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Asafari is a leisure or recreational activity that involves all forms of sport hunting combined with travel and lasting more than a day. No doubt the many movies and novels involving safaris taking place at the end of the 19th century and through the first quarter of the 20th century helped create today’s popular image. Some safaris were composed of many human bearers, a group of hunters, and a rich panoply of tents, outdoor gear, and associated accouterments. Others involved lumbering elephants slowly following the spoor of tiger or water buffalo. In India, sport-minded members of the officer corps enjoyed six or eight weeks of pig-sticking (racing down wild boar with lance and polo pony), setting up tents at a string of likely locations. Later,with the ascendance of the internal combustion engine, the line of porters toting awkward bundles gave way to sedan cars and trucks bumping and bouncing along in this or that vast wilderness. In many ways the fictive representation, with its mob of support personnel, cluster of hunters, and mass of equipment,was quite accurate.
The concept of the safari matured and spread along with the European presence in colonized areas. Prime participants were employees of the government or colonial residents as well as wealthy sportsmen of all stripe. In the first two of these cases, the individuals were near but not near enough to desirable hunting areas.
Agricultural development may have altered the habitat or displaced existing wildlife. Officers in far-flung empire garrisons would be stationed at strategic sites, unlikely to be pristine wilderness. And of course representatives of chartered companies, governmental functionaries, colonial administrators of all sorts,would most likely be situated in urbanized areas. Yet, it was obvious, a great deal of exciting sport was comparatively easily accessible with the investment of a short journey.
Thus, sportsmen in the above situations quickly developed a tradition of travel linked to the express purpose of sport-hunting opportunities. Since it is quite typical for prey to exist in habitat some distance from the normal human habitation, much hunting automatically involves travel from home to the area of the hunt. A safari extends this basic environmental and cultural reality.
Moreover, since the same idea—travel plus hunting—fits other leisure opportunities, the term has broadened to usefully include the related activity of photo safaris, surf safaris, and so on. In these examples, participants try to “capture” the perfect photograph or the best possible wave. In order to do so, one travels from the normal human residence (now increasingly urbanized) to and through appropriate sites.
Traveling to the area of a hunt, particularly for the opportunity of taking part, is of course a very old phenomenon. The fully formed version, replete with expedition planning and specialized material, developed to coincide with the so-called Golden Age of Exploration in the early and mid-19th century. Eventually, colonial expansion, as noted above, provided the opportunity for many hunters to enjoy safaris and to develop the concept somewhat differently from merely doing a bit of hunting while on a holiday or in the midst of other sorts of travel. In fact, “safari” was borrowed into English from Swahili, and in that language means literally trip or journey. For this reason, safari implies a bit more than simply traveling to the location of relevant game.
Historically, sport hunting has been strongly linked with socially powerful people and, by extension, their representatives. Throughout history, wardens, professional hunters, and others whose livelihoods devolve from working in the wilds have also occasionally worked to guide sporting hunters.With the development of colonies, a much wider (though still far from poor) segment of hunters was able to take to the field after exotic prey.
After all, local labor was cheap, game plentiful, and pursuit, to say nothing of bags, often unregulated, while the biggest chunk of travel expenses were often underwritten by virtue of traveling from home to abroad on other business. Quickly enough, professional hunters, for example, ivory harvesters in Africa, found commercial safaris, catering to nonresidents, to be a lucrative side line.
With destruction of habitat, diminution of wildlife herds, and increasing regulatory apparatus, commercial harvesting of game became less attractive, especially compared to the relatively low impact of sport safaris. Today’s safari is likely quite expensive, geared toward the visitor much more than the resident, and fully regulated. Only the scofflaw poacher slaughters wildlife when the low-impact safari hunt guarantees sustaining a valuable renewable resource, helps fund preservation of habitat, and provides solid economic incentives to sustain the tradition in the wilds.
The concept of the safari matured and spread along with the European presence in colonized areas. Prime participants were employees of the government or colonial residents as well as wealthy sportsmen of all stripe. In the first two of these cases, the individuals were near but not near enough to desirable hunting areas.
Agricultural development may have altered the habitat or displaced existing wildlife. Officers in far-flung empire garrisons would be stationed at strategic sites, unlikely to be pristine wilderness. And of course representatives of chartered companies, governmental functionaries, colonial administrators of all sorts,would most likely be situated in urbanized areas. Yet, it was obvious, a great deal of exciting sport was comparatively easily accessible with the investment of a short journey.
Thus, sportsmen in the above situations quickly developed a tradition of travel linked to the express purpose of sport-hunting opportunities. Since it is quite typical for prey to exist in habitat some distance from the normal human habitation, much hunting automatically involves travel from home to the area of the hunt. A safari extends this basic environmental and cultural reality.
Moreover, since the same idea—travel plus hunting—fits other leisure opportunities, the term has broadened to usefully include the related activity of photo safaris, surf safaris, and so on. In these examples, participants try to “capture” the perfect photograph or the best possible wave. In order to do so, one travels from the normal human residence (now increasingly urbanized) to and through appropriate sites.
Traveling to the area of a hunt, particularly for the opportunity of taking part, is of course a very old phenomenon. The fully formed version, replete with expedition planning and specialized material, developed to coincide with the so-called Golden Age of Exploration in the early and mid-19th century. Eventually, colonial expansion, as noted above, provided the opportunity for many hunters to enjoy safaris and to develop the concept somewhat differently from merely doing a bit of hunting while on a holiday or in the midst of other sorts of travel. In fact, “safari” was borrowed into English from Swahili, and in that language means literally trip or journey. For this reason, safari implies a bit more than simply traveling to the location of relevant game.
Historically, sport hunting has been strongly linked with socially powerful people and, by extension, their representatives. Throughout history, wardens, professional hunters, and others whose livelihoods devolve from working in the wilds have also occasionally worked to guide sporting hunters.With the development of colonies, a much wider (though still far from poor) segment of hunters was able to take to the field after exotic prey.
After all, local labor was cheap, game plentiful, and pursuit, to say nothing of bags, often unregulated, while the biggest chunk of travel expenses were often underwritten by virtue of traveling from home to abroad on other business. Quickly enough, professional hunters, for example, ivory harvesters in Africa, found commercial safaris, catering to nonresidents, to be a lucrative side line.
With destruction of habitat, diminution of wildlife herds, and increasing regulatory apparatus, commercial harvesting of game became less attractive, especially compared to the relatively low impact of sport safaris. Today’s safari is likely quite expensive, geared toward the visitor much more than the resident, and fully regulated. Only the scofflaw poacher slaughters wildlife when the low-impact safari hunt guarantees sustaining a valuable renewable resource, helps fund preservation of habitat, and provides solid economic incentives to sustain the tradition in the wilds.