OUR NATIONAL BOK
The springbuck in history
Graceful gazelle with an amazing past
IT IS GENERALLY assumed that the springbuck was chosen as South Africa’s national animal because it was our most common species, and for its historical association with the early Cape, birthplace of our nation. That may be so – although I can find no historically recorded reason for this choice. Interestingly, the early Dutch settlers encountered many other species, including the Big Five, before encountering the springbuck some 30 years (and possibly as long as 120 years) after their arrival.
According to Historical Mammal Incidence in the Cape Province, Volume 1, by CJ Skead, the earliest (but unconfirmed) record of what may have been springbuck appears to be that of Olof Bergh who, in 1682, near Garies (Vanrhynsdorp area) wrote what translates as: “About two hours from Olifants River, I saw so many wild bucks that they were uncountable, and I shot one there.” The description “uncountable” suggests springbuck, but without more information, is not definitive. Conceivably, gemsbuck could have been another possibility.
It was not until 1773 that the next sighting was recorded by Masson and Thunberg in the Bokkeveld of the Ceres district – regarded as the first positive record. The Bokkeveld was named for the springbuck migrations seen there. Then, in 1796, the naturalist, François le Vaillant encountered springbuck “on the way to Little Namaqualand after passing Koekenaap and Krakeelklip on the west coast” (north of the Olifants River).
Historically, the springbuck’s natural habitat was South West Africa, extending southwards into Little Namaqualand, and the Kalahari, extending southwards into the Northern Cape, Free State and Northwest Province. Early Cape encounters were largely in times of the great migrations which drove the massive congregations southwards. These were not frequent, but immensely impressive.
In June 1823, George Thompson saw a migration near Beaufort West which he estimated to number 100 000 in a solid column 80km long. During the drought of 1860, a migration headed south into Little Namaqualand where there was neither water nor grass, and the herds died in their thousands. One report said, “Millions of them crossed the mountain range and made for the sea. They dashed into the
In June 1823, George Thompson saw a migration near Beaufort West which he estimated to number 100 000 in a solid column 80km long
waves, drank salt water and died. Their bodies lay in one continuous pile along the shore for over 30 miles, and the stench drove the Trek Boers, who were camped near the coast, far inland”.
Another account says that a migration, walking steadily, took three days to pass a given point. On reaching the Orange River, those coming from behind pushed those in front into the water where they drowned in their thousands.
During the era of black powder and lead bullets, a single springbuck made a difficult target. Historical accounts indicate that hunters seldom if ever tried to shoot individual animals – they fired into the massed herds – usually riding after them on horseback. In Travels into the Interior of Africa via the Cape of Good Hope, Volume 1, François Le Vaillant, travelling on the Sundays River south of the “Sneeuw-bergen” in the late 1790s, encountered “a large number of Spring-bock” and decided to spend the whole day hunting them. He killed seven, and later wrote, “Although they are swift runners, on a horse one can easily catch up with them. As they run in a dense herd like sheep, they impede one another, and this slows them down. If one aims one shot carefully, it can go through two, sometimes three, and even more.”
THE FRENCH NATURALIST, Adulphe Delagorgue, hunting the Karoo in 1838, wrote of seeing swirling columns of red dust rising 200 feet into the air, as large herds of “springbooken… 3 000 to 10 000 strong, crossed each other’s paths as they swept over the plain.” He had to keep assuring himself that it was not a vision. He describes hunting these herds with a party of seven Boers, all mounted on horseback, yet who “brought back only eleven spring-booken after three hours of relentless pursuit”. Springbuck meat was regarded as the very finest, and the local farmers rarely killed an ox or a sheep, as springbuck meat supplied all their needs.
Gordon Cumming, who hunted in SA from 1844 to 1849, wrote of witnessing a vast springbuck migration in the Beer Valley area of the Karoo. Awoken in the wee hours by the noise of their travel, he lay in his wagon listening to them for two hours until dawn, and then could not believe his eyes as he beheld the ground “covered with a dense living mass of springboks, marching slowly and steadily along…” They were
emerging from a gap in the distant hills, flowing past his camp and disappearing over a ridge opposite, a further mile away, the mass being half a mile wide, continuously “pouring like a flood of some great river”. He watched it for a further two hours, unabated, then mounted up and rode among them, firing into the mass until he’d killed fourteen, then ceased, adding that he could have killed 30 or 40 in a morning, and was astounded that they “allow me to ride so near them”. Later, he saw a further mass of springbuck which “infinitely surpassed” that which he’d seen that morning, densely covering the plains for as far as he could see in any direction.
Springbuck will drink if water is available, but can survive without it, obtaining sufficient moisture from the vegetation. Clearly, these migrations were due to a coincidence of huge populations and severe droughts destroying the vegetation. The vast herds would congregate where the last grazing and browse remained, until it ran out, forcing them to trek.
I doubt that these were migrations to seek new habitat. I think this was nature’s way of controlling their numbers. Virtually all the ‘migratory’ springbuck died during the trek. Those leading, ate whatever grazing they encountered, leaving the ground bare; those coming behind died of thirst and starvation along the way. I know of no record of any arrival of masses settling in pastures new, nor of local populations increasing in numbers after a migration. There is no record of migrations returning whence they’d come once the rains started again. They all just perished.
With the spreading of farms after the Great Trek, the ‘migrations’ drew to an end. In 1878, William Sandeman, author of Eight Months in an Ox Waggon, visited a Free State Boer named Grunveldt, who’d clearly hunted extensively on his farm, for the pickings were slim. They rode at full gallop straight towards a distant herd of about 30 springbuck, but with 300 yards still separating them, the herd took off at “an astonishing pace”. Grunveldt dismounted and fired six or seven shots into the herd, with Sandeman copying him, but neither hit any. Sandeman wrote of using a Westley Richards falling block (probably a .450 No2 Musket) and a “long-range rising block rifle” (possibly a Swinburne in .577/.450). They galloped after the same herd, which took off at 400 yards this time; a lucky shot from another ‘fusillade’ brought down one springbuck. By then their
horses were exhausted.
There is no record of migrations returning whence they’d come once the rains started again. They all just perished
TRAVELLING TO THE Pretoria-lydenburg area, Sandeman crawled to within 400 yards of a ‘nice lot of springbôk’ and fired into their midst, luckily dropping one. They ran off and he fired four more shots into the mass, felling another. He rode back to camp for a pack-horse; on his return to the carcasses less than an hour later, vultures had left him nothing but the skulls and bones. He told a Boer of this, who showed no surprise, saying he had several times shot into a herd at 800 to 900 yards, and by the time it took him to ride directly to the carcass, vultures had swooped down and stripped it.
Sandeman wrote that prior to the wholesale slaughter of the herds when they were changing their summer or winter quarters, “…it was no uncommon thing for a waggon to have to pull up for an hour at a time while the herds crossed the path in front… spring-bôk went past in such crowding masses that they never swerved as shot after shot was fired into the line; but that is a thing of the past. The bôk are now [1878] so wary that, however big the herd, it is no easy matter to get within shot unless on horseback…”
In A breath from the Veldt, the naturalist JG Millais, wrote, “Although the springbucks of today [1895] are but a scattered remnant of what they were… they are still by far the commonest representative of the antelope tribe in that country.” The Boers with whom Millais hunted used Martini Henrys; he does not state what calibre he used. By now, however, the era of small-bore jacketed bullets and nitro propellants was underway; the world already had the 8x50r French Lebel, the 8x57 Mauser, the .303 British and the 7x57 Mauser. These flatter-shooting rifles could reliably hit the vitals of an individual springbuck at ranges up to 200 yards.
Millais writes of ‘coursing’ for springbuck, which was clearly a British introduction. In sporting terms, coursing refers to running down the game with greyhounds. In this instance, the hunters followed on horseback and with horsedrawn two-wheeled scotch-carts. Millais says a good greyhound can catch a springbuck or run it to a standstill.
He wrote that the Boers hunted springbuck by means of a properly-worked chain of hunting carts or mounted horsemen stretched across the veld at intervals of 1 000 to 1 700 yards, guided by an old hand usually positioned in the centre giving directions. “… if the game be properly played and the line well kept, each and every shooter will get good sport.” He adds, “A rifle shooter going out by himself into the Karroo stands but a poor chance with the bucks…” The Boers, hunting in a party, “largely contribute to each other’s sport by driving the bucks to one another.” This long moving line seemed to confuse the herds, several hundred in number, which moved back and forth, not knowing at which point to try to circumvent the approaching hunters. Millais fired 25 shots before wounding a ram, which they lost. He later shot, at 300 yards, the only springbuck bagged by anyone that entire day; next morning he shot one at 400 yards and another at 200, all aimed at individually. This suggests Millais was using a modern small-bore nitro calibre.
The last massive migration was recorded in 1896, witnessed by WC Scully. Inevitably, farm fences, borehole water and flat-shooting rifles ended the migrations. But they certainly left a memorable impression.
How did the springbuck come to be our national animal? Politically, ‘South Africa’ did not exist until the Union was formed in 1910. The coat-of-arms of the Cape Colony from 1875 until 1910 included a black wildebeest and a gemsbuck. In 1895, the Blignaut brothers, Piet and Phillip, represented the SA Amateur Athletic Association at the English championships. They wanted to wear an emblem for identification, and being regular springbuck hunters, they got their eldest sister to embroider a springbuck on their vests. In 1906, Paul Roos, captain of the first local rugby team to play against England, wanted a symbolic name to prevent the British press from inventing one for the SA team. It is said that his choice of a springbuck was impromptu, but the Blignaut family claims it was at the suggestion of Piet and Phillip who knew Roos.
IN 1910, WHEN the Union of SA was formed, Arthur Holland, of the Government Printing Works in Pretoria, designed a national coat-of-arms – he chose a springbuck emblem. Whether he was influenced by the Blignaut-roos choice is unknown. The springbuck remains SA’S national animal.