biodiversity
It is regrettable to
have to record at
this point that the
reserve named ‘in
honour’ of the late
Norman Atherstone
and his pioneering
conservation
initiatives has in no
way lived up to his
envisaged legacy.Comments on the stocking of specific species to
Atherstone Collaborative Nature Reserve:
(1) GEMSBOK
From a purist’s perspective one could probably debate
the introduction of gemsbok to Atherstone although they
certainly seem to have thrived in the reserve over the years.
The nearest available written record of their occurrence
comes from Captain William Cornwallis Harris (A) who in
1836 came across three individual animals (noting that
they were rare in this part of the country and that he was
fortunate in finding them) on the plains skirting the northern
bank of the Molopo River a few miles below its source, one
of which he succeeded in shooting. Cornwallis Harris had
earlier met up with a trader by the name of David Hume
while still in Grahamstown and been informed that a few
gemsbok were always to be found in that vicinity. It is more
than likely that these plains marked the northernmost limit of
this specie’s occurrence in the immediate region and while
it was of course widespread in neighbouring Bechuanaland
it is unlikely to have ventured east of either the Marico or
Limpopo rivers (as far as the upper reaches are concerned
at any rate).
1 One could probably debate the introduction:
*HPVERNRU6RXWK$IULFDQRU[ Oryx gazella).
Photo © Johan Swanepoel