Plains game

Last updated May 02, 2019

Plains game is well established in literature and conversation as the sporting hunter's generic term for all those fair-game species of antelope and gazelle which are to be found - typically in rather open plains or savanna habitats - throughout sub-Saharan Africa. The term is all-embracing, unscientific, and rather imprecise. Impala and Thomson's gazelle are classic examples of plains game, but the term also encompasses a great range of species from the diminutive steenbok to the massive eland.^{[ citation needed ]}

An antelope is a member of a number of even-toed ungulate species indigenous to various regions in Africa and Eurasia. Antelopes comprise a wastebasket taxon within the family Bovidae, encompassing those Old World species that are not cattle, sheep, buffalo, bison, or goats; even so, antelope are generally more deer-like than other bovids. A group of antelope is called a herd.

A gazelle is any of many antelope species in the genus Gazella. This article also deals with the six species included in two further genera, Eudorcas and Nanger, which were formerly considered subgenera of Gazella. A third former subgenus, Procapra, includes three living species of Asian gazelles.

In geography, a plain is a flat, sweeping landmass that generally does not change much in elevation. Plains occur as lowlands along the bottoms of valleys or on the doorsteps of mountains, as coastal plains, and as plateaus or uplands.

Plains game species are distinct from species of dangerous game, which generally consists of the Big 5 as well as crocodile and hippopotamus. For this reason, virtually any species of game in Africa that is not considered dangerous game may be broadly referred to as plains game.^{[ citation needed ]}

In Africa, the Big Five game animals are the lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and Cape buffalo. The term was coined by big-game hunters, and refers to the five most difficult animals in Africa to hunt on foot, but is now also widely used by safari tour operators.

Crocodiles or true crocodiles are large semiaquatic reptiles that live throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. Crocodylinae, all of whose members are considered true crocodiles, is classified as a biological subfamily. A broader sense of the term crocodile, Crocodylidae that includes Tomistoma, is not used in this article. The term crocodile here applies to only the species within the subfamily of Crocodylinae. The term is sometimes used even more loosely to include all extant members of the order Crocodilia, which includes the alligators and caimans, the gharial and false gharial, and all other living and fossil Crocodylomorpha.

The common hippopotamus, or hippo, is a large, mostly herbivorous, semiaquatic mammal native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae, the other being the pygmy hippopotamus. The name comes from the ancient Greek for "river horse" (ἱπποπόταμος). After the elephant and rhinoceros, the common hippopotamus is the third-largest type of land mammal and the heaviest extant artiodactyl. Despite their physical resemblance to pigs and other terrestrial even-toed ungulates, the closest living relatives of the Hippopotamidae are cetaceans from which they diverged about 55 million years ago.

Where the term "plains game" is used as an indication of the kind of game for which particular sporting rifle cartridges are deemed suitable, it is fair to assume that the same ammunition also performs efficiently on other ungulates occurring elsewhere in the world, such as deer.

Rifle firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder

A rifle is a portable, long-barrelled firearm designed for long-range precision shooting, to be held with both hands and braced against the shoulder for stability during firing, and with a barrel that has a helical pattern of grooves ("rifling") cut into the bore walls. The term was originally rifled gun, with the word "rifle" referring to the machining process of creating grooving with cutting tools, and is now used for any long handheld device designed for aimed discharge activated by a trigger, such as air rifles and the personnel halting and stimulation response rifle. Rifles are used in warfare, law enforcement, hunting and shooting sports.

Cartridge (firearms) type of ammunition packaging a bullet or shot, a propellant substance, and a primer within a metallic, paper, or plastic case

A cartridge is a type of pre-assembled firearm ammunition packaging a projectile, a propellant substance and an ignition device (primer) within a metallic, paper or plastic case that is precisely made to fit within the barrel chamber of a breechloading gun, for the practical purpose of convenient transportation and handling during shooting. Although in popular usage the term "bullet" is often used to refer to a complete cartridge, it is correctly used only to refer to the projectile.

Ungulates are any members of a diverse group of primarily large mammals that includes odd-toed ungulates such as horses and rhinoceroses, and even-toed ungulates such as cattle, pigs, giraffes, camels, deer, and hippopotamuses. Most terrestrial ungulates use the tips of their toes, usually hoofed, to sustain their whole body weight while moving.

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Maasai Mara National Reserve is a large game reserve in Narok County, Kenya, contiguous with the Serengeti National Park in Mara Region, Tanzania. It is named in honor of the Maasai people and their description of the area when looked at from afar: "Mara," which is Maa for "spotted," an apt description for the circles of trees, scrub, savanna, and cloud shadows that mark the area.

The Serengeti ecosystem is a geographical region in Africa. It is located in northern Tanzania. It spans approximately 30,000 km² (12,000 sq mi).

The San Diego Zoo Safari Park, originally named the San Diego Wild Animal Park until 2010, is an 1,800 acre zoo in the San Pasqual Valley area of San Diego, California, near Escondido. It is one of the largest tourist attractions in San Diego County. The park houses a large array of wild and endangered animals including species from the continents of Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America, and Australia. The park is in a semi-arid environment, and one of its most notable features is the Africa Tram, which explores the expansive African exhibits. These free-range enclosures house such animals as antelopes, giraffes, buffalo, cranes, and rhinoceros. The park is also noted for its California condor breeding program, the most successful such program in the United States.

Serengeti National Park national park in Africa

The Serengeti National Park is a Tanzanian national park in the Serengeti ecosystem in the Mara and Simiyu regions. It is famous for its annual migration of over 1.5 million white-bearded wildebeest and 250,000 zebra and for its numerous Nile crocodile and honey badger.

The Arabian Desert is a vast desert wilderness in Western Asia. It stretches from Yemen to the Persian Gulf and Oman to Jordan and Iraq. It occupies most of the Arabian Peninsula, with an area of 2,330,000 square kilometers (900,000 sq mi). It is the fifth largest desert in the world, and the largest in Asia. At its center is Ar-Rub'al-Khali, one of the largest continuous bodies of sand in the world.

The Indo-Gangetic Plain, also known as the Indus-Ganga Plain and the North Indian River Plain, is a 630-million-acre (2.5-million km²) fertile plain encompassing northern regions of the Indian subcontinent, including most of northern and eastern India, the eastern parts of Pakistan, virtually all of Bangladesh and southern plains of Nepal. The region is named after the Indus and the Ganges rivers and encompasses a number of large urban areas. The plain is bound on the north by the Himalayas, which feed its numerous rivers and are the source of the fertile alluvium deposited across the region by the two river systems. The southern edge of the plain is marked by the Chota Nagpur Plateau. On the west rises the Iranian Plateau.

Game or quarry is any animal hunted for sport or for food, and the meat of those animals. The type and range of animals hunted for food varies in different parts of the world.

Winchester Magnum refers to a "family" of cartridges developed by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, one of the oldest firearms manufacturers in the United States, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, all based on the same basic cartridge case. The basic case was a "short" magnum, meaning it would work through a standard length rifle action rather than requiring the longer, magnum actions.

The dorcas gazelle, also known as the ariel gazelle, is a small and common gazelle. The dorcas gazelle stands about 55–65 cm (1.8-2.1 ft) at the shoulder, with a head and body length of 90–110 cm (3-3.6 ft) and a weight of 15–20 kg (33-44 lb). The numerous subspecies survive on vegetation in grassland, steppe, wadis, mountain desert and in semidesert climates of Africa and Arabia. About 35,000 - 40,000 exist in the wild. The extinct Saudi gazelle from the Arabian Peninsula has been previously considered as a subspecies of the dorcas gazelle.

The Speke's gazelle is the smallest of the gazelle species. It is confined to the Horn of Africa, where it inhabits stony brush, grass steppes, and semideserts. This species has been sometimes regarded as a subspecies of the Dorcas gazelle, though this is now widely disregarded. Severe habitat fragmentation means it is now impossible to assess the natural migratory or nomadic patterns of G. spekei. Its numbers are under threat, and despite an increase in population, the IUCN in 2007 announced its status had changed from vulnerable to endangered. A captive population is maintained, and the wild population exists in the lower tens of thousands. As of 2008, this gazelle is classified as endangered under the IUCN Red List.

The rhim gazelle or rhim, also known as the slender-horned gazelle, sand gazelle or Loder's gazelle, is a pale-coated gazelle with long slender horns and well adapted to desert life. It is considered an endangered species because fewer than 2500 are left in the wild. These gazelles are found in Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya and Sudan.

The chinkara, also known as the Indian gazelle, is a gazelle species native to Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

The Soemmerring's gazelle, also known as Abyssinian mohr, is a gazelle species native to the Horn of Africa. The species was described and given its binomen by German physician Philipp Jakob Cretzschmar in 1828. Three subspecies are recognized. It is no longer present in Sudan.

The dama gazelle, addra gazelle, or mhorr gazelle is a species of gazelle. It lives in Africa in the Sahara desert and the Sahel. This critically endangered species has disappeared from most of its former range due to overhunting and habitat loss, and natural populations only remain in Chad, Mali, and Niger. Its habitat includes grassland, shrubland, semi-deserts, open savanna and mountain plateaus. Their diets includes grasses, leaves, shoots, and fruit.

Big-game hunting is the hunting of large game for meat, for other animal by-products, for trophy or for sport. The term is often associated with the hunting of Africa's "Big Five" game, and with tigers and rhinoceroses on the Indian subcontinent. Many other species of big game are hunted including kudu, antelope, and hartebeest. Whale, moose, elk, caribou, bison, mule deer, and white-tailed deer are the largest game hunted in North America, which is where most big-game hunting is conducted today.

The 9×57mm Mauser is a cartridge based on the 7.92×57mm Mauser. It uses the identical 57 mm-long cartridge case, with the same shoulder angle, but necked up to accept a 9 mm-diameter bullet. Ballistically - but not dimensionally - it is indistinguishable from the 9×56mm Mannlicher–Schoenauer. It is currently regarded as a semi-obsolete calibre, although hand-loading keeps it alive.

The Grant's gazelle is a species of gazelle distributed from northern Tanzania to South Sudan and Ethiopia, and from the Kenyan coast to Lake Victoria. Its Swahili name is swala granti. It was named for a 19th-century Scottish explorer, Lt Col Grant.

The Mongalla gazelle is a species of gazelle found in the floodplain and savanna of South Sudan. It was first described by British zoologist Walter Rothschild in 1903. The taxonomic status of the Mongalla gazelle is widely disputed. While some authorities consider it a full-fledged monotypic species in the genus Eudorcas, it is often considered a subspecies of Thomson's gazelle, while other authorities regard it as subspecies of the red-fronted gazelle.

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