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Strategic Opportunism: What Works in Africa

Brian John Huntley · 2023

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Licence: CC BY 4.0 · repository export licence (OAPEN) · Huntley, Brian John (2023), Strategic Opportunism: What Works in Africa, Springer Nature Switzerland - licensed CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

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About this book

Author
Brian John Huntley
Language
English
Published
2023
Length
51,781 words · about 3 h 38 min
Sections
14 reader sections
Text
Digital text
Rights
CC BY 4.0 · repository export licence (OAPEN)

 

Contents (14)

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Front matter

SpringerBriefs in Environmental Science

Brian John Huntley

Strategic Opportunism: What Works in Africa Twelve Fundamentals

Preface

The reviews and narratives presented here were triggered by discussions during a retreat for writers, poets and artists at Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Virginia, USA, in the northern autumn of 2019. Our visit coincided with the shock report that since 1970, North America had lost 2.9 billion birds, 30% of its total population (Rosenberg et al. 2019 Science 366:120—124). During an introductory session, the focus of one presentation struck a chord — the relatively new concept of environmental melancholia. Environmental melancholia is a condition resulting from environmentally induced stress and depression. The ailment is experienced consciously or subliminally by individuals or communities as a consequence of growing exposure to the loss of a ‘sense of place’. It is associated with one’s helplessness at the seemingly irreversible degradation of landscapes, the scope and scale of species extinctions and the prospect of the negative impacts of global climate change.

The malady is all too familiar to African conservationists, faced with the collapse of elephant, rhino and abalone populations and their habitats through the industrial scale of the illegal trade in wildlife products. The loss of hope among some conservation professionals is understandable, especially for those on the frontline of anti-poaching actions, or working within weak governments which fail to recognise and address environmental crises.

So how does one respond to the seemingly endless flow of bad news? A positive and pragmatic answer is to focus on successful models that have worked in often difficult situations, which despite enormous challenges, have resulted in sustained success over long periods of time. I therefore sought lessons learned from colleagues across southern Africa, conservationists with “glass half-full’ attitudes, rather than the defeatist ‘glass half-empty’ perspective that one is often tempted to adopt. I identified projects that fitted the criteria of ambitious but realistic goals and with proven long-term sustainability, and at different spatial scales, socio-political circumstances and institutional capacities. Their work forms the substance of these case studies and provides the evidence base of the conclusion reached: conservation success is possible in Africa.

Vairao, Portugal Brian John Huntley brianjhuntley @ gmail.com

Acknowledgements

The personal experiences reflected in this book cover over five decades of working in diverse institutions and countries. At all times I have enjoyed the remarkable friendship and stimulation of inspiring people — cattle herdsmen in the hills of Zululand, game rangers in wilds of Angola, academics at prestigious universities, visiting scientists and an ever-supportive family. As must be the case for every student, the writings of the great pioneers of exploration, evolution and ecology formed the foundations of my learning and presented models of passion and dedication — opening the landscapes of the mind.

I must thank our generous hosts at Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Peter and Elinor Crane, for the opportunity to test ideas with a remarkable mix of artists, writers, poets, gardeners and researchers, in the tranquillity and beauty of rural Virginia, USA. Interdisciplinary artist Regan Rosburg introduced me to the fascinating concept of environmental melancholia — solastalgia — and how the syndrome is manifesting in urban and rural communities.

At the Research Centre for Biodiversity and Genetic Resources (Association BIOPOLIS/CIBIO), Porto University, Portugal, my colleagues and friends Nuno Ferrand, Pedro Vaz Pinto, Pedro Beja and Martim Melo have offered feedback on the developing narratives, and CIBIO has provided the ongoing institutional support for my research and writing activities.

Fieldwork in Angola was stimulated by the enthusiasm and good humour of Fernando Costa, Vladimir Russo, João Traguedo and Joao Serôdio D’ Almeida. Marc Stalmans, Ken Tinley, Paul Dutton and Vasco Galante kept me abreast of the Gorongosa Project; Domitilla Raimondo, James Harrison and Alan Lee provided updates on the citizen science projects; Christopher Willis, Gideon Smith, Eimear Nic Lughadha and David Cantrill added details on SABONET, the African Plants Initiative and the extension of activities beyond Africa. The indefatigable team of Marion Island scientists — Marthan Bester, John Cooper, Rudi van Aarde and Ben Dilley — shared their personal experiences in the cat and mouse eradication programmes and plans. In Zimbabwe and Namibia, Brian Child, David Cumming, Russell Taylor, Raoul du Toit, Vernon Booth, Margaret Jacobsohn, Brian Jones, Chris Brown, Maxi Louis and John Mendelsohn provided valuable insights and viii Acknowledgements warm hospitality. In my early professional career, I was extremely fortunate to have mentors with the wisdom of Ian Garland, Ken Tinley, Graham Noble and Alan Rodgers. The ever-positive outlook and optimism of John Hanks, Guy Preston and Clem Sunter have kept me focused on solutions rather than on problems.

Throughout my 50-plus years of working across southern Africa, the unfailing encouragement, and critical editorial skills of my wife, Merle, have been the source of continued support and companionship in often challenging environments.

Contents

Partl Background

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Chapter 1 A) Strategic Opportunism: A Pragmatic get Approach to Conservation in Africa

You can form all the committees, all the societies, all the working groups, all the charities you like but you know that in the end, it is that one individual, that one individual that has passion, that one individual that has fire in the belly, that one individual that is determined that something should be done.

Sir David Attenborough: Extract from address at the Future for Nature Awards Ceremony, Arnhem, The Netherlands, 2009

In the three decades since the United Nations Convention on Environment and Development convened in Rio de Janeiro, 1992, many billions of dollars have been invested in time-bound projects aimed at solving conservation crises and addressing human wellbeing needs in Africa. Much has been achieved. Yet in many countries the threats to biodiversity and to human development have increased rather than declined. Despite this sobering background, reasons for hope can be found in a selection of highly successful projects that offer models for adoption. Conservation success is possible in Africa.

This book addresses a complex mix of questions that challenge the minds of young conservationists and environmental scientists working in Africa: “How does one succeed in designing, initiating, implementing and leading to successful conclusion conservation projects in countries with weak institutions, unpredictable socio-economic and political trajectories, and limited human and financial capacities?” In search of answers to these questions, this book synthesises the lessons learned from a diversity of projects, across ten countries, each of which has been sustained for two or more decades. Detailed narratives are presented on the key personalities that have conceived, conducted and concluded long-term projects — personal stories of vision, challenges, failure, frustration, passion and persistence ultimately leading to success.

The case studies vary widely in their geography and goals. In selecting models that illustrate fundamental lessons, the three massively funded mega-projects of the region — those of the Peace Parks Foundation, African Parks Foundation, and the Working for Water Project — have been omitted. They have been widely celebrated

© The Author(s) 2023 3 B. J. Huntley, Strategic Opportunism: What Works in Africa, SpringerBriefs in Environmental Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24880-1_1

4 1 Strategic Opportunism: A Pragmatic Approach to Conservation in Africa and are well known. Here I have chosen less familiar and more moderately funded projects. Each demonstrate pragmatic solutions to complex problems. The singlehanded commitment to re-discover and save the last surviving populations of giant sable in the miombo woodlands of central Angola, through the capture, translocation and establishment of robust breeding herds of this magnificent antelope, contrasts with the robustly funded, three-decade-long programme with over one hundred participants that reversed the annual loss of 455,000 seabirds to predation by feral cats on a sub-Antarctic island. The foresight of Zimbabwean and Namibian ecologists in placing rural communities at the centre of conservation programmes, by giving value to wildlife populations and benefits to local people, transformed a land degradation problem into a socio-ecological solution. Across ten countries, building capacity in botanical collection, documentation and herbarium management expanded into a global project that placed the knowledge base of Africa’s flora onto an electronic data system accessible to researchers and conservation planners in even the most remote corners of the continent. None of these projects enjoyed immediate results. Each required remarkable leadership skills that combined vision, a generosity of spirit, fortuitous timing and the exploitation of the unexpected. These characteristics encapsulate the theme of this book: strategic opportunism.

The projects include models from both rich and poor countries, from those with long histories of biodiversity research and wildlife conservation, to those with weaker institutions and difficult histories. Some accounts are comprehensive and based on scores of peer-reviewed publications. Others are more anecdotal and draw on the field experience of key players, on correspondence and on personal interviews.

Focusing on the drivers of project success, twelve guiding lessons emerge from approaches where leaders took the long view on conservation. These fundamentals for success reflect the tools used, knowingly or not, by practitioners. The projects have survived changes in political leadership, economic climate and institutional arrangements, illustrating how success can be achieved regardless of systems of governance, of a nation’s wealth, or of cultural traditions.

The case studies all have one characteristic in common — the central role of a champion or of champions driving an idea to success. In sharp contrast to stories of success in the business sector, none of these champions received any financial reward from their innovations and energy. In reality, many suffered years of physical and financial difficulty, in isolation — often with their life partners and families — and often without recognition other than that of their peers. Success resulted from inspiration, passion, innovation, opportunity and determination: Sir David Attenborough’s ‘fire in the belly’.

Reference

Attenborough D (2009) Keynote speech. Future for Nature Awards, Arnhem

1 Strategic Opportunism: A Pragmatic Approach to Conservation in Africa 5

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

Chapter 2 A Seizing the Moment While Imagining giente the Future

In the extensive international literature on project design and management, a multitude of models have been proposed through which to achieve successful outcomes. Six studies are pertinent to the present review. John Kotter (1996) provides an eightstep process for change, widely applied by the business community and adapted by Brian Child (2019) to community-based conservation projects. Richard Cowling et al. (2002) identify three interdependent components for consideration in structuring biodiversity mainstreaming projects - prerequisites, stimuli and mechanisms. Andrew Balmford (2012) synthesises conservation projects in terrestrial and marine environments and describes ten characteristics fundamental to success. Robert Pringle (2017) proposes eight pillars to be followed in the upgrading and expansion of protected areas. Peter Crane (2022) spelled out the message used in the title to this chapter: ‘Seizing the moment while imagining the future’ which underpins the concept and practice of strategic opportunism.

The above authors’ elegantly simple frameworks, based on case studies from across the globe, identify key elements for success in business management, biodiversity mainstreaming, species and ecosystem conservation, protected area rehabilitation and the development of botanical gardens. Despite the differences of sector activity and the spatial scale of objectives, the driving elements identified have great consistency. Their lessons can be widely applied. Unsurprisingly, despite the efforts of international development agencies over the past half-century, there is no universally adopted formula for success in conservation projects that suggests that ‘one size fits all’. Each situation has its individual idiosyncracies, temporal and geographic scales, socio-political and institutional strengths and weaknesses, and financial opportunities and challenges. Here it is proposed that the approach of strategic opportunism is most appropriate to the real-world challenges faced by conservationists in Africa. African solutions to African problems.

So, what is ‘strategic opportunism’?

Over the past 50 years, as a researcher, administrator and project participant at various levels in all southern African countries, I have followed an approach that I have somewhat flippantly called ‘strategic opportunism’. At the outset, I must

© The Author(s) 2023 7 B. J. Huntley, Strategic Opportunism: What Works in Africa, SpringerBriefs in Environmental Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-03 1-24880-1_2

8 2 Seizing the Moment While Imagining the Future emphasise that it is not a formalised model such as the “Theory of Change’ process used by many international and non-governmental agencies for project planning. In my personal experience, strategic opportunism emerged while working within fragile socio-ecological landscapes and adapting to uncertainty and change.

The concept and practice of strategic opportunism is not included in academic curricula, nor taught at post-graduate schools of wildlife management. But it requires nothing more than a clear vision, ideally shared by one’s colleagues and project partners, within a flexible strategy through which to achieve realistic goals. The unpredictable opportunities that arise with the passage of time are key ingredients for success. While attending to frequent minor crises, one must never lose sight of the long-term vision. It contrasts with the rigid project frameworks demanded by many development agencies, which leave no space for chance or surprise. In reality, opportunities — big or small, arising from serendipity or simple good luck — must be recognised and exploited. In short, it amounts to transforming problems into solutions. Strategic opportunism is most concisely defined in Peter Crane’s “seizing the moment while imagining the future”. More formally, the concept is defined as “the ability to remain focused on long-term objectives while staying flexible enough to solve day-to-day problems and recognise new opportunities” (Iselberg 1987).

Even more than in politics, conservation is the art of the possible. It is a slow and iterative process. Strategic opportunism follows the West African expression: “softly, softly, catchy monkey”. In simple terms, strategic opportunism is a mix of vision + strategy + opportunity + timing = success. It is not a rigidly linear process. The first requirement — a clear and shared vision — is fundamental. The strategy itself might be quite flexible — comprising many tiers of actions that include the ways and means of achieving goals — not tightly structured and time-bound plans.

The case studies that provide the evidence base for this set of hypothetical fundamentals demonstrate the key elements of strategic opportunism. Starting with a shared vision — imagining the future — the process advances through the matching of global ideas to feasible local actions, and through growing networks of collaboration. Mutual trust between partners are essential ingredients. Along the route, young talents must be nurtured. Mistakes will be made, but must be tolerated. Moving from small interventions to grander, bolder actions, a critical mass of committed, passionate partners ‘get things done on the ground’. The latter point is most important. Unless measurable impact is achieved ‘on the ground’, no elegant theories, elaborate policies, acts of parliament or voluminous conference conclusions will guarantee success.

Getting things done on the ground will very often result from unexpected opportunities. Serendipity happens. One must be ready to act in response to chance events — seizing the moment. Each of the case studies illustrates how an unplanned event accelerated progress or changed the trajectory of a project. The surprising detection of hybridisation between giant sable and roan antelope catalysed efforts to capture and translocate genetically pure sable to form a breeding population. A chance meeting between a potential donor and the country’s president triggered the Gorongosa Restoration Project. Connecting the dots between a simple digital scanning technology and the need to document hundreds of thousands of herbarium specimens led rapidly to the African Plants Initiative.

Moving from quick wins to broader successes requires the flexibility of the strategic opportunism approach. By giving participants in citizen science projects regular feedback through newsletters and press releases, local but significant findings were celebrated. The early volunteers of the bird atlasing and wildflower conservation projects could never have anticipated the vast impact of their projects, but they imagined a future of an easily accessible database that would guide conservation action.

In contrast to the practice of rigid project structures, not each step of project implementation needs to follow a seemingly logical sequence. Eradicating feral cats on Marion Island built on decades of fundamental research on seabird and cat population biology. The project advanced through trial and error, frequently revising approaches. It was a process of successive approximation — each step getting closer to the goal, through what can best be described as ‘learning by doing’. The years of negotiation required to access funding for the SABONET project saw progress in spasms rather than in predictable flows. Projects, like thinking, move both fast and slow.

Finally, an additional ingredient is needed for strategic opportunism to succeed. In all “communities of practice’ — loose networks of collaboration — keystone individuals are essential. Each of the successful projects reviewed had such personalities. These included political leaders with a commitment to the environment and its conservation, respected leaders of rural communities, academics with inspiring ideas and energetic students, private sector investors looking for socially meaningful projects, or amateurs and volunteers forming networks of citizen scientists. These keystone individuals, like the keystone species of ecosystems, served the role of project champions, catalysing symbiotic relationships among all participants. It is these extended families — multi-talented and cooperative ‘invisible colleges’ — that bring solutions to complex problems in Africa.

Balmford A (2012) Wild hope: on the front lines of conservation success. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 255 pp

Child B (2019) Sustainable governance of wildlife and community-based natural resource management. From economic principles to practical governance. Routledge, London, 382 pp

Cowling RM, Pierce SM, Sandwith T (2002) Conclusions: the fundamentals of mainstreaming biodiversity. In: Pierce SM, Cowling RM, Sandwith T, MacKinnon K (eds) Mainstreaming biodiversity in development. Case studies from South Africa. World Bank, Washington, DC

Crane P (2022) Botanic gardens: seizing the moment while imagining the future. Plants People Planet 4:548-557. https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3. 10306

Iselberg D (1987) The tactics of strategic opportunism. Harv Bus Rev 87(2):92—97

Kotter J (1996) Leading change. Harvard Business School Press, Boston

Pringle RM (2017) Upgrading protected areas to conserve wild biodiversity. Nature 546:9 1-99

10 2 Seizing the Moment While Imagining the Future

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

Part ll Strategic Opportunism in Action: Models of Success

Chapter 3 A Angolan Giant Sable: Rediscovery, Rescue xiv and Recovery

Just before my trip home at the time [1912], some Angola Boers had managed to get their wagons across the swamps, and had shot a number of the herd for their skins and meat. This was a new treasure trove for them, as they had by then shot out most of the accessible game in Angola ... This threatened the complete extinction of the finest antelope in Africa, bearing the most magnificent horns of all.

Thomas Varian (1953) Some African Milestones

3.1 The Rise and Fall of a Narrow Endemic

At the dawn of the new millennium, the national icon of Angola was believed to be extinct. The giant sable antelope (Hippotragus niger variani) is a distinctive and geographically isolated sub-species of the widely distributed sable antelope. British railway engineer, Thomas Varian, while surveying a route for the Benguela Railway, discovered the subspecies in the miombo woodlands of central Angola (Fig. 3.1). Having witnessed the ravages of Boer biltong hunters, Varian feared for the future this ‘finest antelope in Africa’. He immediately raised the alarm and mobilised the support and legislative intervention of the Portuguese High Commissioner for Angola, General Norton do Matos. Quick action saved the giant sable from the Boer biltong hunters of the 1920s. But half a century later, after decades of relative security, it was a civil war and its aftermath that spelt the giant sable’s imminent doom (Walker 2002; Huntley 2017).

In 1971, the giant sable population was estimated to be between 2000 and 2500 animals. The vast majority of these sable occupied the 828,000 ha Luando Strict Nature Reserve, with about 150 in Cangandala National Park, of 63,000 ha, just to the north, across the Luando river (Huntley 1974). The global population was confined to an area of less than 10,000 km?, with their closest relatives at least 500 km distant in the far corner of the Cuando Cubango (Fig. 3.2). The herds in Luando had been studied by American biologist Richard Estes in 1969/1970 (Estes and Estes

© The Author(s) 2023 13 B. J. Huntley, Strategic Opportunism: What Works in Africa, SpringerBriefs in Environmental Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-03 1-24880-1_3

14 3 Angolan Giant Sable: Rediscovery, Rescue and Recovery we xe ws or

Fig. 3.2 Sable antelope populations (and sub-species) as determined through nuclear DNA analysis. The population of the giant sable of Angola is striking in its isolation. (From Vaz Pinto (2019))

3.2 Pursuit and Re-discovery 15

1974). Through the diligent shepherding of the study herds by park warden José Alves, the animals had become so habituated to vehicles that in 1971 one had to hoot at the resting herds to be able to drive though their territory (Huntley 1973, 2017). Little surprise then, that when civil war broke out in the mid-1970s, the giant sable provided easy prey to hunters (Huntley 1975). Dick Estes and park warden João Amaro had photographed a herd in Cangandala during a brief visit in 1982 (Estes 1983), but since that date no sighting of giant sable had been reported. By the end of the twentieth century it was feared that they were already extinct.

International concern for the fate of the giant sable gained traction, especially with the publication of news reports of their possible demise. One book placed the giant sable on the conservation centre stage. The history of the discovery of the giant sable by Varian (1909) and the subsequent pursuit of trophies of the magnificent antelope by some of the world’s leading museums and aristocrat hunters, was related in fascinating and compelling detail by John Frederick Walker in his book A Certain Curve of Horn. Walker (2002) describes eight frustrating and unsuccessful visits to Angola in search of the sable. He finally saw his first specimen in 2009 - exactly a century after Varian’s 1909 report on the giant sable. Walker had joined the capture and translocation project led by an Angolan biologist, Pedro Vaz Pinto. It was the passion, tenacity and commitment of this one person — Pedro Vaz Pinto — that reversed the almost inevitably sad fate of the giant sable, in one of the great modern conservation successes of southern Africa.

3.2 Pursuit and Re-discovery

Much has changed for the better in Angola since the 1990s and early 2000s of Walker’s failed pursuits. For the privileged few who today can visit Cangandala and observe the healthy breeding herds grazing quietly in the park’s peaceful miombo woodlands, it is difficult to imagine the challenges that Vaz Pinto faced when he decided, in early 2003, to focus his energy on re-discovering the giant sable. Vaz Pinto made repeated visits to Cangandala, first for lengthy surveys on foot across the park with local rangers, covering hundreds of kilometres through the tall miombo woodlands and grasslands Figs. 3.3 and 3.4).

Lest one think that Vaz Pinto’s visits to Cangandala were quick rides out from the laboratory into the field, one needs to know that each visit involved a 10-hour drive along some of the worst, and most dangerous, roads in Angola. In the 1970s, the drive from Luanda to Malange would take me a pleasant 6 hours. But for the first decade after the year 2000, the Chinese were rebuilding and once again rebuilding the Malange road, the second busiest highway in Angola. Chinese civil engineers are not the best, and had obviously never encountered the notoriously mobile swelling and shrinking terras negras de Catete — the black cotton soils along the first 100 km of the route. The terras negras beat the lot of them. The road from Malange to Cangandala village, was worse. The once smooth tar macadam, had fallen apart,

16 3 Angolan Giant Sable: Rediscovery, Rescue and Recovery

Fig. 3.3 The preferred habitat of giant sable — a mosaic of woodlands and open grasslands: Cangandala National Park. (Photo: Pedro Vaz Pinto)

Fig. 3.4 Open miombo woodland with a dense grass ground cover in Cangandala National Park. (Photo: Pedro Vaz Pinto)

3.2 Pursuit and Re-discovery 17 shredding the tyres of any over-hasty driver. So Pedro’s repeated visits to Cangandala were never a stroll in the park.

Failure to locate the sable visually persuaded Vaz Pinto to set up camera traps. Selecting a few salt licks — the old termitaria that form nutrient pools in the otherwise poor soils of the miombo — he set up three cameras. A month later, in pouring rain and struggling across the flooded rivers near Bola Cachasse, he returned to check the cameras. True to the perverse nature of working in the Angolan bush, only one had functioned. Ants had made nests in the transmitter of one camera, the other had a malfunctioning receiver. When he developed the films, all he found in the images were a few duiker and warthog. He then set up five cameras, and was back again 2 weeks later. This time the problems included termites — so he blocked the tiny holes in the equipment with chewing gum. On the next visit, he found that the camera beam was at too low an angle — so he adjusted the fitting. By the next visit grass and shrubs had grown up in front of the camera — so he chopped the lot down. When he sent the film off to Portugal the results presented four duiker, 13 bushbuck. One had to admire his tenacity. On 14 December 2004 he wrote that one of his trap camera’s infrared receivers had malfunctioned, recording 1900 events; another had battery problems. His e-mail read: “This is a game of patience. This activity has been physically and psychologically very demanding and it is frustrating not seeing the animals in so many visits and so many hours spent in the bush tracking them, but every time, finding fresh spoor and dung gives me the extra energy to keep going!”

Even low-level flights in a micro-light plane - including a crash which, in the words of a fellow biologist, left him “shaken, not stirred’— failed to yield a single sighting. Turning to molecular approaches, Vaz Pinto collected dung and hair samples snagged on bushes for genetic analysis. This initially gave unconvincing results. Two years of continuous but fruitless efforts, and then success.

In February 2005 Vaz Pinto’s camera traps revealed a group of female giant sable at a salt lick. Over the next 18 months, he made a further 15 visits to Cangandala, and through hundreds of camera trap photographs he built up an identity profile for 23 individuals. But he had still not seen a single sable with the naked eye. Nor were any male sable to be seen in the camera trap photos. Strangely, some of the female and young sable in the photos had what Vaz Pinto considered a ‘funny’ appearance. It was suggested by one of Vaz Pinto’s volunteers that these animals could perhaps be hybrids. In January 2006 he succeeded in tracking down the herd on foot, and could photograph the group. These were the first sable that he had been able to see live, unaided by trap cameras. But to his great alarm, he noted that although no adult male sable accompanied the herd, a single roan antelope bull had joined the herd. Here Vaz Pinto had the evidence needed to explain the ‘funny’ members of the herd. These were unmistakably hybrids — ‘robles’ — the progeny of a lone roan bull and the giant sable cows, bereft of the services of a giant sable bull. The shocking truth was that the giant sable population in Cangandala was facing extinction, not only from poaching, but also from hybridisation (Vaz Pinto 2007; Vaz Pinto et al. 2016). Immediate action was needed.

18 3 Angolan Giant Sable: Rediscovery, Rescue and Recovery 3.3 Capture and Relocation

With donor support, a 400-hectare quarantine area was fenced off. After protracted negotiations with government agencies, donors and an ever-growing team of volunteers, Vaz Pinto was in position to mount an operation to capture pure giant sable females and to place them in an area isolated from the roan antelope bull. At the same time, a giant sable male in Luando would be captured and translocated to the Cangandala group of pure females. By August 2009 the plans were in place. With the help of the Angolan Air Force, and veteran game capture expert Piet Morkel and helicopter pilot Barney O’ Hara, the project began. The nine surviving ‘pure’ females within Cangandala and a mature male from Luando were captured and translocated to the quarantine area. (Fig. 3.5). Ten other sable were fitted with collars and VHF transmitters. In 2011 two satellite transmitters were fitted to two sable released in Luando. In July 2022, 15 satellite collars were fitted to 10 sable cows and 5 sable bulls, providing an invaluable data set on sable movements, their social behaviour, and to track any incidents of poaching.

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