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Context

• The recent study found that Cape Buffalo, one of the icons of Africa, suffered decimation in what is today’s South Africa after Europeans began to colonize the region in 1652 Common Era (CE)

Details of the findings

• Cape Buffalo populations were less genetically variable or diverse in the extreme southern part of their range. This means that there had been more interbreeding among them.
• Lack of genetic diversity among the southern populations was linked to the mass hunting of the animals during the almost three centuries of European colonialism in the region.

They considered two hypotheses as to why this was so:

• The rinderpest epidemic that struck Africa in the 19th century:
  • Africa south of the Zambezi River was struck by a rinderpest epidemic in the 1890s that killed more than 5.2 million cattle, oxen, sheep and goats. It also killed wild populations of Cape Buffalo, giraffes,s and wildebeest. This event reduced their populations.
• European colonization which began at the Cape of Good Hope on Africa’s southern tip in 1652:
  • The decline in populations was caused by a combination of excessive hunting, fragmentation, and reduction of habitat, as well as systematic eradication of wildlife, during the colonial period.

The Cape Buffalo

• The Cape Buffalo is one of the ‘Big Five’ species in Africa, the others being the lion, the leopard, the elephant, and the rhino.
• It is one of the four subspecies of African Buffalo found south of the Sahara, the others being the forest buffalo, the West African Savanna Buffalo, and the Central African Savanna Buffalo.
• The Cape Buffalo is found across the savannas of east and southern Africa.
• They have a strictly herbivorous (graminivorous, florivorous) diet.
• They feed on a wide variety of grasses, sedges, leaves, and other plants.
• African buffalo are polygynandries (promiscuous) meaning that both males and females mate with multiple partners.
• They mate and give birth only during the rainy seasons.
• Cows usually reproduce every two years.
  • They give birth to a single calf after a gestation period of 11.5 months.
• Males become reproductively mature when they are 4 to 6 years old.
• International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List: ‘Near-Threatened’

Source: https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/africa/of-van-riebeeck-and-the-big-boss-european-colonisation-decimated-cape-buffalo-in-south-africa-study-finds-87565

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