710 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



One trader told me he had killed eighteen last year and I was offered at least 

 twenty sets of horns from 46 to 60 inches in length. This slaughter plus the 

 usual number killed by the natives in pits will soon wipe out the relatively 

 few animals remaining. 



Varian (in Maydon, 1932, pp. 384-385) says: 



In 1912 the Boers raided the small area where the Giant Sable lives, and 

 heads up to 61 inches were the result, which were sold for high prices. On 

 this account a further raid was contemplated in the following year. For- 

 tunately I was a friend of the Governor of the district at the time and, when 

 the matter was represented to him, the country was closed for shooting; for 

 the time being they were saved from practical extermination. Poaching, to a 

 certain extent, still continued, and good heads found a market, as they still 

 do. But the greater number and the largest heads have been accounted for by 

 the pit traps of the local natives. One of the largest heads recorded was 

 traded for something less than a shilling from the natives. 



The district in which they live is an outlying one, and too large to police 

 for the game purposes only, so a certain amount of poaching, principally by 

 natives, goes on. Such a thing is likely to continue as long as there is a 

 selling value on the heads, and until barter of them is made a serious offence. 

 Lions have been reported in the country in recent years, as well as Wild Dogs 

 that curse of African game and these have taken a certain amount of toll. 



At Camacupa "I was offered two sable heads for 150 Angolars 

 each. The strict protection of the Giant Sable seemed a myth. 

 Only against foreign sportsmen were they protected. The Portuguese 

 residents killed them wholesale and sold the heads. In fact, sub- 

 sequently, I was offered any number of heads I cared to buy, and I 

 heard several Portuguese brag of killing ten sable in a month. At 

 that rate, this magnificent animal will soon be extinct." (P. N. Gray, 

 1933, p. 125.) 



Curtis (1933, pp. 238-239, 241, maps facing p. 245) gives the 

 following account: 



The species is not known to live elsewhere than in this part of Angola 

 where we were camped, an area of perhaps 50 miles square. There are only a 

 comparatively few specimens living and unless these get better protection 

 than the Portuguese government is giving them the species will soon be- 

 come extinct. Besides those that are being killed for specimens, many are 

 killed by the native black hunters who offer the horns for sale for small 

 sums. I have lately been told that one of our large museums sent an 

 expedition to Angola to collect specimens of the female for their group, and 

 that after three months they were unsuccessful. . . . 



My son and I, hunting separately, saw forty-four male, female and young 

 Sable in a week of hard hunting from sunrise to sunset [in 1923]. 



"It seems that it is well protected as far as permission to shoot 

 them by white hunters is concerned .... 



"I gathered also that the local natives still continue to trap con- 

 siderable numbers in pitfalls .... 



