Game reserve

A game reserve (also known as a wildlife preserve or a game park) is a large area of land where wild animals live safely or are hunted in a controlled way for sport. If hunting is prohibited, a game reserve may be considered a nature reserve; however, because the focus of a game reserve is specifically the animals (fauna), whereas a nature reserve also if not equally is concerned with all aspects of naturally-occurring life in the area (plants, animals, insects, etc.). A game reserve (also known as a wildlife preserve or a game park) is a large area of land where wild animals live safely or are hunted in a controlled way for sport. If hunting is prohibited, a game reserve may be considered a nature reserve; however, because the focus of a game reserve is specifically the animals (fauna), whereas a nature reserve also if not equally is concerned with all aspects of naturally-occurring life in the area (plants, animals, insects, etc.). Many game reserves are located in Africa. Most are open to the public, and tourists commonly take sightseeing safaris. Historically, among the most well-known hunting targets were the so-called Big Five game in Africa: rhinoceros, elephant, Cape buffalo, leopard and lion, named so because of the difficulty and danger in hunting them. In a game reserve, ecosystems are protected and conservation is usually key. Indigenous wildlife in its natural habitat help in providing an environment where growth in numbers at a natural rate can occur. Some game reserves contain more than one ecosystem, sometimes even five, ranging from valley bushveld, savannah grassland and fynbos to riverine forest and acacia woodland; this provides a dramatic improvement on the types of wildlife that are present and the numerous species of birds that thrive on in these environments. Wildlife conservation is a costly endeavor for most African countries. One of the more common forms of generating income to establish a sustainable economy to provide for wildlife conservation is known as wild life viewing tourism. However, this attraction still does not generate enough to establish wild life conservation. For regions that suffer political and economic instability; sustainable trophy hunting may be the only feasible source of income in order to generate the appropriate income. Once established, another aspect to consider is the management of the land being used for hunting. Naturally, wild life decreases with the increase of human presence which puts a strain on the quality of hunting. Generally, leases for hunting concessions are set up to last for multiple years all at once in order to encourage hunting operators to continue to manage the land for hunting, however, as the quality of hunting decreases, leases are shortened and this creates an overall negative impact to the economy.