African buffalo

The African buffalo is presented as a powerful, once-common animal whose population history makes a sharp example of ecological rise and decline. Its trajectory complicates any assumption that a species can increase indefinitely: even a large creature with few natural enemies can be abruptly reduced by disease, and recovery may take decades.

Abundance and Population Growth

During most of the nineteenth century, the African buffalo was common on the veldt. The book describes it as powerful and as having few natural enemies; measured over successive decades, its numbers would have appeared to be rising steadily. This growth forms the first part of a larger argument that animal populations do not remain constant, even when their increase has seemed uninterrupted.

Disease and Decline

Toward the end of the century, the buffalo population reached a peak and was then struck suddenly by rinderpest. The disease transformed a steadily increasing population into a remnant: afterward, the buffalo had become almost a curiosity and was extinct in many parts of its range. Its decline demonstrates how an epidemic can overwhelm the apparent security of a powerful species with few natural predators.

Recovery and Ecological Significance

Over the fifty years preceding the account, the African buffalo had slowly built up its numbers again. The recovery is neither immediate nor a return to unbroken growth; it completes a cycle of expansion, abrupt collapse, and gradual resurgence. The book uses this history as a concrete illustration of population flux and reflux, emphasizing that past growth cannot guarantee future stability and that a severe decline need not mean permanent disappearance.