undertaken with Dr. W.J.A. Payne, director of the Animal Husbandry 
Division of the East African Agriculture and Forestry Research Organi¬ 
zation at Muguga, Kenya. Additional pertinent data were obtained in 
June and July 1963 while carrying out a mission for the United Nations 
Special Fund involving integration of wildlife in the development and 
use of savanna lands of East and Central Africa. 
Because of climatic and other factors, over the larger part of East 
and Central Africa animals provide the only reliable food crop. Rainfall 
is often low, irregular, and unreliable. Temperatures are seasonally 
high. Some three-quarters of the total land area is described by the 
broad term "savanna." It carries a cover of woody vegetation ranging 
in density from continous woodland through grassland types to semidesert 
bush. The balance between grasses and woody vegetation is generally 
unstable. The main factors modifying the vegetation are fire and the 
grazing, browsing, and trampling of animals; the balance is sufficiently 
delicate to present a major problem of range management with domestic 
livestock. Deterioration and consequent lowered production due to over- 
grazing accompanies virtually all open range grazing of livestock in 
the area, whether managed by Africans or Europeans. Much of the area 
is marginal or submarginal from the standpoint of maintaining domestic 
livestock, and, equally important, of maintaining the productivitiy of 
the land when grazed by this livestock. The Director of Agriculture in 
Kenya has stated that it is doubtful whether man would ever be able to 
manage marginal ranch land efficiently with the present narrow range of 
domestic livestock species (Brown, 1961). 
Tropical breeds of livestock are somewhat better adapted to these 
habitat conditions than are temperate zone animals (Payne, 1964; William¬ 
son and Payne 1959). However, even the so-called local breeds have been 
introduced into the area in relatively recent times. The truly indige¬ 
nous livestock are the wild animals which have evolved with or in the 
environment. 
COMPARISON OF WILD UNGULATES AND DOMESTIC LIVESTOCK 
It is only logical that animals which evolved in an area should 
be better adapted to it than animals more recently introduced. In 
Africa this idea has been advanced by ecologists and wildlife biologists 
for some years. Only recently, however, has solid evidence from re¬ 
search been provided for comparisons. From these data it is now clear 
that on many range lands wild animals do make more efficent use of the 
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