Memories
of Early Sundays River Valley Life
What ever happened to that
film?
Why many Addo elephants are
tuskless.
On Thursday 29th July my father,
walking home from the Addo bank, met Major Pretorius the big game hunter
commissioned to shoot out the Addo elephants, at the station yard, checking and
filming his wagons and men with their dogs, picking up supplies brought in by
train. I wonder what ever happened to that film? After chatting to Pretorius
for a while, my father quickly walked home and got his Kodak camera, returning
to the station in time to take a photo of Pretorius, looking stern and
business-like in his bush clothes, sitting at a table obviously checking his
list of provisions. Pretorius shot the elephant herd down to 16 and then gave
up for two reasons. The remaining 16 had become so elusive that he could not
find them in the impenetrable bush. Also, as the tusks were part of his bounty,
he had by then shot all the elephants carrying tusks and the remaining 16 were
without tusks and so he lost interest in them. Of the sixteen who survived this
carnage, another four died soon afterwards. Another died in 1931, when the AddoPark was proclaimed and the herd was driven into the sanctuary, leaving a very
limited gene pool of eleven tuskless elephant.
To this day,
despite the herd having increased to some five hundred and fifty head, very few
of the original females have tusks.
 |
| Major Pretorius, his wife Susanne (herself an accomplished hunter) and his secretary Miss Godfrey in camp at Kinkelbos, near Addo |
 |
| Major Pretorius |
Based on the fascinating writings of Mr Johhn Briggs,
of Good Hope Farm, Selborne, based on the diary of his late father, ‘Kit’
Briggs, a Valley pioneer.
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