Abstract
NATAL possesses five sanctuaries for wild life, and all, with the exception of the bird sanctuary at St. Lucia and False Bay, have special interest on account of the rare mammals they contain-the Umfolosi has the only surviving herd of the southern white rhinoceros. The reserves have been threatened to some degree because of the fear that their mammals preserved a reservoir of the trypanosomes of the cattle disease, nagana. But it may be accepted that the destruction of big game is a futile method of controlling the tsetse-borne disease, and that the reserves may well be retained, since they occupy areas unfitted for agriculture on account of endemic nagana, malaria, insufficient rainfall or poverty of soil. Indeed, in a pamphlet on “NataPs Nature Sanctuaries in Zululand” E. K. du Plessis urges that they should be properly established and made statutory, that they should be provided with suitable approaches to encourage tourist traffic, and that they should be surrounded by a three-mile buffer-zone, to prevent shooting parties from slaying animals on the very border of the reserve. It is further suggested that the shooting season should close at the end of September, since the does are in young by October, and that all-year licences for shooting should be discontinued.
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Nature Sanctuaries in Zululand. Nature 133, 718 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/133718d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/133718d0