Nagana, big-game drives and the Zululand game reserves (1890s-1950s)

Abstract

Zululand's world-renowned Hluhluwe and Umfolozi game reserves are today two of the most popular of their kind. But in the effort to establish and keep them, the cattle disease nagana and the accompanying use of big-game drives as a preventative measure to combat the tsetse fly proved to be a serious problem. The game reserves were blamed for harbouring game which carried the nagana parasite, and were therefore regarded as a food source and infection pool for the tsetsefly. Conservationists therefore had to struggle continually to protect the existence of Zululand's game reserves in the face of several demands for their abolition. Other methods used to eradicate the tsetse fly such as fencing, bush clearing and fly traps proved as ineffective as big-game drives. It was only the successful use of chemical spraying in the 1940s which ensured the future of Hluhluwe and Umfolozi.