis,

(ii) Less accurate in multi-species heterogeneous grass stands,

(iii) Difficult to use in uneven terrain,

(iv) Calibration procedure requires specialized apparatus like a drying oven, an accurate scale and some statistical knowledge.

REPRESENTATIVE SAMPLING

- A simple, yet effective method of estimating the minimum sample size is the use of successive cumulative mean values

TECHNIQUES TO DETERMINE THE PRODUCTION OF WOODY PLANTS

INTRODUCTION

- BECVOL = "Biomass Estimates form Canopy VOLume"

- Trees important for the following agro-ecological reasons:

- Competition with herbaceous vegetation for soil water and nutrients

- Food for browsers

- Creation of sub-habitats suitable for desirable grass species

BECVOL: "Biomass Estimates from Canopy VOLume"

- The calculation of the leaf dry mass is based on the relations between the spatial volume of a tree and its true leaf dry mass and leaf volume

(1) Tree height (A)

(2) Height of maxcimum canopy diameter (B)

(3) Height of first leaves or potential leaf bearing stems (C )

(4) Maximum canopy diameter (D)

(5) Base diamter of the foliage at height (C )

FIELD DATA, CALCULATION CONCEPTS ….



CALCULATION OF GRAZING CAPACITY AND BROWSE CAPACITY FOR GAME SPECIES

INTRODUCTION

- The grazing capacity can be defined as the area of land required to maintain a single animal unit (AU) over an extended number of years without deterioration of the vegetation or soil (ha/AU).

- The ability to balance the true grazing capacity of the veld with the applied stocking rate sounds simple, but due to various reasons it can be difficult to achieve.

TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

- An animal unit (AU), also commonly referred to as a large stock unit (LSU), is defined as an animal with a mass of 450 kg, which gains 0.5 kg/day on forage with a digestible energy percentage of 55%.

- A grazer unit (GU) is defined as the metabolic equivalent of a blue wildebeest (100% grazer) with a mean body mass of 180 kg.

- A browser unit (BU) is defined as the metabolic equivalent of a kudu (100% browser) with a mean body mass of 140 kg.

Game species Aver. mass

In-take

% grass

% leaf

GU BU

Mountain Reedbuck 232 3.0 100 0 0.2 0

Blesbok 612 2.8 100 0 0.4 0

Gemsbok 2102 2.7 100 0 1.3 0

Red hartebeest 1202 2.7 100 0 0.7 0

Black wildebeest 1402 2.5 100 0 0.8 0

Blue wildebeest 1801 2.5 100 0 1.0 0

Burchell’s Zebra 2162 4.1 100 0 1.9 0

Sable antelope 2152 2.8 100 0 1.3 0

Waterbuck 2282 2.8 100 0 1.3 0

Buffalo 7152 2.4 100 0 3.8 0

White rhinoceros 1 727

1.4 100 0 5.4 0

Steenbok 122 4.1 50 50 0.05 0.07

Springbok 372 3.0 70 30 0.2 0.1

Impala 522 2.7 70 30 0.2 0.1

Eland 4602 2.4 30 70 0.7 2.2

Duiker 212 4.0 0 100 0 0.2

Nyala 622 2.6 0 100 0 0.5

Kudu 1401 2.5 0 100 0 1.0

Giraffe 8282 2.2 0 100 0 5.2

Black Rhinoceros 8652 1.5 0 100 0 3.7

CALCULATION OF THE GRAZING CAPACITY

- If the amount of herbaceous dry mass per hectare is known the grazing capacity can be calculated using the formula proposed by Moore et al. (1985):

y = d / [ DM x f ] r

where y = grazing capacity (ha GU-1)

d = number of days in a year (365)

DM = total grass DM yield ha-1

f = utilization factor

r = daily grass DM required per GU (2.5 % of body mass = 4.5 kg day-1)

- The utilization factor, expressed as a decimal value, represents that part of the available grass material that can be consumed. Actual consumption is limited by grazing preferences of the animals and losses due to trampling and environmental factors.

CALCULATION OF THE GRAZING CAPACITY

- With the DM production of individual species known it is now possible to assign a different utilization factor to each species in order to compensate for differences in the palatability and grazing value of different grass species:

y = d / [ (DM1 x f1) + (DM2 x f2) + (DM3 x f3) ….. ] r

where DM1 = grass DM yield ha-1 of species 1 DM2 = grass DM yield ha-1 of species 2 DM3 = grass DM yield ha-1 of species 3 … F1 = utilization factor for species 1 F2 = utilization factor for species 2 F3 = utilization factor for species 3

CALCULATION OF THE BROWSING CAPACITY


- If the amount of leaf dry dry mass per hectare is known the browsing capacity can be calculated with a similar formula:

y = d [ DM x f x p ] r

where y = browsing capacity (ha BU-1)

d = number of days in a year (365)

DM = total leaf DM yield ha-1

f = utilization factor

P = phenology

r = daily grass DM required per BU (2.5 % of body mass = 3.5 kg day-1)

- The above formula will, at best, render an average browsing capacity value for the year.

Aug S O N D J F M A M J July

PODSPODS

FLOWERSFLOWERS

LEAVESLEAVESA. erioloba

Aug S O N D J F M A M J July

PODSPODS

FLOWERSFLOWERS

LEAVESLEAVES

A. mellifera


Month P-value(leaf phenology)

Calculated browse capacity

(ha/GU)

Adjusted browse cap.

January 1.0 8.20 8.20

February 1.0 8.20 8.20

March 1.0 8.20 8.20

April 0.9 8.20 9.11

May 0.8 8.20 10.25

June 0.7 8.20 11.71

July 0.6 8.20 13.67

August 0.3 8.20 27.33

September 0.2 8.20 41.0

October 0.6 8.20 13.67

November 0.9 8.20 9.11

December 1.0 8.20 8.20

Practical game ranch management

MANAGEMENT UNITS

Calculation of game numbers - a simplified practical example

Grass production was determined and established on 900 kg DM/ha.

Open grassland(1 050 ha)

Dense riverene bush(300 ha)

Rocky outcrops(100 ha)

Total ranch area = 1 450 ha

Total grass DM on 1 050 ha = 900 x 1 050 ha = 945 000 kg (production of season)

Only 30 % available for actual consumption = 945 000 x 0.30 = 283 500 kg

Fodder requirement per GU for the year = 4.5 x 365 = 1 642 kg

Number of grazer units that the grassland can support = 172.65 GUNumber of browser units that the grassland can support = 0 BU (no trees orother woody plants in the grassland area).

Which species should be introduced and species combinations

• Potential game species

• Designated game species

• Depending on the purpose of the ranch/reserve

• All those species adapted to the specific habitat available

• Maintenance of genetic integrity

• Fencing requirements

• Buying cost

Calculation of game numbers ….

Game species Aver. Mass (kg)

Intake% of

mass)

% grass

% leaves GU BU

Black wildebeest 1801 2.5 100 0 1.0 0

Blue wildebeest 1401 2.5 100 0 0.8 0

Plains Zebra 2161 4.1 100 0 1.9 0

White rhino 1 727

1.4 100 0 5.4 0

Kudu 1401 2.5 0 100 0 1.0

Giraffe 8 2822 2.2 0 100 0 5.2

Eland 4602 2.4 30 70 0.7 2.2

Gemsbok 2102 2.7 70 30 0.9 0.5

Springbok 372 3.0 80 20 0.2 0.05

Mountain reedbuck

231 3.0 80 20 0.12 0.03

Grazing capacity

GrazersBlesbok

Black wildebeest

Zebra

White rhino

Mixed feedersSpringbok

Impala

Lich hartebeest

Eland

BrowsersDuiker

Bushbuck

Kudu

Giraffe

Browsing capacity

Ecologic carrying capacity vs. Economic carrying capacity

VELD CONDITION ASSESSMENT

- An assessment of the condition of plant communities constitutes a convenient means of comparing them, as well as of providing a way to quantify and observe spatial and observe spatial and temporal changes within a particular plant community or vegetation type.

- Veld condition has been defined as the “state of health of the veld in terms of its ecological status, resistance to soil erosion and its long-term potential for animal production”.

- Veld condition and trend.

THE USE OF FIRE

Why use fire?

Control over animal movement

- Many herbivore game species, especially grazers, are attracted to burnt areas.

- Should area selective grazing result in some areas being heavily and continuously grazed, while other areas are not utilized, the burning of the tall, ungrazed areas may attract the animals while the heavily grazed area are allowed some time to recover.

Removal of accumulated old organic material

- In the absence of sufficient grazing, dead plant material may accumulate over time to such an extent that the grasses become moribund. A fire may then be used to remove all the dead organic material and restore the vigour of the perennial grass plants.

-The control of bush encroachment (and other undesirable plants)

WATER PROVISION AND LOCATION OF WATER POINTS

- Herbivore game species differ in their dependence on the availability of surface water. Some game species, which are not dependant on surface water, may drink if water is available, while others have to drink on a daily basis.

- Some high-density game species like elephant, zebra, buffalo and to a lesser extent blue wildebeest, which are all water dependant, can modify the vegetation surrounding water points to the detriment of game species that are not water dependant.


- Herbivore game species differ in their dependence on the availability of surface water. Some game species, which are not dependant on surface water, may drink if water is available, while others have to drink on a daily basis.

- Some high-density game species like elephant, zebra, buffalo and to a lesser extent blue wildebeest, which are all water dependant, can modify the vegetation surrounding water points to the detriment of game species that are not water dependant.

- By providing too many artificial water points the sphere of influence of the high density, water dependant species may be at the cost of the water independent species and to the detriment of fodder reserves.

- The use of water points to control the movement of game is often limited to large game ranches/game reserves.


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MOB 743 Game ranching in South Africa Prof. G.N. Smit Dept. of Animal, Wildlife and Grassland Sciences Copyright: Prof. G.N. Smit The contents of this