History: A Great Hunter

In our previous newsletter we considered why there were no elephants in the Kruger National Park area of South Africa at the beginning of the 20th Century. We discovered that there were another set of priorities at play at this time and that the goal for many was to exploit the natural wealth of the African continent in order to make a quick profit, all the while thinking that this wealth was inexhaustible. This did not exclude elephants whose ivory is in huge demand to this day.When ivory hunters are mentioned a few names of men who between them killed over 1000 elephant come to mind: the likes of S.C. Barnard, also known as Bvekenya and P.J. Pretorius, one of the most notorious ivory hunters of the 19th century, as well as F.C. Selous. We will concern ourselves with P.J. Pretorius in this edition and in particular we will focus on a hunt that was only meant to claim the life of one elephant but ended up taking the lives of five in the Knysna Forest. Pretorius was a descendant of the Voortrekker leader, Andries Pretorius, after whom the capital of South Africa is named. He started out as a transport rider for the British South Africa Company and then went to work on the mines to make a bit of money. His career started in Zambia where he hunted elephant for their ivory and caught wild animals and supplied them to zoos. His travels took him as far up as Central Africa where it is said that he hunted with the pygmies, quite a risk since the tribesmen were very suspicious of white folk as the slave trade was still very much active at this point. He once escaped with his life after being falsely accused of murdering a chief – the real culprit was sentenced to be roasted alive. After a trip to Europe Pretorius returned to Tanganyika and tried to farm in the Rufiji Delta. During 1919, Pretorius’s intimate knowledge of the area proved very useful when he helped the Royal Navy to track down and destroy the Konigsberg, a German battle cruiser. On one fateful day a fleet of British warships anchored off the mouth of the Rufiji River and bombarded the well-camouflaged Konigsberg where it was hiding 17 miles upstream. After the British were done with it the 3400-ton cruiser was reduced to a tangled mass of warped steel and wreckage. The Konigsberg was to Germany in World War I what the Bismarck was in World War II. He was also one of General Smuts’s scouts during the East Africa Campaign and during this time was awarded the C.M.G. and D.S.O. In his later years Pretorius accepted an invitation by the Administrator of the Cape Province to exterminate a large number of elephants in the Addo bush, a job that had been declared impossible by people like the great hunter, F.C. Selous and naturalist, Harry Johnson. Pretorius was very successful – he managed to kill 120 elephants of the 131 roaming in the Addo area (on some days he was able to shoot as many as 5 elephants per day). The remaining 11 were given refuge in the Addo National Elephant Park, which was proclaimed in 1931. Thankfully this small elephant population has grown from the mere 11 that had survived to in excess of 450. After his career as an elephant exterminator Pretorius began hunting for the cameras making hunting films. One of these films was made in the Knysna Forest in 1920 where Pretorius had secured permission to shoot one elephant for scientific research and to then supply the stuffed carcass to the Cape Museum. He wanted to prove that the elephants roaming in the Knysna Forest were of the same species as those found elsewhere in Africa.There have always been elephants in the Knysna area but over the decades their plight has either been ignored or sidelined. In 1870 there were between 400 and 500 elephants in the forest but these numbers have dwindled, mostly due to hunting, to 5 (it was previously accepted that only one elephant had survived). Before Pretorius’s hunt there were 13 elephant in the forest but this number was reduced to only 7 after the event.On the day of the hunt elephant were spotted near the Millwood Forest Station and fierce trumpeting filled the air, soon followed by the barking and growling of dogs attacking a female elephant and her calf. The small herd retreated for cover quickly and silence reigned once again…Then the sound of gunfire rang out again and a majestic bull was brought down eight shots later – the wiry little man (Pretorius) jumped on the body and stood there victoriously while the grand bull lifted his head defiantly to look at his enemy and then rolled over on his side to die.Suddenly another bull appeared out of the gloaming and Pretorius felled him with only six shots this time.During Major Pretorius’ hunt a cow was also shot. Her calf had gotten into trouble down a steep kranz and Pretorius and one of the beaters involved in the hunt had tried to help. Suddenly the angry mother descended upon them and they opened fire and headed her off. She was found dead the following day, as were her calf and another elephant. A hunt that was only meant to claim the life of one elephant ended the lives of five (Pretorius found a dead calf at the beginning of his hunt. It had died of natural causes). The biggest elephant shot measured twelve feet six inches from the foot to the top of the shoulder. The length of the elephant, from the tip of his trunk to the end of his tail, was 22 feet and six inches. In elephant terms this was a big animal.Pretorius shot and killed 557 elephants in his lifetime and after just one six-month safari his stash of ivory was worth 3600 Pounds.Pretorius passed away in November 1945 but unsurprisingly his legacy has outlived him.

AcknowledgementsHaresnape, G. 1974. The Great Hunters. Purnell, Cape Town/New York.Pretorius, P.J. 2000. Jungle Man: The Autobiography of Major P.J. Pretorius, C.M.G, D.S.O. Alexander Books, U.S.A.Mackay, M. 1996. The Knysna Elephants and their Forest Home. Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa, Knysna Branch.