[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.This problem was first posed by a stu-dent who told me he was a hunter and was interested in going to southernAfrica to kill big game.In hunter culture, southern Africa is one of the mostattractive destinations because of the availability of large animals such as lions,elephants, and Cape buffalo.This student I ll call him Richard had dreams129 0813343860-Keim 5/27/08 11:23 AM Page 130130 Chapter 9: Safariof hunting Cape buffalo somewhere in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana,or Namibia.I was interested in knowing how Richard would describe what hunting inAfrica meant to him.His major point was that facing down a Cape buffalowould be the most real experience he could ever have.This animal, particu-larly known for its vengeful ferocity, will literally stomp you to a pulp if youdon t succeed in killing it.Richard shared the thoughts of hunter guru JeffCooper, who argues that, for humans, danger not variety is the spice oflife.Only when one has glimpsed the imminence of death can one fully appre-ciate the joy of living. 2 Richard also directed me to Meditations on Hunting bySpanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset, which, in brief, asserts that hunt-ing is the only real way by which humans can become their natural selves. Modern humans are condemned to live in society, says Ortega y Gasset, but byhunting, they become animals again and thus momentarily rejoin nature.3Richard added that hunting has nothing whatever to do with the more pop-ular photographic safaris or, for that matter, with American zoos, nature TV,or The Lion King.Hunters criticize those who view nature in cages or througha camera s eye as mere observers rather than actual participants in nature.FromRichard s perspective, hunting is a unique experience that focuses only on thehunter s union with nature.Richard opened the American hunter s world to me, and I began to readfurther.My response to him then and now, however, is that whatever uniquely real experience hunting might provide, how we hunt and what it means aredeeply cultural.The African hunters I have hunted with or read about seem toapproach nature differently from Westerners.No doubt, both have to knownature well to succeed, but the Africans motivations, means, and results arenot the same as those of American hunters.The African safari is a Western in-vention undertaken by Westerners with Western motivations and Westernmeans.It is therefore bound to be different from an African hunt undertakenby Africans.Moreover, a common Western theme links the hunting safari withthe photographic safari, natural history museums, nature TV, zoos, and TheLion King.Where the Wild Things Aren tOur quick association of Africa with wild animals is not an invention; Africadoes indeed harbor the greatest number and variety of large, wild mammals 0813343860-Keim 5/27/08 11:23 AM Page 131The Good Old Days 131on Earth.Vast savannas teem with elephants, zebras, wildebeests, rhinocer-oses, antelope, lions, cheetahs, and a variety of other animals.Likewise, riversand lakes harbor crocodiles and hippos, and in rain forests, leopards stalk.Bycontrast, the Americas and Australia are poor in large mammal species becauseof large-scale extinction during the late Pleistocene era (about 11,000 yearsago).Perhaps 80 percent of the big animal species in the Americas died out, forreasons that are unclear but that may be related to human activity.In the past5,000 years, populations of megafauna in Europe and Asia have mostly disap-peared as a result of human agency.We should, however, dispose of the stereotype that animals are plentiful allover Africa.This myth was brought home to me when I helped lead a studentgroup to West Africa.The student tourists felt it imperative to see animals sothey could match their experiences to their myths.As it turned out, we lead-ers had neglected to warn students that West Africa is full of people, but notwild animals.4 The pressure for a safari was strong enough that we added abrief side trip to the tiny Abuko Nature Reserve in the Gambia, where we sawcrocodiles, lions, and a few other animals that had once been plentiful in theregion; we did not see them in their natural habitat, but in cages and pens.Abuko s meager offering comprised more animals than most West Africans eversee, but far fewer than we could view in any moderate-sized American zoo.The animals of Africa live either at the margins of human habitation orwhere they have been protected from humans by modern wildlife managementtechniques.This means that most African animals are found in Central Africaor in the north-south corridor along the east coast from Kenya south andacross to Namibia.Even in these regions the natural habitat is shrinking rap-idly.Environments especially fragile, such as those of the mountain gorilla orthose adjacent to dense human populations, are under extreme threat.The Good Old DaysAs mentioned above, the African hunting safari is a thoroughly Western expe-rience.A good example of this comes from the life of Theodore Roosevelt, ourtwenty-sixth president.Roosevelt was both hunter and conservationistavocations not as antithetical to each other as they might at first seem.Roo-sevelt s intense interest in nature showed itself early.As a boy he created hisown natural history museum, which eventually included over 2,000 specimens.The adult Roosevelt undertook trips to the American West, where he killed 0813343860-Keim 5/27/08 11:23 AM Page 132132 Chapter 9: Safarilarge mammals such as bison; there he came to understand the importance ofpreserving our lands for future generations.Roosevelt became our first con-servation president, adding five national parks, sixteen national monuments,and fifty-one wildlife refuges to federal management.When he left the presidency at the age of fifty, Roosevelt turned first toAfrica.He decided to organize and lead an enormous hunting safari to EastAfrica so he could visit these greatest of the world s great hunting-grounds. 5He also wanted to introduce African wildlife to the American people throughthe preservation of specimens for the Smithsonian Institution.Thus, for a fullyear, from 1909 to 1910, he shot and collected wild animals in East and north-eastern Africa.Up to this point in the description, Roosevelt s safari seems almost heroic:the exploit of an ex-president who could do anything he wanted, but whononetheless desired to do good for humanity and so provisioned a nationalmuseum with scientific data.There are, however, deep contradictions in Roo-sevelt s story.His colorful dispatches from Africa, sent regularly to Americannewspapers to help pay for the expedition, give the impression that the safariwas about more than a love of nature and hunting.Roosevelt was certainly in-terested in science and conservation, but he was also interested in exploitationand conquest.Moreover, by broadcasting his experience of Africa to America,Roosevelt reinforced Americans image of Africa as inferior.Roosevelt s account of his African safari begins with a commentary based onnineteenth-century Dark Continent myths.Like his early-twentieth-centurycontemporaries, he views Africa as an unevolved world where one may expe-rience a pristine environment and where the backward inhabitants benefit fromcolonization by superior whites.He then describes his safari, one of the largestever undertaken, which comprised nine white men, including Roosevelt s sonand one of the most famous professional hunters of all time, Frederick Selous
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Tematy
IndexJoel Fleishman The Foundation, A Great American Secret; How Private Wealth is Changing the World (2009)
Mark A. Noll, Luke E. Harlow Religion and American Politics, From the Colonial Period to the Present (2007)
Jesse Fox Mayshark Post pop cinema; The search for meaning in new America (2007)(1)
R. Murray Thomas Manitou and God, North American Indian Religions and Christian Culture (2007
Philip Gordon, Jeremy Shapiro Allies At War, America, Europe and the Crisis Over Iraq (2004)
Cathy J. Cohen Democracy Remixed, Black Youth and the Future of American Politics (2010)
Heather Cox Richardson West from Appomattox, The Reconstruction of America after the Civil War (2007)
Patricia Allen Together At The Table, Sustainability And Sustenance In The American Agrifood System (2004)
John W. Campbell The Moon is Hell
Michel Foucault Archaeology Of Knowledge