Blog adapted from Wild and Jag article, published July 2015

In the third delivery of the series initiated by Rubin Els of Thaba Tholo to acknowledge the work done by the pioneers of the wildlife industry in Southern Africa, the spotlight falls on Peter Johnstone of Zimbabwe. Peter’s life story portrays his passion for wildlife, the ups and downs of establishing game ranches in Zimbabwe and the cooperation with South African wildlife pioneers.

But let Peter tell his story himself …

I was sitting on the lodge observation deck at my Cawston Wildlife Estate watching the passing parade of animals and, with some alarm, thinking, “How did I get to this ripe old age of 80 years so quickly? I do not feel it!” I feel maybe in my late fifties or younger, still full of life and plans for the long-term development of my wildlife estate. And, not surprisingly, still excited by beautiful and attractive women, not forgetting beautiful trophy animals! What was passing by that got me so happy? Well, two herds of sable, totalling 72 individuals, came to the waterhole from different directions and ten eland bulls sauntered in with six waterbuck cows and two calves, and all the while bushbuck, kudu and very thirsty warthogs streamed in and out of the waterhole. About 24 years ago I had completed the boundary game fence and brought in 800 animals. I had to stock the property with virtually every species of importance that we now have on the ranch. That was the first serious capture and stocking enterprise on a private game ranch in Zimbabwe – a pioneering event of note.

 No silver spoon

The interesting thing is that I am third generation European extraction Zimbabwean and my children fourth generation. I am the first one of my family to own land in this country of our births. I did not get it handed to me for free. I left school with not much more than the clothes I stood up in and my Model-A Ford car (which I had rebuilt) and set off for Gwebi Agricultural College for a two-year stint. Some years later when I had married, I completed a Diploma in Wildlife Ecology by correspondence and tutoring and was pleased to obtain a distinction.

I grew up in the mining town of Wankie in Western Rhodesia. The coal mine was surrounded by state land so there were no farmers there, but quite a lot of wildlife, from elephant down to the smaller antelope. My father enjoyed his job as an engineer on the mine and was able to hunt weekends and holidays, and we often went out after he had come back from work.

Of course in a remote mining town like Wankie, there was no outstanding entrepreneurial spirit to look up to, no such thing as game ranching.

Men talked about cars, hunting and mining, but I heard nothing about business. So I know how my interest in wildlife, hunting and engineering got stimulated, but I must have inherited the business instincts from my maternal grandfather. He was the owner of a couple of grocery and hardware shops. My grandfather could add up invoices in his head, not dollars and cents, but pounds, shillings, pennies, half pennies and quarter pennies (pounds were 20 shillings, shillings were 12 pennies).

Not much Alzheimer’s in those days, too much brain exercise. My best friend Bob Vaughan-Evans’ parents owned a 20 000 acre ranch next to the Wankie Park, called Nantwich. Bob and I planned the future utilisation of this property. It was to be one third cattle to pay for the operating costs and two thirds wildlife for us to use on a lasting basis, while we were figuring out how to farm the wild animals. We all know now that the cattle were a waste of time, and that game ranching could carry it quite well, thank you! It is well known that a huge industry has developed in South Africa from those early dreams. Sadly, we in Zimbabwe have lost that opportunity. We started it all, but now it is a sad remnant of what it was and could have been.

Appetite for a proper wildlife job

After agricultural college, I worked in the Zambezi Valley on the resettlement of people due to be displaced by Lake Kariba. The job involved, amongst others, finding and assessing suitable land, planning it into village sites, fields, demonstration plots and organising the extension officers. There was plenty of time to hunt and I often went elephant hunting with the tsetse field officer, which whetted my appetite for a proper wildlife job.

Next I joined the Rhodesian tsetse department in the Sabi Valley. I wanted to hunt only, but the boss said, “You  are too bright for that. You will help with the research.” So I went around with my scouts and my tame bait pigs, plotting the tsetse fly habitats and identifying the species. The pigs rode in my shortwheelbase Land Rover, just like dogs do. The pigs were village animals, very bright and trainable. Glossina morsitans was the most common tsetse fly. My favourite campsite up in the Empungora forest had a Hollywood film-type water fall for a shower, real neat, but mighty cold.

Talk of game ranching

There began to be talk of game ranching or sustainable wildlife utilisation, because two American wildlife biologists, Dr Archie Mossman and Dr Ray Dassman, had arrived in Rhodesia funded by the Fulbright Association in the USA. The focus was on the Henderson brothers’ ranches Doddieburn and Manyoli, which were ready for upgrading to ‘switched-on’ cattle ranching. They loved their wildlife, so decided to get involved and set aside half their ranch to be developed as a game ranch, but now they needed a manager. Could you believe it – a chance to develop my career in wildlife and develop a sustainable way of ensuring that the future of wildlife was secure. I just had to have that job! The Hendersons were reluctant to give it to me, as they didn’t want me risking a civil servant career on something that might not succeed. Allan Savory (a good friend and senior biologist in National Parks and Wildlife), persuaded the Hendersons to give me the manager’s position, telling them my whole life had been devoted to developing myself so that I would be ready to hold such a wildlife management position and therefore I was their best option. I got the job and never looked back. Coincidently, Allan Savory and I, plus two others were in the ‘poachers gang’ at school; it was a cheeky schoolboy way of saying ‘hunters club’. We bought our firearms at Fifi Jones Restaurant at Plumtree Station, quite legally. I even sent the .22 rifle barrel by post to Parker Hale in Britain to have the end of the barrel threaded and a sound moderator (silencer) fitted, and it was returned to me by post. That just could not happen now. Well, Allan and I are the only ones surviving today.

True game-ranching pioneers

Those were wonderful days, working for the Hendersons, with the Americans and the national parks people developing techniques for recording systems, game counts and a host of other interesting daily problems. The Hendersons were the real pioneers in Zimbabwe, but I consider myself one of the most ardent pioneers because since 1960 I have only devoted my time to the promotion of the sustainable use of wildlife in various forms.

Very early on when Jan Oelofse was developing the plasticsheeting boma system of game capture, I spent time with him in Natal parks. This honestly and without doubt was the ‘great leap’ forward for the wildlife industry. The whole industry pivots on that system for the efficient marketing of live game. For example, in 1988 / 1989 my present property was restocked with more than 800 animals from all over Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa. All were captured by the Oelofse system, and a helicopter was used to drive the animals in. The regeneration of most of the animals has been astounding.

After working there for about two years, I was offered a lease to hunt with the intention of eliminating the wildlife on Lemco Ranch. I could not resist that opportunity. After I had secured the lease, I reluctantly left Henderson brothers, because they were good to work for and life was good, but I had to move forward.

I had partners, some friends of mine. We went along just fine, then we had a foot-and-mouth hunting ban, resulting in no income. Meanwhile I had secured a lease on forestry commission land and we moved over there, several hundred kilometres away. I tried very hard to persuade the general manager of Lemco (one million acres in extent) to set aside one of the ranch sections of forty or fifty thousand acres for game ranching, just to see how it would develop. He refused, saying what a waste of time to do that! He wanted all wildlife exterminated.

However, today, after he has long gone, Lemco is one of the most wonderful, if not the best wildlife areas in our country and even possibly the whole SADC region. Instead of going broke with the cattle, his company could well have still been there.

With foot-and-mouth disease hunting bans and personality problems our company broke up with debt and unhappiness. My friend Lew Games got me a job in the Matetsi area with Baron d’ Huart on Rosslyn Farms, where I eventually lived for 30 years.

After working for some years for the baron, I went to meet him in Belgium where he gave me shares in the Rosslyn Farms company in thanks for the work I had done for him. After seven years, the Smith government confiscated all the Matetsi district farms and amalgamated them to make up the now famous Matetsi Safari Area. The Baron told me to apply for Rosslyn Farms, as he was no longer interested.

When opportunity knocks

What a lucky break for my wife Carole and I (we were married in May 1969); we had our own lease and we had the required capital from our Rosslyn Farm shares. We got going in January 1974, and although we did well, we had the nagging worry that our lease would come to an end one day. In the mean- time we had leased two properties on the Wankie Park boundary for 25 years, and a Zambezi Valley lease. Our Matetsi Unit 3 lease lasted 22 years. Working with national parks was mostly a pleasure and a learning curve for all of us.

In 1987, my wife and I bought the Cawston Block ranch (32 000 acres / 12 666 hectares / 50 sections), quite cheaply in fact, because there were a lot of dissident problems resulting from the civil war in that area. We proceeded to develop the property. We first built a 6 000-acre paddock to introduce animals as fast as possible before anyone realised that there was actually a market for live game and, no doubt, the price would go up. The boundary fence of 52 km was also built in the shortest time possible. We built a proper village for the workers, from our own bricks and thatch. Then we upgraded our initial client facilities to the fabulous place it is today. When we had to service the thatch 22 years later, the costs for the camp alone were about the same as it were to build the whole place originally!

We drilled boreholes and developed waterholes and now have 13 water holes that help to keep our large game- bird population expanding and growing. Most importantly though, I believe they keep the very dominant sable bulls apart and the sable population increasing. It is a problem keeping those waterholes full, mostly due to engine and pump breakdowns, and of course water that seeps into the ground. The drying and shrinkage of the black basalt soil also breaks the plastic pipe lines, some years worse than others. All of this entails labour and heavy vehicle use.

My next project is to sort all that out. The temptation is to go the solar panel and solar pump way. It seems the obvious and the best way, but how does one stop the theft of the panels? Our radio relay mast has a full-time game scout camp to protect the solar panels from theft; however, it is not possible to do that on all the boreholes we have.

My beloved wife Carole died from cancer in 2008 when she was only 67 years old, while her mother died the next year at the age of 100. The best thing I ever achieved was persuading Carole to marry me. She gave up her plans for her future and wholeheartedly endorsed my plans and ideas. Our strong marriage and common vision ensured our successful future. Some of the bets at our wedding were that it was not possible for such a beautiful refined lady to stay married to such a rough diamond for very long. Well, it lasted 40 years.

I was so lucky in my lifetime to achieve what I did by following my dreams to see a viable wildlife industry  path every time.