A History of Human-Lion Interactions in Northwest Namibia, 1800S-1980S. John Heydinger University of Minnesota Macquarie University

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A History of Human-Lion Interactions in Northwest Namibia, 1800s-1980s. John Heydinger University of Minnesota Macquarie University

ABSTRACT Within the history of human-lion interactions in northwest Namibia the presence or absence of livestock is shown to be the critical mediating factors. By contextualizing mid-twentieth century human-lion interactions withing the contrasting spaces of Etosha and Kaokoveld in relation to a longer history of humans-lion interactions, the formative factors of human-lion conflict (HLC) are revealed. Asymmetric racialized colonial-era policies which marginalized HLC among African inhabitants while privileging the perspective of white farmers and conservationists have had ongoing effects on the survival of lions. Drawing together archival documents, published sources, and extensive interviews, this article uses historical approaches to contextualize ongoing HLC for wildlife conservationists, human-animal studies scholars, and historians of African environments.

INTRODUCTION At independence (1990), Namibia ushered in a new era of wildlife conservation, based upon a paradigm of devolving conditional rights to local communities. This approach has been deemed a success.1 However, challenges remain. Among these are high levels of human-lion conflict (HLC) on communal land in northwest Namibia. HLC affects both the livelihoods of the region’s pastoral inhabitants and the viability of its free-ranging lion population.2 These linked economic and conservation challenges are a contemporary manifestation of the history of human-livestock-lion interactions in northwest Namibia. The presence or absence of livestock was, and remains, an important mediator of human-lion interactions. This case study compares the history of human-lion interactions in the neighboring spaces of Etosha National Park and the Kaokoveld ‘ethnic homeland,’ emphasizing the mid-twentieth century. I begin by reviewing the long history of human-lion interactions in northwest Namibia. This long history indicates that human-lion interactions were altered by the arrival of livestock in the region. Though human-livestock- lion interactions were generally agonistic, the rise of wildlife conservation in the 1940s-50s gave birth to

1 B. Jones, 'The Evolution of a Community-Based Approach to Wildlife Management at Kunene, Namibia,' in African Wildlife & Livelihoods: The Promise and Performance of Community Conservation, ed. D. Hulme and M. Murphree (Oxford, 2001), 160–76; G. Owen-Smith, An Arid Eden: A Personal Account of Conservation in the Kaokoveld (Johannesburg, 2010). 2 J. Heydinger, C. Packer, and J. Tsaneb, 'Desert-Adapted Lions on Communal Land: Surveying the Costs Incurred by, and Perspectives of, Communal-Area Livestock Owners in Northwest Namibia,' Biological Conservation 236 (2019): 496–504; Namibia Ministry of Environment and Tourism, 'Human-Lion Conflict Management Plan for North West Namibia' (Windhoek, 2017).

Submitted for Review – Not for Circulation what became modern-day Etosha National Park as a space where lions thrived. In contrast, Kaokoveld remained a space inhabited by people and livestock; there lions nearly disappeared. These spatially distinct human-lion relationships yielded dissimilar outcomes for lions’ survival and HLC. I close by showing that HLC on communal land within modern-day Kaokoveld remains a challenge to the viability of the region’s lion population and continues to undermine pastoral livelihoods. Human-lion interactions in northwest Namibia have only recently become a topic of study. Historical source material is thus diverse in format. I have recovered colonial-era accounts of human-lion interactions from Namibia’s National Archives. Nineteenth and early-twentieth century encounters between European ‘explorers’ and lions provide glimpses into the northwest before widespread settler incursion. Grey literature and limited-circulation documents indicate the extent of lion range, and detail lion conservation efforts within Etosha and Kaokoveld. Oral accounts of communal pastoralists, which I have collected and are also drawn from published anthropological work, help reconstruct contemporary and historical human-lion interactions.3 Interpretation of primary sources are colored by secondary literature, primarily from the fields of human-animal studies and published scientific studies of lions. I draw upon these sources, as well as my own interpretive lens developed through more than three years of lion conservation and community extension work in northwest Namibia. My commitment to providing historically-informed perspectives on human-lion interactions, and lion conservation, contributes to locally- centered strategies for addressing HLC as well as human-predator histories of colonial era Africa. The specificity of treating human-lion interactions in northwest Namibia is itself an important aspect of this study. Lions and humans are highly adaptable, dynamic, historical entities. It follows that human-lion interactions will be site-specific.

3 Heydinger, J. (2020) Humans, Livestock, and Lions in northwest Namibia. PhD thesis. Macquarie University/University of Minnesota.

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Map of northwest Namibia, created by author.

HUMAN-PREDATOR HISTORIOGRAPHY Human-animal scholar Etienne Benson has shown hierarchical understandings of human over animal improperly conceptualize human-animal relationships.4 Human-animal histories account for animal agency and question the categories into which people place animals. Works by Tim Ingold and Donna Haraway provide useful introductions to the human-animal studies field.5 In particular, this article contributes to scholarship examining historical human-predator interactions. Peter Boomgaard’s study of tigers (Panthera

4 E. Benson, 'Animal Writes: Historiography, Disciplinarity, and the Animal Trace,' Making Animal Meaning, 2011. 5 T. Ingold, What Is an Animal? (London, 1988); D. Haraway, When Species Meet (Minneapolis, 2008).

Submitted for Review – Not for Circulation tigris) as dynamic historical entities in the Malay world, has provided a useful guide for interpreting human- lion interactions across different social settings.6 This article applies Boomgaard’s insight that humans, big cats, and landscapes are interwoven dynamic entities; in this case contrasting wildlife designated areas with spaces shared by lions and pastoralists. Jon Coleman’s history of settler-wolf (Canis lupus) interactions reveals the colonization of North America to be ‘a profoundly zoological event;’ one that pitted wolves and settlers against each other in a ‘battle of reproduction.’7 Coleman’s emphasis on livestock as a mediating factor is applied here. However, Coleman is largely mute on interactions between predators and differently positioned (human) groups. Anthropologist Marcus Baynes-Rock examines how people and spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta) in Harar, Ethiopia, engage in a mutual ‘co-shaping.’8 Baynes-Rock’s emphasis on (human) culture as an interpretive lens of human-predator interactions is deepened by my emphasis on political, geographic, and historical comparison. Mahesh Rangarajan’s differentiation of human-lion interactions along socioeconomic positions reveals how livestock, and the danger lions pose to them, can reinforce positions of power and vulnerability.9 Michael Wise’s history of human-wolf relations in the United States’ northern Rockies shows how categories such as predator, and the human-imbued implications of these categories, are historically constructed.10 Wise explores the cultural, as well as biological, valence of human-nonhuman boundaries. I show that human-lion interactions were interwoven with ideologies of human safety, livelihood security, and dominance within colonial landscapes. Human actions regarding lions depended greatly on the historical and geographic setting of human-(livestock-)lion interactions. As noted by geographer Steve Hinchliffe, where species meet is as important as when or how.11 Livestock owners generally found lions fearsome and destructive, while in the second half of the twentieth century, professional conservationists began implementing efforts to protect them.

HISTORICAL HUMAN-LION INTERACTIONS Recent human-lion history is primarily defined by lion disappearance and human-centered accounts of lion destruction. Wild lions’ confinement to Africa (save a remnant population in India) is an historical aberration. From 130,000-10,000 years ago lions had the greatest intercontinental range of any large

6 P. Boomgaard, Frontiers of Fear: Tigers and People in the Malay World, 1600-1950 (New Haven, 2001). 7 J. Coleman, Vicious: Wolves and Men in America (New Haven, 2004), 196. 8 M. Baynes-Rock, 'Hyenas like Us: Social Relations with an Urban Carnivore in Harar, Ethiopia' (Macquarie University, 2012). 9 M. Rangarajan, 'Animals with Rich Histories: The Case of the Lions of Gir Forest, Gujarat, India,' History and Theory 52, no. 4 (2013): 109–27. 10 M. Wise, Producing Predators: Wolves, Work, and Conquest in the Northern Rockies (Lincoln, 2016). 11 S. Hinchliffe, 'Where Species Meet,' Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 28, no. 1 (2010): 34–35.

Submitted for Review – Not for Circulation mammal, excepting humans.12 The American lion13 was eradicated approximately 11,000 years ago, while the last European lion was killed in Greece in approximately 100 CE.14 Lions inhabited such arid environments as the Aïr Mountains of Niger until ca. 1910 and may have persisted in the Barbary coastal regions until the 1960s.15 Within the English-speaking world, early popular accounts of human-lion interactions came from British and American hunters traveling in present-day Kenya and Tanzania. The writings of John Patterson, popular accounts of US President Theodore Roosevelt’s safaris, and works by Ernest Hemingway, characterize human-lion interactions as typically violent. Within such accounts, traditional western masculinity triumphs over primeval nature.16 More recent scientific perspectives began demythologizing lions. These too came primarily from Kenya and Tanzania. Biologist George Schaller’s The Serengeti Lion, was among the first high-profile scientific works, and became the standard understanding of lion behavior, ecology, and sociality for a generation.17 In 1978, Craig Packer took over the Serengeti Lion Project, which he directed for more than 30 years, authoring dozens of scientific and popular articles, and two books on lions in the area. As a result of these high-profile, long-lasting studies, lions from these areas are the longest-studied, most publicized, and most consistently conserved populations in the world. The geography of remnant lion populations is affected by these and other colonial-era legacies. In the twenty-first century lion range has been reduced to approximately ten percent of their historically- recorded range and has decreased by 43 per cent in the past three (lion) generations. There are only 20,000- 30,000 free-ranging lions in Africa. As many as half of these reside in East Africa, primarily within Serengeti or similar grassland ecosystems.18 In contrast, the unrest following decolonization of other formerly lion-rich places, such as West Africa, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique, and the lingering effects of apartheid in South Africa and Namibia, often kept information about lions in these places from reaching international audiences. As a result, well-financed conservation efforts were slower to arrive in these places.

12 A. Antunes et al., 'The Evolutionary Dynamics of the Lion Panthera Leo Revealed by Host and Viral Population Genomics,' PLoS Genetics 4, no. 11 (2008): 1–11. 13 Disagreement exists over whether American (P. l. atrox) and European (P. l. spelaea) lions should be considered as separate species. See: R. Barnett et al., 'Mitogenomics of the Extinct Cave Lion, Panthera Spelaea (Goldfuss, 1810), Resolve Its Position within the Panthera Cats,' Open Quaternary 2 (2016): 1–11. 14 R. Smithers, Mammals of the Southern African Subregion (Pretoria, 1983), 375. 15 S. Haas, V. Hayssen, and P. Krausman, 'Panthera Leo,' Mammalian Species, no. 762 (2005): 1–11; S. Black et al., 'Examining the Extinction of the Barbary Lion and Its Implications for Felid Conservation,' PLoS ONE 8, no. 4 (2013): 2–13. 16 J. Patterson, The Man-Eaters of Tsavo, and Other East African Adventures (London, 1907); R. Neumann, 'Churchill and Roosevelt in Africa: Performing and Writing Landscapes of Race, Empire, and Nation,' Annals of the Association of American Geographers 103, no. 6 (2013): 1371–88; E. Hemingway, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, and Other Stories (New York, 1986). 17 G. Schaller, The Serengeti Lion: A Study in Predator-Prey Relations (Chicago, 1972). 18 IUCN SSC Cat Specialist Group, 'Guidelines for the Conservation of Lions in Africa, Version 1.0' (Muri/Bern, 2018).

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It is within many of these countries where conservationists are attempting to arrest lion population freefalls. Yet many of these countries contain lions inhabiting radically different environments than Serengeti, including the forests of West Africa and Mozambique and the deserts of Botswana and northwest Namibia. Workable solutions to lion conservation challenges in these countries will have to be tailored to each environmental and sociopolitical setting. This includes a thorough examination of human-lion interactions within these areas. This article provides the first overview of the history of human-lion interactions in northwest Namibia.

THE SHARED LANDSCAPE The tenor of human-lion interactions in northwest Namibia is greatly influenced by the presence or absence of livestock. Genetic evidence indicates that lions have inhabited northwest Namibia for tens of thousands of years.19 Humans moving throughout northwest Namibia’s arid and semiarid ecosystems, have long found lions to be a familiar feature of the landscape. Certainly, the artist who inscribed the ‘Lion-man’ at Twyfelfontein some 2,000 years ago was familiar with lions, and may have recognized a kinship between humans and lions.20

‘Lion-Man’ of Twyfeltontein. Source: flickr.com

Prior to the widespread arrival of pastoralists, northwestern Namibia was primarily inhabited by small bands of highly-mobile Khoe-Sān hunter-gatherers. Recent anthropological work with the Hai||om, a Khoe-Sān group residing in the Etosha region, suggests that lions and hunter-gathers could maintain somewhat

19 Antunes et al., 'The Evolutionary Dynamics'. 20 UNESCO, 'Twyfelfontein or /Ui-//Aes,' World Heritage List, 2019, http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1255/.

Submitted for Review – Not for Circulation collegial relationships. Speaking with four elder Hai||om in the early-2000s, anthropologist Ute Dieckmann recorded memories of lions and humans each recognizing the others’ dominance based upon different times of day or night. One man remembered that,

‘We even shared meat with the lions. In the daytime we took their meat and at night we served them our wounded game!’ Another elaborates that ‘the lions were regarded as “colleagues,” if not friends.’ And if they tried to attack them? Kadison explains that there was a saying shouted at approaching lions: ‘||Gaisi ai!nakarasa!’, meaning ‘You ugly face, go away!’21

During their research on Serengeti lions, Schaller and anthropologist Gordon Lowther examined the role of cooperative hunting in the development of social predators, including hominids. Among their insights was that hominids could avoid violent encounters with lions by virtue of being primarily diurnal. Because lions are primarily nocturnal and ‘little inclined to attack during the day,’ groups of hominid hunter-gatherers could cautiously move through the landscape during daylight hours. Schaller and Lowther put this proposition to the test by stalking game and scavenging carcasses in Serengeti on foot. Analogizing their experiences to early hominids, Schaller and Lowther concluded that,

If they kept in open country, away from thickets in which lions often rest, and traveled in groups, a practice which would increase their rank in the inter-specific predator hierarchy, hominids would probably have been molested only rarely. Even when encountering a predator at close quarters, they could have put it to flight by using such typical primate intimidation displays as vocalizing and throwing and shaking branches, a technique effective against today's predators.22

Schaller and Lowther present compelling evidence that, in the absence of livestock, hominids and lions are not necessarily antagonists. This perspective is supported by field work in northwest Namibia. On numerous occasions lions avoided small groups of people traveling on foot during the daytime. In contrast, lions were much bolder at night, sometimes investigating groups of people, including walking directly up to the open windows of an unfamiliar research vehicle.23 A sense of familiarity with lions, and the changing tenor of

21 R. van Schalkwyk and H. Berry, eds., Etosha 100: Celebrating a Hundred Years of Conservation. (Windhoek, 2007), 66; 73. 22 G. Schaller and G. Lowther, 'The Relevance of Carnivore Behavior to the Study of Early Hominids,' Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 25, no. 4 (1969): 330. 23 Personal observation.

Submitted for Review – Not for Circulation human-lion interactions based upon the presence of livestock, remained an important factor among the region’s Himba residents of Puros in the twentieth century,

Those of us who have lived with lion know that, like all animals, and indeed like people, each lion is different. Most lions cannot be allowed to remain near stock. They are killers of cattle and must die. Others who do not know cattle may be timid and leave cattle to graze in peace.24

LIVESTOCK AND LIONS The mediation of livestock transformed human-lion interactions. One local pastoralist put the matter succinctly: ‘If you are only a person you can live with lions. But if you are having livestock, then it is not good.’25 Not as adapted to resisting predators, domesticated livestock represented a potential boon to the region’s lions, as livestock have for predators in other settings. Coleman theorized that the arrival of livestock in the New World introduced a new type of relationship between humans and predators; one that predators were ill-equipped to navigate. ‘Wild’ animals generally evince a great fear of humans, and with good reason: for thousands of years avoidance of people has been an important survival skill. However, predators generally evolved no such fear of livestock – human property. Coleman shows that the reproduction of livestock, and by extension the reproduction of human society, lay at the heart of human-wolf conflict. This led to a ‘communication disaster.’ He writes that,

Wolves had enough sensibility to retreat from people, but they had no way of knowing that some humans’ notion of territoriality extended to the exotic beasts they imported. When they sank their teeth into cows, pigs, and sheep, wolves committed sins unimaginable to them.26

Coleman further refines the point: ‘Wolves and people were not natural enemies. The humans’ relationship with other animals established their rivalry with wolves.’27 Also writing about colonial New England, historian Virginia DeJohn Anderson discusses livestock as ‘a form of capital, a source of income, and a potential liability.’28 As a repository of wealth livestock has advantages, including relative mobility and

24 M. Jacobsohn, Himba: Nomads of Namibia (Cape Town, 1998), 47. 25 Interview with Anabeb Pastoralist #8, 25 October 2017. 26 Coleman, Vicious, 36. 27 Coleman, 49. 28 V. DeJohn Anderson, Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America (Oxford, 2004), 88.

Submitted for Review – Not for Circulation value in both consumption and trade. However, as a living or ‘lively commodity,’ an important disadvantage is that it is worth significantly less dead, than alive.29 When lions attack livestock they constrain human livelihoods, thereby threatening individual and family resilience. Furthermore, domesticated animals are imbued with different meanings by differently positioned people. The familial, even spiritual importance of livestock to pastoral communities, including those residing in northwest Namibia, has been extensively documented. More than simply commodities rendering access to meat, milk, and cash, cattle in particular serve as embodiments of nonmaterial values and historical continuities.30 Because they also threatened human lives, lions would have been seen as particularly dangerous and destructive among earlier pastoralists.31 Livestock arrived in south-western Africa in waves, likely beginning in the last few centuries BCE.32 In northwest Namibia, a region without meaningful agricultural prospects due to its aridity, the arrival of livestock was significant but the adoption of intensive pastoralism took time. There is ample archaeological evidence that sheep were present in the northern Namib desert two thousand years ago. Cattle arrived later, likely not in large numbers until the last one thousand years.33 While indigenous veld goats and Damara sheep – weighing an average 29-32 kg and 50-90 kg respectively – could satisfy a small group of lions for a day or two, large-bodied cattle – 300-600 kg – could have satisfied a pride for a number of days.34 As uniquely large-bodied predators that hunt cooperatively, the introduction of livestock to the northern Namib would have been a boon for lions.35 Historian William Beinart has shown that predators in South Africa’s Cape quickly identified and adapted to the novel opportunities of preying-upon slower, less dangerous animals that began crowding-out wild prey species. As Rangarajan has noted of livestock predation in India’s Gir Forest, ‘herding of sheep, cattle, and goats offered large cats and canids easy meat on the hoof...That lions should hunt cattle was only logical.’36 Evidence for intensive pastoralism in northwest Namibia increases in the sixteenth century, coinciding with the arrival of the ovaHerero people. With the ovaHerero came large numbers of cattle. The

29 M. Barua, 'Lively Commodities and Encounter Value,' Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 34, no. 4 (2016): 725–44. 30 e.g. A. Smith, Pastoralism in Africa: Origins and Development Ecology (London, 1992); H. Luttig, The Religious System and Social Organization of the Herero: A Study in Bantu Culture (Utrecht, 1933); Jacobsohn, Himba. 31 W. Beinart, 'The Night of the Jackal: Sheep, Pastures and Predators in the Cape,' Past & Present 158 (1998): 172– 206. 32 K. Sadr, 'Livestock First Reached Southern Africa in Two Separate Events,' PLoS ONE 10, no. 8 (2015): e0134215. 33 J. Kinahan, 'Archaeological Evidence of Domestic Sheep in the Namib Desert During the First Millennium AD,' Journal of African Archaeology 14, no. 1 (2016): 7–17; J. Kinahan, 'The Origins and Spread of Pastoralism in Southern Africa,' Oxford Research Encyclopedia, African History, 2019. 34 Schaller, Serengeti. 35 C. Packer, D. Scheel, and A. Pusey, 'Why Lions Form Groups: Food Is Not Enough,' The American Naturalist 136, no. 1 (1990): 1–19. 36 Rangarajan, 'Animals,' 113.

Submitted for Review – Not for Circulation threat posed by pastoralists’ bow-and-arrows, spears, and botanical poisons would have been little deterrent to the relative caloric bonanza that goats and sheep, and particularly cattle represented for lions. The economic value of a growing cattle culture was reinforced by European ships moving along the Skeleton Coast on their way to and from the Cape, seeking beef for the ocean voyage. To benefit from this demand, Khoe-Sān pastoralists maintained stock camps near Walvis Bay throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. However, without sufficient water or suitable forage nearby, and to keep their herds removed from rapacious traders, these pastoralists trekked with their stock from further inland.37 These drives, with livestock and people sleeping in the open, would have been an opportune time for predators.38 This period drew humans, livestock, and lions in northwest Namibia into a feedback loop increasingly interweaving international markets, livestock predation, and HLC. Whereas before the threat of lions to livestock may have been considered too great to make such dangerous treks, access to trade commodities would have ameliorated some of the material effects of livestock loss. As lions turned towards more densely populated herds of docile livestock, I suggest that hunting success improved and lion numbers in the region increased.

EUROPEANS AND ‘MAN-EATERS’ Western accounts of lions in northwest Namibia began with Francis Galton and C. J. Andersson, who ventured into what they called Damaraland north of the Omaruru River in 1853. While traveling there, Andersson recorded periodic interactions with lions, who were drawn by his party’s retinue of livestock.39 Andersson emphasized the human-eating propensities of the area’s substantive lion population; which caused great fear and loathing among the local people. A typical incident of panic was described when lions stalked and eventually overtook his partner’s party,

the screechings of the terrified women and children...the hallooings of the men, the rush of the cattle and the sheep, firebrands whizzing through the air, the discharge of fire-arms, the growls of the lions, and other discordant noises, the scene was one which baffles description.40

The people’s fear was well-founded: Andersson recounts a separate incident when a man in his employ was carried-off,

37 J. Kinahan, 'Cattle Paths and the Choreography of Late Pre-Colonial Contact and Trade on the Namib Desert Coast,' South African Archaeological Bulletin 69, no. 199 (2014): 96–102. 38 M. Wallace and J. Kinahan, A History of Namibia: From the Beginning to 1990 (New York, 2011), 35–36. 39 C. Andersson, Lake Ngami; or, Explorations and Discoveries during Four Years’ Wanderings in the Wilds of Southwestern Africa. (New York, 1856), 53. 40 C. Andersson, The Okavango River: A Narrative of Travel, Exploration, and Adventure. (New York, 1861), 140.

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‘there arose an awful scream, followed by a death-like groan, such as I shall never forget…Two lions had entered the enclosures and succeeded in carrying away a poor fellow, whom they tore to pieces and devoured a short distance from our camp.’41

Why certain lion populations develop the propensity for human-eating is unknown. One possibility is that the increased proximity of lions to livestock herds also increases the frequency of HLC, subsequently giving rise to human-eating. In the past hundred-plus years, certain lions’ penchant for preying-upon people has been extensively documented, particularly among rural communities in East Africa. Most famously, a pair of maneless lions terrorized workers on the Kenya-Uganda railway in 1898. Between 1932 and 1947, lions in the Njombe district of southern Tanzania killed an estimated 1500 people before the pride was eradicated. Between 1990 and 2004, lions killed at least 563 people and injured more than 308 in Tanzania.42 Available evidence suggests that human-eating is a habitual action, culturally specific to different lion populations. Once it takes hold the only known remedy has been to erase that cultural memory by eradicating the particular group.43 Andersson’s dramatic accounts are most properly understood as one outsider’s historically contingent (and financially-motivated) narratives of human-livestock-lion interactions. The number of lions encountered by Andersson and other nineteenth century European ‘explorers’ in Namibia may have been an historical anomaly driven by the growth of pastoralism over the previous few hundred years. Nevertheless, given the locals’ familiarity with and fear of lions, it is likely that lions had long caused considerable harm to local people and their livestock.

LION DISAPPEARANCE AND RETURN IN ETOSHA Contextualizing the dynamic history of human-lion interactions is important when assessing not only the rise, but disappearance of human-eating. From the late-nineteenth to early-twentieth century, white settlers in Namibia eradicated lions from white-controlled landscapes. Among the earliest records include Francis Galton’s account in which he notes his pleasure in ‘exterminat[ing] lions out of the land.’44 The so-called ‘Thirstland Trekkers,’ who journeyed across northwest Namibia into Angola between 1874-188, were eager lion hunters. In letters and diaries, they recorded lions as a menacing and destructive presence throughout

41 Andersson, Okavango, 139. 42 C. Packer, 'Rational Fear,' Natural History, 2009; J. Clarke, Save Me from the Lion’s Mouth: Exposing Human- Wildlife Conflict in Africa (Cape Town, 2012), 47. 43 Packer, 'Rational.' 44 F. Galton, The Narrative of an Explorer in Tropical South Africa (John Murray, 1853), 285.

Submitted for Review – Not for Circulation southern Botswana and the Etosha region. However, as the trekkers moved into the African-controlled Kaokoveld, lions gave little trouble, even though the trekkers ‘hunted a great deal’ while there.45 As Europeans moved further into the northwest, they destroyed lions in untold numbers. Axel Eriksson, who was among the area’s first white settlers (1866-1901) was known to be a fearsome and experienced lion hunter.46 A successful lion hunter was a man to be reckoned with and numerous men made their name as lion killers. This occurred with assistance from the colonial government. Lions and other predators were seen to endanger settler livelihoods, and, by extension, the economy of (German) South West Africa.47 Accounts centered around the Etosha Pan suggests that lions there came under intense persecution. A farmer residing near Outjo, Herr Kiekebusch, was considered ‘a great lion hunter.’48 Karl Hartmann, who died in 1945/6, at the age of 65, in a confrontation with a lion he wounded, was reputed to have killed at least fifty lions.49 For many farmers the destruction of lions was a matter of course, masculinity, and pride. Taking risks to protect one’s family and livestock was considered a badge of courage. More often than not it was the lions who died; surrendering their heads and skins to be prominently displayed at farms or within homes.50 Lion killing was not confined to the defense of families and livestock. German soldiers based at Fort Namutoni, relieved hours of boredom in the remote veld by shooting lions from observation towers and generally eradicated wildlife in the area.51 Such destructive practices coincided with the disappearance of human-eating and resulted in a dramatic decline of lions in the Etosha area. In the early twentieth century white settler numbers rose dramatically and human-lion interactions were increasingly interwoven with racialized politics and land-use designations.52 In 1907 efforts to protect the white livestock economy led to policies demarcating specific areas for settlers, Africans, and wildlife; the last of which was conceptualized as an economic and social resource.53 Among the areas set-aside, the largest was ‘Wildschutzgebiet Nr. 2.’ Originally encompassing the latter-day ‘ethnic homelands’ of Kaokoveld and Damaraland, as well as Etosha, Game Reserve No. 2, was approximately 88,000 km2;

45 N. Stassen, The Thirstland Trek, 1874-1881 (Pretoria, 2016), 140; 378; 386; P. Möller, Journey in Africa through Angola, Ovampoland and Damaraland, ed. I. Rudner and J. Rudner (Cape Town, 1899), 140. 46 Möller, Journey, 62. 47 Namibia National Archives, Windhoek, South West Africa Administration (SWAA) 1349 Government of South West Africa, 'Draft Game Preservation Proclamation,' Deputy Commissioner South West Africa Police 1921. 48 L. Green, Lords of the Last Frontier: The Story of South West Africa and Its People of All Races (Cape Town, 1952), 126. 49 Green, Lords, 136. 50 SWAA 2329, Letter from Rudolph Böhme, Onguma Farm to the Office of the Administrator, Windhoek, 23 June 1952. 51 Green, Lords, 129; Schalkwyk and Berry, Etosha, 46. 52 C. Botha, 'The Politics of Land Settlement in Namibia, 1890–1960,' South African Historical Journal 42, no. 1 (2000): 232–76. 53 M. Bollig and E. Olwage, 'The Political Ecology of Hunting in Namibia’s Kaokoveld: From Dorsland Trekkers’ Elephant Hunts to Trophy-Hunting in Contemporary Conservancies,' Journal of Contemporary African Studies 34, no. 1 (2016): 1–19; G. Miescher, Namibia’s Red Line: The History of a Veterinary and Settlement Border (New York, 2012).

Submitted for Review – Not for Circulation making it the world’s largest game reserve at the time. The formation of Game Reserve No. 2 was part of a broader trend in southern Africa of designating vast tracts of African-controlled land for the protection of charismatic wildlife.54 It also limited mobility among the region’s settler and ‘native’ inhabitants and increased state surveillance. The southern border of the reserve delineated the extent of German, and later South African, colonial possession: spaces to the north were considered terra incognita – ‘too rough and mountainous for European occupation.’55 By 1912, lions had become so rare around Etosha that when Lieutenant Adolf Fisher heard them roaring in the distance from Namutoni, it was the first evidence of lions there in years.56 Rudolph Böhme, a long-time resident of Onguma farm bordering eastern Etosha, noted in a letter to Etosha’s Game Warden in 1952 that there were no lions in the area when he was young, until 1917. However, lions were never completely extirpated from northwest Namibia. As humans and their livestock were increasingly disallowed from the Etosha area, lions returned. In 1924, on a museum expedition to Ovamboland, G. C. Shortridge noted that lions were rare, but still immigrated from “the South and West from the Kaokoveld and Etosha Pan areas, in the second of which districts, owing to trapping and poisoning in the Game Reserve, they have been very much thinned out during recent years.”57 In a 1926 wildlife survey, Etosha and Ovamboland were estimated to contain 200 lions total.58 In 1934, Shortridge published an overview of mammals in South West Africa, where he showed lions to be present around Etosha and increasingly plentiful further north, though uncommon in Kaokoveld.59 As Böhme noted, even during his youth when his farm was free of lions, they persisted beyond the limits of white-owned farmland in Kaokoveld.60 During the 1930s, the colonial administration changed its stance on killing lions around Etosha. As late as 1936, lions were classified among ‘vermin’ and still hunted by the area’s ‘vermin clubs’ – associations of white settlers who received administration support to destroy predators.61 In 1936, the law classifying lions and other predators as vermin was repealed. When this occurred, the status of lions within Namutoni (Etosha) Game Reserve was unclear. Though no longer classified as vermin, they were not

54 William M. Adams, Against Extinction: The Story of Conservation (Earthscan, 2004); Jane Carruthers, The Kruger National Park: A Social and Political History (University of Natal Press, 1995). 55 SWAA 1168, 'Removal of Unauthorized Squatters in Southern Kaokoveld - Extension of the Northern Reserves Etc.' from Native Commissioner, Ovamboland to Secretary SWA. 7 Jan. 1926. 56 H. Berry, 'Historical Review of the Etosha Region and It Subsequent Administration as a National Park,' Madoqua 20, no. 1 (1997): 5; Schalkwyk and Berry, Etosha, 46. 57 SWAA 1331, 'The Third Percy Sladen and Kaffrarian Museum Expedition "Ovambloland".' 1924. 58 Berry, 'Historical' 59 G. Shortridge, The Mammals of South West Africa, (London, 1934). 60 SWAA 2331, 'Destruction of Lions' Letter from Mr. R. Böhme, Onguma, Tsumeb. 7 March 1952; SWAA 2329, 'Proposed Extermination of Lions, Etosha Pan Game Reserve' Secretary South West Africa to Magistrate, Grootfontein. 21 Apr. 1952. 61 e.g. SWAA 2330, Otjovasandu Vermin Hunt Club. Official Correspondence, Magistrate Outjo and Secretary South West Africa 1937; SWAA 2328, 'Grootfontein Farmers’ Association: Destruction of Vermin.' Official Correspondence: Magistrate Grootfontein to Secretary South West Africa. 20 Mar. 1935.

Submitted for Review – Not for Circulation explicitly protected. This enabled whites passing through the reserve to shoot lions without a permit or fear of legal penalty. From July to August 1938, the Native Commissioner for Ovamboland, who also served as the Namutoni warden, convinced the Secretary for South West Africa to strictly enforce an existing prohibition against shooting within the reserve. Though this would nominally protect lions within the reserve, they could still be killed ‘in defence of human life or to prevent the infliction of personal injury.’62 As Wise has pointed out of human-predator relations in the northern Rockies, how humans categorize predators has important effects on how predators are conceptualized within the framework of a human- controlled world.63 Declassifying lions as vermin was an important step within the process of white South West Africa’s developing conservation ethos around lions, which led to lions being classified among ‘specially protected’ species (Nature Conservation Act, No. 4/1975). However, on private (white-owned) land, lions remained fair quarry. Nearly exterminated from white farmland, during the 1940s lions became an increasingly high- profile attraction to Etosha tourists.64 Concurrently, they still caused fear and destruction among African pastoral communities. This disparity had lasting effects on the geographic distribution of lions and other predators in Namibia; leading to a spatially-explicit divergence in human-lion interactions that continued throughout the South African colonial period.

PERSISTENCE IN KAOKOVELD During the colonial period, African pastoralists’ struggles with lions and other predators were largely ignored by government officials. From the beginning of formal South Africa rule (1920) ‘natives’ were confined to reserves such as Kaokoveld, which, until 1947, was administered as part of Game Reserve No. 2. From the 1920s to 1950s numerous pleas came from Kaokoveld inhabitants for government assistance in dealing with lions that were killing livestock. Though no comprehensive records exist, human-eating and HLC persisted far longer in Kaokoveld than in neighboring white-owned farmland. Reports of lions destroying livestock and injuring people were typical of a prevailing climate of fear among Kaokoveld pastoralists. Yet, officials’ unwillingness to provide assistance left African residents with little recourse but to fend for themselves. In a 1942 Annual Report the Officer-in-Charge of Native Affairs for Kaokoveld noted that, ‘[i]t is not possible to ascertain how many animals were killed by lions

62 SWAA 2328, 'Protection of Vermin and Wild Life in Namutoni Game Reserve.' Secretary South West Africa, 30 Aug. 1938; SWAA 2328, 'Protection of Vermin and Wild Life in Namutoni Game Reserve.' Official Correspondence: Secretary South West Africa and Commissioner South West Africa Police, 11 Jul. 1938. 63 Wise, Producing. 64 Namibia National Archives, Windhoek, Native Affairs Administration - Ovamboland (NAO 066), 'Game Control' Official Correspondence, South African Police, Namutoni to Native Commissioner, Ovamboland, 12 Dec. 1947.

Submitted for Review – Not for Circulation and hyenas, but, the natives maintain that they have sustained very heavy losses in both large and small stock through carnivores.’65 Another official described lions and other predators as having been, ‘troublesome during the year and the natives frequently bring in reports of the losses sustained by them, in both large and small stock[.]’66 In the early 1940s a local authority at Sesfontein was killed by lions.67 Whereas settlers were given access to firearms and poison, African access to these deterrents was tightly controlled. What few communities that had firearms often relied upon a single one, and requested ammunition from the government. On rare occasions as little as five to ten rounds were issued. Africans were not trusted to use industrial-grade poisons appropriately (though many would have known how to create plant-based poisons).68 This forced Kaokoveld residents to find their own solutions – yielding predictably tragic results. Armed only with spears, certain residents confronted lions. As one report stated,

This usually results in several of the hunters being mauled. Only a few days ago [a Himba] was treated for an arm wound caused by a lion, and he intimated that two of his less fortunate comrades were laid up with more serious wounds[.]69

Human-eating also persisted in Kaokoveld. In 2017, an elder man remembered his own fearful encounter, ‘[w]hen I was a young man, I was with a man who was attacked by a lion.’70 Another shared this story,

One man was looking for honey, he went out with a donkey. He went into the mountains and was camping there and the lions killed him there. The people around here were looking for him, looking for him. But they didn’t find him. My father went into the mountains to get some honey also and saw the bones [of the man] lying there and brought the bones back so they could bury the bones. This is when I was a very young person – my father told me about this.71

65 NAO 029, 'Annual Report of Native Affairs' Officer in Charge of Native Affairs, Kaokoveld to Chief Native Commissioner, Windhoek, 8 Dec. 1942. 66 NAO 029, 'Kaokoveld Annual Report: 1944' Officer in Charge of Native Affairs, Kaokoveld to Chief Native Commissioner, Windhoek, 20 Dec. 1944. 67 Green, Lords, 42. 68 SWAA 2328, 'Destruction of Vermin: Otjohorongo Reserve' Native Commissioner Omaruru to Chief Native Commissioner, 31 Aug. 1945; NAO 031, 'Zessfontein Native Reserve: Application by Natives for Strychnine' Officer in Charge of Native Affairs, Kaokoveld to Chief Native Commissioner, Windhoek, 14 Dec. 1943; Interview with Conservancy Leader #6, 15 November 2017. 69 NAO 061, 'Kaokoveld Annual Report, 1946,' Officer in Charge, Native Affairs, Kaokoveld to Chief Native Commissioner, Windhoek, 23 Dec. 1946. 70 Interview with Puros Pastoralist #4, 1 December 2017. 71 Interview with Sesfontein Pastoralist #6, 24 November 2017.

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Complaints occurred frequently enough that a category detailing human-predator problems, termed ‘Carnivora,’ became standard within officials’ quarterly and annual reports.72 Officials’ lack of action in assisting pastoralists who struggled with lion problems indicates their power over livelihoods and African’s well-being. At a meeting with government officials, one Kaokoveld leader succinctly summarized the struggles and inadequate government response,

Here in the Kaokoveld we live only on our livestock…We thank you for the guns we have received. They are not enough. The Kaokoveld is very big. The cartridges are also too few. We have trouble with lions, hyaenas and wild dogs. Vermin has destroyed a lot of our stock...These are our difficulties which we report.73

Even so, many officials remained incredulous, believing livestock loses were exaggerated and occurred because of inattentive herding. In a 1946 Annual Report, the Officer-in-Charge of Native Affairs for Kaokoveld stated his position plainly,

Numerous reports were received of the losses sustained as a result of the onslaughts of carnivora, but I feel convinced that the natives are inclined to exaggerate their losses, and that a high percentage of these losses are due to the carelessness of their herd[er]s, also to the neglect of adequate kraaling at night.74

Yet, government officials residing in Kaokoveld also experienced challenges from predators. Large numbers of cattle kept to provision government staff were attacked by lions and hyenas, prompting the Native Commissioner to ask whether the ‘percentage or even a fraction thereof of losses due to the onslaughts of wild animals takes place all over the Kaokoveld [if so] then the total number of cattle killed by carnivora must be enormous.’75 The dynamic nature of the threat is evident in a series of reports from officials stationed at the Tshimhaka crossing along the Kunene River. In October 1938, lions were reported at the station but said to be ‘of a fearful nature and not tended to mischief.’76 By January lions were

72 e.g. NAO 029, 'Annual Report of Native Affairs 1942,' Officer in Charge of Native Affairs, Kaokoveld to Chief Native Commissioner, Windhoek, 8 Dec. 1942; NAO 029, 'Kaokoveld Annual Report: 1944,' Officer in Charge of Native Affairs, Kaokoveld to Chief Native Commissioner, Windhoek, 20 Dec. 1944. 73 NAO 061, 'Inspection Report: Kaokoveld Native Reserve: September-October, 1949,' Native Commissioner, Ovamboland to Chief Native Commissioner, Windhoek, 10 Oct. 1949. 74 NAO 061, 'Kaokoveld Annual Report, 1946. Officer in Charge, Native Affairs, Kaokoveld to Chief Native Commissioner, Windhoek, 23 Dec. 1946' 75 NAO 028, Official Letter, Native Commissioner of Ovamboland, Ondangua to Constable Cogill, 5 Dec. 1932. 76 SWAA 2513, 'Monthly Return: Tshimhaka; October 1938,' Native Commissioner, Ovamboland to Secretary for SWA, 24 Nov. 1938.

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‘frequent[ing] the station’ and becoming ‘very troublesome,’ even injuring an officer’s mule.77 By February the situation had further deteriorated: lions were now ‘favor[ing] Tshimhaka as a hunting grounds. Practically every morning and evening they can be heard roaring all around and quite close to the station.’78 By March the European staff had had enough. Fed up with their remoteness, malarial sickness, and the proximity of lion, rhino, and elephant, the constable wrote:

I suppose I have no say in the matter, but I am certainly not going to stay here much longer, even if I have to take my discharge from the Force. Neither of us has a car here, and are absolutely cut off from all communication with medical aid etc. If a man gets seriously ill here (as is the case at present) he will simply have to die, as it takes at least 8 to 10 days before a message can be got through to anywhere.79

By June the European officers were recalled, though the African staff remained. By December the station closed permanently.80 Yet, given the racist social policies of the era, Kaokoveld’s African residents were unable to depart the region for other rangelands. What the European staff found intolerable was the status quo for thousands of Kaokoveld residents. These records demonstrate the continued willingness of lions to target livestock and humans in Kaokoveld. They also indicate a climate of governmental indifference to the people’s fate. Though interactions between Kaokoveld pastoralists and lions were similar to those of white settlers and lions along Etosha’s borders, the government response was distinctly different. Because native reserves were meant to serve as a reservoir of cheap labor for mines and farms in the white-dominated economy, the loss of livestock to predators and subsequent constraints on African’s livelihoods would have furthered colonial administrators’ economic goals.81 This period of racialized policy ensured the continued presence of lions in Kaokoveld and further entrenched negative feelings towards lions among many local people that would become a challenge for conservationists in coming generations. In the late 1960s, upon observing lions near the Etosha border, governmental official Garth Owen-Smith was requested by his ovaHerero companions to shoot the lions before they could escape. Owen-Smith began to lecture the ovaHereros on the virtues of

77 SWAA 2513, 'Monthly Return: January 1939,' Station Commander SWA Police, Tshimaka, Forwarded by Native Commissioner, Ovamboland to Secretary for SWA, 10 Feb. 1939. 78 SWAA 2513, 'Monthly Report: Kaokoveld: February, 1939. Station Commander SWA Police, Tshimhaka.” 79 SWAA 2513, 'Monthly Return: March, 1939,' Station Commander SWA Police, Tshimhaka to Native Commissioner, Ovamboland, 14 Mar. 1939. 80 SWAA 2513, 'Closing of Station at Tshimhaka,' Official Correspondence, Acting Deputy Commissioner South African Police Force, Commanding the South West African Division to District Commandant, South African Police, Omaruru, 9 Dec. 1939. 81 M. Bollig, 'The Colonial Encapsulation of the North-Western Namibian Pastoral Economy,' Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 68, no. 4 (1998): 506–36.

Submitted for Review – Not for Circulation wildlife conservation, but it was no use: ‘ “Lions are not animals,” they insisted. “They are the devil’s children and should be killed wherever they are.” ’82

CONSERVATION IN ETOSHA In contrast to Kaokoveld, Etosha was devoid of pastoralists and lion numbers there were rebounding, with foreseeable events taking place nearby. Because the reserve’s boundaries were unfenced until the 1950s, lions easily crossed on to neighboring farmland to prey on livestock, only to retreat to safety within the reserve. During the 1940s an estimated eighty lions per year were killed on neighboring farms, leading Rudolph Böhme of Onguma to request the right for farmers to pursue lions into the reserve.83 The administration rejected the request. Not only were lions considered an important tourist attraction, they also helped limit Etosha’s ungulate populations, which were believed to be severely overgrazing reserve grasslands in the 1940s and 50s.84 Peter Stark, who later served as an Etosha ranger, managed Böhme’s farm during this period. Stark claimed to have killed 75 lions during his employment for Böhme, including many within Etosha. In his memoirs years later, Stark would write that, ‘In those days if you asked Nature Conservation for help, your pleas fell on deaf ears…the relationship between Nature Conservation and the farmers was not the best.’85 This put conservationists in Etosha at-odds with both European and African farmers in the surrounding lands. As a relative haven for lions and other wildlife, Etosha was also a space where new human-lion interactions were taking place. Previously the conservation of wildlife within the ‘native reserves’ had been a tertiary consideration behind supporting the settler economy and keeping Africans segregated and pacified.86 The rising interest among Europeans of wildlife viewing, along with a growing postwar economy, supported a small population of domestic tourists interested in seeing lions and other wildlife in Etosha. The growing importance of wildlife conservation in South West Africa caused the native administration and conservation departments to be split, giving rise to the territory’s first professional conservationists. Because the rest of the northern ‘native’ areas were off limits to Europeans, and the vast majority of the white-controlled areas had been converted to farmland, the development of Etosha as a tourist

82 Owen-Smith, Arid, 135. 83 B. de la Bat, 'Etosha: 75 Years,' South West Africa Annual - Supplement, 1982, 16; SWAA 2329, Letter from Rudolph Böhme, Onguma Farm to the Office of the Administrator, Windhoek, 23 June 1952. 84 SWAA 2329, 'Proposed Extermination of Lions, Etosha Pan Game Reserve,' Secretary South West Africa to Magistrate, Grootfontein. 21 Apr. 1952.; Berry, 'Historical Review' 6. 85 P. Stark, The White Bushman (Pretoria, 2011), 38. 86 L. Rizzo, Gender and Colonialism: A History of Kaoko in North-Western Namibia, 1870s-1950s (Switzerland, 2012).

Submitted for Review – Not for Circulation destination brought certain people and lions into closer contact within semi-controlled circumstances. During this period wildlife management was decidedly ad-hoc, leading to a variety of frightening, often surprising, and occasionally humorous interactions between lions and Etosha’s staff and tourists. On one occasion a lioness fell into a half-filled rest camp swimming pool. A quick-thinking witness threw her a dry stump, which she clung to while the pool was refilled; though it is not recorded where the staff hid themselves once she exited. Tourist accommodations were rough-and-ready, often consisting of camping at waterholes near lion prides. At one point two elderly women were confined to a restroom for hours as a pride encircled the structure. A particularly memorable story was when a group of lions surprised the ex- mayor of Windhoek, causing him to take cover under a car so securely that it had to be jacked-up to retrieve him.87 Predictably, not all incidents were humorous. Near the Okondeka waterhole four Ovambo roadworkers were chased up a tree by a group of lions. Three of the four were pulled down and devoured while the other watched. Occasionally unidentified human remains were found, ostensibly of people who attempted to walk through the park. Because Etosha served as a gateway between Ovamboland and available employment further south, some risked the journey on foot. Certain lions became habituated to easy meals and scavenged around rest camps, with the result that many were shot.88 For Etosha tourists in the 1950s, lions were star attractions and the staff worked to satisfy their guests. At the Leeubron (‘lion source’) waterhole, when an emaciated lioness, dubbed ‘Isabella,’ was struggling to feed five cubs, Etosha’s warden instructed staff to provide the group with carcasses of wildebeest and zebra, two species that he considered over-abundant within the reserve. Unsurprisingly this recurring activity attracted other lions, requiring the provisioning of further carcasses to minimize disputes. As feedings became routinized every Wednesday and Saturday night, staff often brought along colleagues or friends to witness the spectacle. Tourists then began lobbying to attend. In time ten tourist vehicles were allowed each night. The ‘lion restaurant’ operated for several years. Predictably, this led to increasingly unsafe interactions between lions and tourists, forcing the restaurant to close. This period not only highlights the changing relationship between lions and people, but, along with experiences in Kaokoveld, underscores the fact that where lions were located greatly affected their treatment by public officials. Not only did Etosha staff not view lions as a threat, they began treating them more akin to domestic animals than wildlife. ‘Isabella’ is the first record of a lion being anthropomorphized with a human name in the region – a practice that would become increasingly common. As Benson has shown, the naming of animals is associated with a set of ethical claims concerning their status as both unique individuals and sentient beings deserving

87 Bat, 'Etosha,' 14. 88 Bat, 'Etosha,' 16; Miescher, Namibia’s, 183–85.

Submitted for Review – Not for Circulation human consideration. The provisioning of ‘Isabella’ reveals the extension of a certain type of care for individual animal welfare directed from humans to lions.89 The 1950s punctuated an era of transformation among human-lion relationships in northwest Namibia. At this point the era of lion conservation begins: when human-lion interactions are increasingly defined by professionals aiming to conserve, not eradicate, lions. This new type of human-lion interaction first benefited lions in Etosha; conservation practices spread to Kaokoveld in later decades. In 1952, Etosha’s warden said the park had too few lions. In 1953 that number was approximately 200. In 1973, Etosha was enclosed by an 850 km perimeter fence, trapping herbivore herds inside and benefitting lions. During the 1970s the number of lions within the park climbed as high as approximately 500.90 Throughout this period, lions exploited gaps in Etosha’s fences, frustrating farmers’ efforts to keep their livestock safe. Henceforth the park would serve as the source of lions in the region. The presence of lions within, and departure from, Etosha, continued to affect human-lion interactions in northwest Namibia.

DISAPPEARANCE IN KAOKOVELD In 1964, Kaokoveld was designated by South Africa’s apartheid government as an ethnic ‘homeland,’ for various groups collectively termed ‘Kaokovelders.’91 There, lions remained largely beyond the view of government conservationists. The eruption of the war for independence in 1966 caused an influx of firearms and industrial poisons from both revolutionary fighters seeking to overthrow South African rule and South African military personnel hoping to curry favor with local leaders.92 During this period, government control over African ownership of firearms and poisons faltered. During the years of heightened military tensions, wildlife in Kaokoveld fended for itself, both against residents seeking provisions, and elite government officials who used the region for sport hunting, including shooting lions and transporting wildlife carcasses via helicopter.93 The effects of these practices were not quantified: no systematic wildlife surveys were performed until 1978 and no government conservationists were posted to Kaokoveld until 1980. During this period information concerning lions was recorded only as scattered accounts and anecdotes. So mysterious were Kaokoveld lions that they were known by reputation as ‘bergleeus’ (mountain lions). Though rarely seen, they were said to be ‘maneless and generally grey in colour, living

89 E. Benson, 'Naming the Ethological Subject,' Science in Context 29, 1 (2016): 107–28. 90 Berry, 'Historical.' 91 Government of South Africa, 'Report of the Commission of Enquiry into South West Africa Affairs' (Pretoria, 1964); N. van Warmelo, 'Ethnological Publication No. 26: Notes on the Kaokoveld (South West Africa) and Its People' (Pretoria, 1951). 92 See: D. Herbstein and J. Evenson, The Devils Are Among Us: The War for Namibia (London, 1989). 93 Owen-Smith, Arid, 189; G. Ferreira, 'Widespread Illegal Hunting in SWA Alleged,' Cape Times, August 4 1977.

Submitted for Review – Not for Circulation in the mountain country.’94 Thought to have been formerly widespread, they were considered greatly reduced by firearms and poison, due to their penchant for killing livestock.95 A key witness to this era was Garth Owen-Smith first posted to Kaokoveld by the Department of Bantu Affairs and Development from 1968-9. Owen-Smith’s anecdotal accounts include finding four dehydrated lion carcasses in the dunes near Cape Fria, and records of locals’ encounters with lions around northern villages and water points. These records provided little more than clues to the persistence and resilience of lions in Kaokoveld. Rare for this time, Owen-Smith, a white South African, sought collegiality, respect, and friendship with Kaokoveld’s African residents. The result is environmental information derived from local people that otherwise would have gone unrecorded. In these accounts lions primarily play the role of fearsome pests, raising the ire of pastoralists who had little patience for their depredations. Lions frequently attacked livestock and were in- turn harassed and killed by residents. This kept lion groups small and highly mobile. Owen-Smith estimated that approximately forty lions resided in Kaokoveld with perhaps a few additional migrants from Etosha.96

The first comprehensive account of lions in Kaokoveld was given by P. J. (‘Slang’) Viljoen in 1980.97 Combining scattered information with more than three years of field observations, Viljoen found that lions, though widespread, were nowhere plentiful in the region. He associated the four remaining lion prides, confined to the far west, with key waterholes; though he believed they covered expansive home ranges. Viljoen estimated that these prides totaled no more than 25, with another thirty in the southeast originating from Etosha. He believed that this represented a notable decline from records collected by Owen-Smith.98 Viljoen conveys a population struggling at the precipice of disappearance,

The status of the lion in Kaoko[veld] is uncertain because it is intensively hunted down. Until recently, the lions were also killed by poison. Only in the inhospitable, uninhabited areas will the lions survive for a while, but with the opening of the area for four-wheel drive vehicles, these lions are no longer safe either.99

Viljoen’s pessimism was prescient: Kaokoveld lions were in trouble. Though his research indicated that lions maintained a stable population there, beginning in 1978/9 drought hit the region. Population estimates for prey species suggest total devastation: mountain zebra (Equus zebra) numbers were reduced by 84 per

94 K. Tinley, 'Etosha and the Kaokoveld,' African Wild Life 25, no. 1 (1971): 16. 95 A. Hall-Martin, C. Walker, and J. du P. Bothma, Kaokoveld: The Last Wilderness (Pretoria, 1988), 32. 96 G. Owen-Smith, 'The Kaokoveld: An Ecological Base for Future Development Planning' (Pretoria, 1971). 97 P. Viljoen, 'Veldtipes, Verspreiding van Die Groter Soogdiere, En Enkele Aspekte van Die Ekologie van Kaokoland' (unpublished MSc thesis, University of Pretoria, 1980). 98 Viljoen, 'Veltipes', 349. 99 Viljoen, 'Veldtipes', 349.

Submitted for Review – Not for Circulation cent, oryx (Oryx gazella) by 87 per cent, springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis) by 96 per cent, and plains zebra (Equus quagga) disappeared entirely. Livestock experienced a similar decline.100 Lions faced starvation. The net effect was that lions and other predators increasingly troubled residents and what livestock remained. In one community a lioness walked on to the schoolgrounds while children were present. Nearby, a group of fourteen lions killed 96 sheep and seventeen goats in one evening. The following day professional hunters were deployed to the farm, where they killed twelve of the fourteen that evening; leaving the remaining two with the belief that the lions might have learned a lesson.101 In early 1982, the last known human fatality occurred when a starving lioness entered the home of a Damara farmer and killed a young child. The lioness was shot in the house by military personnel from the nearby fort, while still consuming the girl’s body.102 These and other incidents engendered a climate of fear. Many of the region’s lions were shot by professional hunters, or shot, trapped, and poisoned by locals. At least 76 lions were killed in the southern part of the region alone.103 The plight of the lions caused some concerned conservationists to suggest feeding them until the prey returned, but this idea was abandoned.104

Desert-adapted lioness in Hoanib river. Photo: AJ Wattamaniuk

100 Owen-Smith, Arid, 364-6. 101 Owen-Smith, Arid, 352–53; Interview with Anabeb Pastoralist #10, 27 July 2017. 102 Interview with Sesfontein Pastoralist #8, 25 November 2017; Interview with Conservancy Leader #3, 11 March 2018; Interview with Conservancy Leader #7, 26 November 2017. 103 M. Reardon, The Besieged Desert: War, Drought, Poaching in the Namib Desert (London, 1986), 34. 104 Owen-Smith, Arid, 358.

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CONCLUSION Throughout the twentieth century human-lion relationships in northwest Namibia were increasingly affected by the policies and practices of white settlers, African pastoralists, and government staff. The presence, or absence, of livestock was a critical factor in setting the tone of human-lion interactions. This resulted in spatially distinct human-(livestock-)lion interactions. By the mid-1980s, the surplus of lions in Etosha was considered a conservation challenge. From 1978-1986, coinciding with an Etosha population between 200-500 individuals, at least 306 lions total, nearly ten per cent annually, were destroyed on neighboring farms. During this period Etosha lions were considered so numerous that some were given contraceptives to reduce the population.105 In contrast, by 1986 it was estimated that only twenty to thirty lions remained in Kaokoveld. By 1991 it was believed that there were no lions in the northwest outside of Etosha.106 Human-lion relationships in northwest Namibia are still often defined by their proximity to the Etosha fence. In 2017, one pastoralist living west of Etosha said that, ‘the lions that are coming into the kraal [and killing livestock] are the ones from Etosha. Because they are staying in[side] the fence and are not afraid of people.’107 During the late 1980s-1990s conflict between lions and pastoralists in Kaokoveld consigned lions to remote and rugged areas. Following the establishment of Skeleton Coast National Park in 1971, stories of lions inhabiting the coast began circulating among park staff. Initially these records were attributed to the occasional vagrant; perhaps a male dispersing from further inland.108 During the ensuing drought of the early 1980s, and resulting high levels of HLC inland, sightings of coastal lions spiked. Nevertheless, by the early 1990s these sightings had ended. By the mid-1990s it was believed that lions no longer inhabited Kaokoveld.109 Only towards the end of the decade was a population of approximately 20 individuals discovered within the remote Kharokhoab mountains. Augmented by lions dispersing from Etosha, this remnant population would recolonize southern Kaokoveld rangelands.110

105 H. Berry, 'Ecological Background and Management Application of Contraception in Free-Living African Lions' (Okaukuejo, 1987). 106 Reardon, Besieged, 40; P. Stander, 'A Suggested Management Strategy for Stock-Raiding Lions in Namibia,' South African Journal of Wildlife Research 20, no. 2 (1990): 38; P. Stander, Vanishing Kings: Lions of the Namib Desert, (Johannesburg, 2018), 46. 107 Interview with Conservancy Leader #7 108 Stander, Vanishing, 32–37; P. Stander, 'Behaviour-Ecology and Conservation of Desert-Adapted Lions; 2007 Progress Report of the Kunene Lion Project, Namibia' (Windhoek, 2007), http://www.the- eis.com/viewfile.php?pth=data/literature/Behaviour_ecology and Conservation of desert_adapted Lions.pdf. 109 Stander, 'Behaviour-Ecology'; P. Bridgeford, “Unusual Diet of the Lion Panthera Leo in the Skeleton Coast Park,” Madoqua 14, no. 2 (1985): 187–88. 110 Stander, Vanishing; Stander, 'Behaviour-Ecology.'

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In the new millennium, northwest Namibia became a wellspring of community-based conservation, in the form of communal conservancies. With the assistance of Namibian government and NGO staff partnering with local conservationists, lions made a comeback. However, HLC is the primary source of lion mortality within communal conservancies. Beginning in 2000, 80 per cent of known (non-cub) mortalities, and 100 per cent of known sub-adult mortalities were due to lions being killed following HLC incidents.111 An increasing number of lions has given rise to the shared conviction among pastoralists that lions are once- again threatening people and livestock. Said one pastoralist,

In the olden days my father and the people living here were killing lions. And so the lions were stealing [livestock and running] because the lion know, ‘if I kill something, they will track me.’ But now, since independence, lions are taking out of the kraal and they are lying there and they are eating.112

These perspectives have created new tensions. Said one pastoralist, ‘The problem of the lion…lions come and kill someone’s cattle that they are living from. Living from the milk or whatever. That is when people are getting angry.’113 Within the region it is acknowledged that government and NGO staff are quick to respond when lions are killed, ‘if I shoot a lion; the helicopter is in the sky. Other vehicle [are coming].’114 This response is considered asymmetric, ‘The government is responding [to livestock deaths] by sending people, maybe one car. But if there is a lion injured, then they will maybe send eight cars.’115 Another pastoralist states the connection between livelihood and lions succinctly, ‘I am becoming poor because of lions.’116 What effect such agonistic feelings portend is unknown. Currently the Etosha population is secure and appears to be augmenting lion numbers on communal land. Further west, lions have again returned to the Skeleton Coast, where they have been seen preying upon marine life.117 In these spaces, where human access is controlled and livestock are prohibited, the population persists. Closer to livestock herds, HLC remains the order of the day. Throughout this history, I have shown that human responses to lions greatly depended the presence or absence of livestock. This suggests strategies for ameliorating HLC that account for pastoralists’ livelihoods and perceptions. Approaches to lion conservation that work in Etosha will be ill-suited to

111 Namibia Ministry of Environment and Tourism, 'Human-Lion Conflict Management.' 112 Interview with Puros Pastoralist #2, 16 November 2017. 113 Interview with Conservancy Leader #1, 20 February 2018. 114 Interview with Conservancy Leader #4, 30 March 2019. 115 Interview with Conservancy Leader #6, 15 November 2017. 116 Interview with Sesfontein Pastoralist #3, 2 December 2017. 117 P. Stander, “Lions (Panthera Leo) Specialising on a Marine Diet in the Skeleton Coast National Park, Namibia,” Namibian Journal of Environment 3 (2019): 1–10.

Submitted for Review – Not for Circulation rangelands containing people and livestock. This history reveals lion survival has been predicated as much upon governmental policies and practices as upon the preventative or retaliatory actions of hunters and farmers. The differentiated expressions of human-lion interactions are a reminder that humans and lions are not inherently enemies, though the interposition of livestock makes coexistence more difficult.