Greetings Dramatards
I need to go into several backgrounds for this nuclear armageddon drama to even make sense. I mentioned that in south africa, the boere has an extremely prolific gun and hunting culture, compared to that of the other 12 different demographics in RSA. Like yanks, we are gunsexuals and love to add blackpowder in coffee. Because of the intense diversity of wild game and bucks in the country, we also have an international appeal to hunting. For many of the most rural people, hunting opportunistically for hares, foxes, tarentale or the odd small game is a way of life, and forms a semi-regular portion of their diets. Because my father and uncles are all avid hunters, and follow hunting related news, I've been exposed to various dramas related to the wild game and antelope industry of South Africa.
For us the notion of vegans was pretty alien, since in african levels of poverty beggers can't be picky choosers, for both poor white farmers, and black people here. When i went to study surveying in UCT, I basically went from bumfrick nowhere conservative bible belt, to turbo ultra mega liberal land. It was a pretty unsettling and traumatizing experience, from a town of 10 000 people to 5 million. It was a very confusing place for me, because all the whites there spoke english, and all the coloured/black people spoke afrikaans. Wat de fok. But the most discombobulating thing for me was meeting vegetarians. I literally helped slaughter bucks/antelopes, touching guts and hanging carcasses, so my notion of animals not being on the same level of humans made me an immediate pariah and sneed-generator On the other hand, it was where I unlearned my racism, because many of the black kids there took a liking to me instantly and befriended me, because I never turned up my nose to pap, never looked down upon their way of life and food making, and understood the hardships they suffered in rural RSA, something vegans and other ultra liberal types could had irononically a hard time breaching.
THE FALL OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN RAND, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES:
https://www.farmersweekly.co.za/animals/game-and-wildlife/sa-hunting-poised-for-growth/
Right, anyways back to the Drama. In South Africa, we have a large hunting industry, which usually acts in symbiosis with our tourism industry, pumping in annually 2 Billion rand into the RSA economy. The biltong industry, the dried meat market, pumps a further 11 billion rands into the economy, both from domestic sales, and exports. So it's proved its weight. But the most lucrative market for private wildlife ranch/farm owners comes from Trophy hunting from foreigners, such as fat yanks, smug canadians, stupid euros and chad Indians. South Africa is a VERY popular Hunting Vacation spot, because the crappy dwindling value of the rand has had dwindling conversion rate against the dollar and euros - which is bad for South Africans, but very very good for Burgers and Bongs, who's even mediocre middle class salaries, will mean that they can live like kings while hunting and/or vacationing with their famimlies in Southern Africa.
https://somerbysafaris.com/hunting-areas-and-lodges-south-africa/
The big drama had already started way back pre 2000, as more and more South African wild game farm owners began to realize that marketing their bucks/antelopes for hunting to Europe/America was extremely lucrative. Many americans and europeans were oblivious to the fact that hunting in South Africa was even a thing, or was allowed, or were very tepid and nervous at the notion of going to a strange unknown land in a different continent to go hunt. Many South African huntmasters would build paradise-like Lodges and camping grounds. They would even go so far as to advertise that they would physically meet them at the Johannesburg airport, drive them all the way to their private farms/lodges, and drive them back when the hunt was done a week later - this was very appealing for wimpy foreigners whom were scared and fearful of a country full of black people ,and liked the notion of a civilized Hwhitoid to come collect them and chaperone them like royalty. They would receive 5 star hotel services in the middle of the wilderniss, and all of this was possible, because these new breed of huntmasters whom advertised to foreigners, could ask 10 times the price for lodging and hunt fees that they would ask from local south african hunters, and the yanks would pay it easily, and without blinking, because their powerful dollar/pound/euro completely smashed the rand in conversion rate. What was a king's ransom for a local Saffer, was peanuts for an Englishman.
As I said, Boers had an intense gun/hunting culture, and have participated as the primary customers, along with a few rugged Bongs, as the customers of hunting in RSA. Foreigners have always participated in RSA hunting of course, even way back in the Union of SA/ Apartheid days, but they were always a specialist minority. The reason was that the rand used to be almost as strong as the dollar. I can't find a source, but my father claims that for one single week in 1979, the rand was worth more than the dollar for 1 whole week by like a few cents. But like only for a week.
https://businesstech.co.za/news/trending/21665/a-history-of-south-africas-currency/
As the social unrest in RSA became a norm in the New Democratic South Africa, and the ANCs abominable rule entrenched itself as a new culture of corruption, the Rand systemically began to dwindle as a reliable currency for investors, until in 2000 the once proud Rand had fallen to an Abysmal 10:1 conversion rate against the Dollar. This changed everything for SA hunting. In the Apartheid years accepting Pounds and Dollars wasn't more lucrative than accepting local Saffer's money, but by 2000, the same middle class in burgerland could literally buy 10 times the food, 10 times the vacation, and 10 times the hunting experience than their South African peers. Foreigners became very good for business, and the most entrepreneurial farmers/huntmasters jumped for this pile of gold.
HUNTING BECOMES A LUXURY:
The unfeeling merciless economic forces of supply and demand soon meant that wild game ranches would steadily pump up their prices from 2000 to 2010 onwards, as more and more burgers/Bongs would come to hunt here and be willing to pay exorbitant prices (by SA standards, but not 1st world standars). This slowly and systemically started pushing all prices upwards, from the most costly Elands to the humble "staple" food for local hunters such as the spingboks, Impalas and Blesboks. Hunting in RSA was genuinely "cheap" if you were middleclass, or at least entirely affordable. The sheer amount of meat for example, you would get to feed your family for a month or two from a single Blesbok carcass was much more affordable than buying it's mutton or pork, or cattle meat equivalent at store. For many poor saffers, shooting 1-2 of the "staple" food bucks annually, like Blesboks and Springboks was an easy feat and a highlight of their year.
But more and more wild game ranches started to cater to their Burger and Bong international customers, and the prices of lodging, slaugthtering fees, guide fees, and of course the price of the bucks themselves became completely unafrfodable for many. I'm only 29 years old, yet in my short lifespan as a teenager, I saw hunting go from something the lower middle classes and poor trailer trash whites did, to a distinct Upper Middle class hobby. The gnashing of teeth and seething from Afrikaans/Soutie poors , loud and fuming, as they were literally cucked out of their hunting lifestyle by rich chad foreigner burgers. You would of course still always be able to hunt, and for those who were well connected and savvy like my father would still be able to sniff out good deals sensible for locals, but the point is hunting slowly became a luxury, instead of a way of life for many.
THE WILD GAME COLOUR VARIANTS:
https://www.farmersweekly.co.za/animals/game-and-wildlife/rise-fall-future-colour-variants/
The wild game ranch owners and huntmasters all became stinking rich. Many ranch farmers used to be just regular domestic cattle farmers, and would switch over to Hunting as an alternative as they saw their (sometimes literal) neighbours becoming obscenely wealthy with so little comparitive effort. Many wild game farmers used to not be very glamorous, but by the mid 2000s they were just oozing with american cash, and like many rich people they had too much time and too much poor taste to create anything constructive. You see in the hunting and farming industry, most owners of cattle/bucks try to enforce an artificial Natural Selection, to ensure that their herd are always healthy, or that only the strongest individuals against chronic diseases survive. This has been done for thousadns of years, ever since the domestication of cattle, goats, sheep and chickens.
The idea is very simple: you would cull all the undesired variants in a camp, and ensure only the desired male buck would have the opportunity to breed with all the females. The desired trait the farmers/huntmasters wanted could be anything, be that larger horns for the next generation for trophy hunting, or fatter Blesboks for more biltong/meat. Obviously enforcing artificial Natural Selection is much much harder than with domestic animals, and takes a much longer timeframe to achieve, but it has been done for hundreds of years.
A pivotal moment for SA Hunting came, when one eccentric farmer whose name has now been lost to time who it first was through all the myths and chaos that would soon follow, had deliberately bred colour variants of Springboks and Rooiboks. You see just like humans, mammals often are born with a genetic defect such albinism, some of you guys have probably seen albino crocodiles and other reptiles. Of course sometimes the genetic defect can even be helpful, like say the albino crocodile somehow has a better chance to survive in a new environment and can Camouflage better as a consequence of this genetic defect - then natural evolution occurs over time.
Of course in places like the Kalahari, Savanna and Transvaal - being an albino is a distinct disadvantage since all of these bucks are perfectly adapted to blend into their respective environments. Thus natural forces would mean that these poor frickers would be the easiest spotted by lions and cheetahs, and would be the 1st culled from the herd, ensuring their genes would never pass on. In South africa, it was estimated that Sprinboks have a naturally occurring colouring genetic defect for 1/ 700 to 1/1500 in nature. So they are mega rare. Bur for South AFrican antelopes, there are more colouring defects than just albinism; there are other types such as the most famous blackened Springboks.
Somehow a bunch of r-slurred weirdos deliberately sought out these colour variants, and bred them compulsively so that entire herds formed. The blackened Springbok is the most famous, as experimental selection had been done by eccentrics way back in 1991 already, but they were just a fad, and they were never much more expensive than their normal Springbok counterparts. For about a decade these deliberate coloured variants breeding were just experiments by farmers whom had too much time, and didn't do it for financial incentives. But as the Rand fell towards the new millennium in the year 2000, things would change drastically. The hunting industry was blooming, as the rest of the country's economic situation weakened.
INTERNATIONAL HUNTERS BECOME INTERESTED IN COLOUR VARIANTS:
As burgers and Bongs became more and more regular customers of South African hunting Lodges, their tastes also became more and more refined. The big american gunsexuals were always looking for the next great trophy and the next exotic animal to turn into a taxidermic monstrosity to hang back at their homes. SA huntmasters competed to breed bucks with the biggest horns, the biggest size, and the most impressive hides/pelts. It was an extremely lucrative industry, and Trailer trash redneck boers went from rags to riches for many afrikaners. The big moment came when eccentric americans/euros discovered the equally eccentric Colour Variants of blackened Springboks and golden wildebeests. Now THESE animals were exotic as frick. The farmers/huntmasters saw $$$$ and charged double, triple and quadrouple, but the americans/bongs/euros payed gladly, because remember, the Rand was peanuts to them. Within a few short years the news spread to the entire industry, the fad had become a race to whom could breed the most exotic buck, and advertise them to rich yanks.
But beyond selling to just yanks, the auction value of these colour variant genetic defects skyrocketed. Suddenly many dirtpoor farmers in butfrick nowhere, whom were about to shoot the albino or blackened to cull it from the herd, could sell their "junk" on the auction for 10 -20 times their natural's price. Farmers began to deliberately breed these colour varians; golden wildebeest were sought out by lower class farmers, and sold for fat stacks on the wild game auction market to rich farmers so that they could accumulate entire herds of just colour variants. More experiments continued, liker copper Rooibokke, and copper wildebeests: it became a race to become the 1st south afircan Frankenstein.
Here is a photo gallery of Colour Variants
http://www.wynandwildlife.co.za/Hunting-colour-variants-South-Africa/Photo-gallery/index.html
DRAMATIC PUBLIC REACTION TO THE COLOURING OF WILG GAME IN THE HUNTING INDUSTRY:
As colouring the herds of bucks became more prominent and widespread, and not an obscure rare eccentric hobby, the wider hunting public, and civilian public became outraged. For many of the religious in RSA, this was an abomination and an affront to nature. Many christians and muslims felt that the farmers championing colouring of bucks were arrogant and playing God. That they were disturbing the natural order.
Other animal lovers and naturalists protested the deliberate colouring, as they felt this was similar to the fad of people breeding dogs to look cute, when the particular form of their noses literally gave them breathing and skeletal structure problem in life. Unlike many cattle farming related selection, which focussed on choosing the members which were best immune against diseases, the colouring variants in these ranches were distinctly giving the coloured variants a natural disadvantage. Now most of these bucks lived in private game ranches away from predators like lions, but the public felt it morally wrong. Additionally because coloured defects like blackened Springboks were so rare, they would end up with above normal incest breeding rates for these few 1/1500 rare specimens, meaning that entire blackened Springbok encampments would have above normal health issues, all for the sake for sport and trophy hunting
https://medium.com/@patrickuklinski/the-moral-dilemma-of-breeding-pugs-9516c460d611
Normal South Africans, especially black peeps saw this exuberant display of wealth as grotesque and felt that whites were now rich and showing off, while many of them still suffered through the mire of enduring poverty.
The "Biltong Jagters", or meat hunters, people who hunted not for trophy sport, but to actually eat the bucks, didn't hold favourable views of the new direction the hunting industry was going. Many felt that it wasn't pure to hunt coloured variansts, and felt that the meat/biltong of a blackened Springbok and a natural springbok was the same in volume and tasted the same. But would cost you 5-10 times more. They were also pissed as the continued favouring of foreigners had dramatically increased the cost of hunting within the space of a decade, as hunting Lodges started following dollar prices and became "hunting tourist traps". Additionally coloured variants sometimes became so prolific that some ranches wouldn't even have natural staple bucks like Blesboks and Impalas available. Point is, the Biltong Jagters/ Meat Hunters were sneeding cuz they were being monetarily cucked out of their hobby/lifestyle
Other dramatic sneeding involved the hatred that Vegans of RSA had for all things hunting related. The increased prominence of the Hunting Industry also made them sneed in proportion, especially with the slowcooking national drama of Coloured Variants being unpopular for many different reason for many different demographics in the country. But of course the lure of $$$$ made all the huntmasters and farmers ignore the envy of their fellow countrymen.
https://africageographic.com/stories/hunting-colour-game/
https://www.africahunting.com/threads/a-hunt-for-gold-colour-variant-animals-to-hunt-or-not.16556/
THE PYRAMID IS BUILT:
The coloured variants became so lucrative that ranch farmers now began to breed them, not for hunting from yanks, but for selling. At one point a man would pay R50 000 for one fricking golden wildebeest, just so that he could have it breed with other natural females in the hope it would produce more golden offspring. The bitcoin would- , sorry I mean the Coloured Variants would be able to breed and bring more coloured variants, thus the exorbitant auction prices were deemed worth it for farmers looking to get in on the game of selling to yanks. More and more exotic colour variants were bred and sold for the sake of obtaining a massive and lucratice increase in resale value. And for those ranchers who started earliest, they did become filthy rich, or at least by RSA boer redneck standards, climbing up from basically nothing into a previously unknown amount of obscene wealth.
This would continue from 2000 all the way to 2010, things were great, or al least great until the yanks and Bongs were still interested in the Colour variants. You see this entire explosion into the hunting industry from 2000-2010 was based on the assumption that foreign hunters would continue to be interested indefinitely. But then shit hit the fan.
THE ROWLAND WARD TURBO CUCKS THE ENTIRE SOUTH AFRICAN HUNTING INDUSTRY:
https://www.taxidermyafrica.com/page/sci-rowland-ward-trophy-minimums
The Rowland Ward is an international wild game trophy acknowledgement group which defines trophy grade hunted bucks and other wild game like boars, based on the minimum size of their horns or tusks or bodysizes. Burger and Bong international hunters, especially trophy hunters take their standards and adknowledgements very seriously, and tends to hunt only wild game which are according to the Rowland Ward standards for the usual international bragging rights. Rowland Wards are also usually a very pro conservation group, and tends to only acknowledge hunted animals from non-endangered species or animals hunted from regions where their populations are stable and not under threat. For many years the Coloured Variant farmers had attempted to get Rowland to oficially acknowledge their coloureds as Rowland Ward tier trophy animals, but their decision would sit in limbo for nearly a decade.
https://www.peterflack.co.za/hunt-conservation-pyramid-schemes/
2014! The apocalypse! Rowland Ward refused to acknowledge Colour Variants! Because Rowland Ward wouldn't award prestige to hunted Coloureds, many Burgers and Bongs would overnight not give a shit. Most of them were trophy hunters, and seeked strange game to put next to their fireplace, but many many of them also hunted specifically for all the Rowland Ward worthy wild game for the ultimate peepee measuring contest. And if an animal didn't get a Rowland Ward trophy, the yanks weren't interested. It was like pulling the bathtub plug
Overnight, the Hunting Industry in RSA crashed. Many many farmers bought Coloured variants for the sake of reselling in the future, based on the hope that yanks would buy from them, but suddenly there was virtually zero market for foreigners: yank trophy hunters want Roland Wards as the ultimate prize, now suddenly a copper Springbok, or a Golden Wildebeest is just an much worth it to a yank as their naturals. Sure the dollar was powerful, but most yanks were still middleclass, and they weren't about pay the equivalent of R50 000 for one buck. Remember some of these animals were sold on the RSA auction at moronic rates of 50-100 times the value of their naturals. Many farmers were completely burned. Within months the auction was saturated with blackened Springboks which nobody wanted, and every stupid latecoming farmer into this unintentional pyramid scheme found themselves holding the bag of crumpled wealth.
Massive drama ensued in which Meat Hunters jeered at the misfortune of the people they thought had poisened the Hunting Industry beyond their monetary means. Massive slapfights and sneeding all around. One of my uncles in Limpopo was deeply burned since he bought Golden Wildebeests at high prices JUST before the market crashed, he was very unlucky. He wasn't bankrupt but he was set back a big deal.
There's some turbo cope in the comments of the pyramid article:
https://www.peterflack.co.za/hunt-conservation-pyramid-schemes/
AFTERMATH:
https://www.farmersweekly.co.za/animals/game-and-wildlife/rise-fall-future-colour-variants/
So uh yeah, that's about it. There's still coloured variants of Springboks, Blesboks, Wildebeest and any buck you can think of and can be contained in barbed or electric wire. But now in post 2020 they are seldom exorbitant, and often only 1.5-2 times the value of their natural peers. Yanks still hunt coloureds, as they are an anomaly, but obviously won't pay much more than naturals. The hunting industry has since recovered and is still going strong, both as a Tourism magnet, and as a producer of Biltong/Meat exports. Unfortunately hunting is still now an upper middle class hobby, as the sheer cost of Hunting lodges rent and imported ammunition is very expensive. I'm glad my father took me to many gorgeous wilderniss in South Africa while we had the chance, cuz it's out of my pay grade at the moment. Hopefully I become a good surveyor hey!
Anyways, Good Day!
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I find it kinda strange that South Africa hosted the 2010 World Cup and yet tourism numbers didn't really change. Assuming that the numbers on the Wikipedia articles are correct I can't imagine that a large portion of the (European) visitors only went to South Africa to mime hunting for prestigious animals. Maybe I'm wrong and just r-slurred, but I think this story (as in hunting wild animals) is blown up much bigger than it should be. Either way, I suppose South Africa's tourism industry is on a decline for a multitude of reasons which I surmise is a dangerous predecessor for the country given the importance of tourism for its economy. Anyways, I'm too white and too pale to ever visit Africa so I have to trust experts like you on these topics - again a good read.
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The tourism industry was fine, it was the hunting industry which suffered, and specifically the Trophy hunting industry, as the madness of greed took hold of all of the Lodge owners and huntmasters. The Hunting Industry took a deep loss for like 3 years, and many men became bankrupt overnight, even if it took like 3 months for everyone to realize that their R50 000 bucks were suddenly worth less than R5000 on the national auction open market. Many men fell out of the business, and had to sell all of their assets, it was a bloodbath.
Many farmers lost so much that they wiped out their retirement savings.
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What was the general reaction to RSA getting kicked out in the group stage? If there was any at all, I can't imagine football/soccer is very popular over there.
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The sports of rugby and soccer were very segregated in RSA for the longest time, and the major drama is that the gov continues to enforce affirmative action mandates to all national teams of cricket and rugby π because the extraordinary mediocre performance of Bafana Bafana the national soccer β½ team of RSA is corrupt and worthless compared to their rugby peers
The previously mostly white rugby Springboks team has won the world cup twice now in my living memory, whilst the mostly black soccer Bafana team has been mediocrity after mediocre for two straight decades now.
This is not because blacks are untalented in the individual level, but because black controlled institutions here do not have the history of meritocracy like their white counterparts. The nepotism in the Bafana team and their refs are an identical reflection of their government counterpart, because the corruption of the ANC has become a part of RSA culture itself.
And when rugby inevitably outperforms their soccer equivalents on the national scale, then whoooi boi the sneed on black Saffer twitter is endless
When we lost so pathetically in 2010 it was like men forced to view their reality crashing down, when South Africans whom have never even possessed a TV could see on the international stage just how kak our national soccer team was
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That face just screams TND
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I don't have enough spoons to read this shit
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