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Until they acquired firearms, humans made relatively little impact on animal numbers or—with some exceptions—their range. From the last half of the 19th century, however, and particularly since 1940, direct or indirect human wastage of Africa’s animal life has been intense and has reduced stocks considerably. The antelope known as the Zambian black lechwe, for example, believed to have numbered 1,000,000 in 1900, had been reduced to less than 8,000 by the late 20th century, and the population of African elephants declined from 2,000,000 in the early 1970s to some 600,000 by 1990, largely because of poaching for the ivory trade. The African white rhinoceros reached the verge of extinction in 1980.
Though European hunters and colonists were rightly blamed for much of the decline at its onset, hunting and destruction and the disturbance of habitats by Africans have become more important. Rinderpest, an acute and usually fatal infectious disease of livestock, entered Africa with domestic stock in the 1890s and ravaged herds of indigenous ungulates. The accelerated spread of agriculture and stock raising involving the destruction of forests, as well as heavy grazing and burning of vegetation, eliminated large animals from wide tracts. In South Sudan, for example, political strife and warfare in the 1960s entirely eliminated wildlife from some areas. The demand for fancy leather and fur has also endangered the Nile crocodile and the leopard.
Humans, however, have been of benefit to many smaller species. Dams and irrigation schemes, for example, have provided habitats for waterfowl, frogs, and fish, and the spread of grain crops has encouraged certain pests. Even the patchy cultivation of forests has resulted in the development of a mosaic of habitats that can provide new, if small, niches for some species.
Ecology
There are still sufficiently large tracts of relatively unspoiled country in which animal life may be studied in its environment. The complementary roles of wild ungulates, for example, show that in any area inhabited by a wide variety of species, the grass is grazed in regular succession and at different stages of growth—for example, by zebra, gnu, hartebeest, and gazelle—while specific adaptations enable a still greater variety to survive. A much smaller variety of domestic stock cannot duplicate such effects. Overpopulation by domestic or wild species may upset the delicate natural balance, as may be seen by the example of elephant overpopulation in Murchison Falls (Kabalega) National Park, Uganda, and in Tsavo National Park, Kenya; whether the elephants survive or not, they have ineradicably altered the environment to the detriment of many other typical species.
Animal life of particular interest
Animal life of particular interest to humans includes four main groups that are not mutually exclusive. They are: (1) species potentially or actually useful to humans as food (large ungulates), (2) dangerous or pest species that may have to be controlled or eliminated (locusts, tsetse flies, Quelea finches—which do immense damage to grain crops—and some ungulates or carnivores), (3) species that provide a spectacle and bring economic benefit (elephants, the larger plain ungulates, primates, or carnivores), and (4) endangered, rare, or unique species.
Much of the study of African wildlife has been addressed to the first two groups described above. For example, after it was learned that the feeding habits of domesticated livestock and wild ungulates are complementary, it became possible to incorporate the ungulates into pastoral and mixed-farming systems. This has happened on limited scales with the oryx (which was domesticated by the ancient Egyptians), the springbok (which has been run with cattle for decades in Southern Africa), and the African buffalo and eland. Similarly, much attention has been given to controlling pests. In the 1950s and ’60s considerable progress was made in the control of mosquitoes and locust swarms, although these achievements have been partially lost by governmental instability and mismanagement and by warfare between states. Infestation by the tsetse fly remains as one of tropical Africa’s most critical problems, not only because the tsetse spreads disease but also because—by effectively restricting livestock farming—it denies relief of the chronic protein shortage of many African peoples. Control of the tsetse is possible, but it is complex and requires a coordinated effort within and between countries.
Much research has also been carried out on animals in the third and fourth groups. Studies of predators, such as the lion, for example, have shown that they do not generally control the numbers of ungulates to the same degree as do disease or starvation. It has also been established that the hyena is as much a potent predator as a scavenger. Intensive studies have been made of such primates as baboons, Ethiopian geladas (to which baboons are related), and especially chimpanzees and gorillas; of great interest has been learning what associations there are between human and other primate behaviour and psychology.