Martha Gellhorn

Finally in 1966 a large and expensive Research Institute costing over $600,000 to build was established four miles from Seronera, with a laboratory and housing for a director, deputy director, ecologist and up to twenty research scientists. The balance between management and research had finally been upset in no uncertain manner.

The arrogance of these scientists - with the ink hardly dry on their graduation papers - was unbelievable. I once heard them described at a Research meeting, chaired by a very eminent visiting Oxford professor, as �these brilliant young men at the height of their creative powers�! They obviously believed in this assessment and were sublimely confident that they had the answers to all East Africa�s game problems.

[Myles then goes on to describe how the scientists gradually increased the number of animals that they were killing as part of their experiments, until, partly following a visit by Martha Gellhorn, the policy was reviewed.]

Out of many hundreds of thousand of dollars spent on research in East Africa during the �fashionable� decade of the 1960s, little if anything has been achieved to my knowledge. Far better if the money was spent on anti-poaching and education. How much was spent on research in East Africa during those heady years? I have heard the figure of $10,000,000 quoted by a man in a position to know. He may be right. One thing is sure: it was a great confidence trick, and virtually nothing has ever come out of it to help the hard-pressed animals of East Africa.

In 1969, Martha Gellhorn, (third wife of Ernest Hemingway), was sent out to the Serengeti by an American Foundation which had funded the Research organisation to the tune of several hundred thousand dollars to report on their activities. Her visit happened to coincide with one of the buffalo massacres which so horrified her that she abandoned her commission and hurriedly left the park.