Why do I go on safari?

A Buffalo as Red as My Hair

Heading to Cameroon tomorrow. Bags packed and hoping I did not forget anything, cause there isn’t a Walmart anywhere near where I’m headed!

Hunting near Reba’s Place.

From the spreading of the three front-most toes under their center-of-gravity as the Guan and Curassow lean slightly, to the grasping of the rear-pointing digit into the rough texture of the log, the feet captured the action of the animals as they paused while foraging.

I don’t know what the Moldovan words are for “Mom, I’m sick”, but apparently Igor used them frequently to get out of going to school. I expect his mom, like all other mothers, was insightful enough to know that her young son was prevaricating about being ill, but she let him believe that his ruse fooled her.

Anti-hunters will never understand the supreme sadness we as hunters feel when we have taken a life. They will also not know our profound sense of joy and fulfillment. What I can affirm is that they and I have the same goal – to conserve nature’s beautiful creatures. But hunters’ passion leads to community involvement and empowerment. That is why and how Kaokoland, and Namibia still have wildlife.

The morning bait check on the third day was a banner event. Not only did we have hits on multiple baits, but a big male had also hammered one of the baits, stripping large chunks from the zebra backstraps hung the day before. Because of the number of active baits, we were running low on meat. We remedied this by going out early the next morning and harvesting a beautiful Hartmann’s Mountain Zebra. Shot at 342 yards, the stallion went less than 70 yards before piling up.

For the second time in three hours, the hair lifted on the back of my neck. This time it was as I listened to the Herero chants by tracker Kapetja and game guard Nico. As we slowly drove back through the local village and into our bush camp, Nico’s bass tones were immediately followed by Kapetja’s guttural Huh!!, Huh!! Mimicking the big tom leopard’s sawing heard as he approached our bait tree three hours previously. When asked, Nico explained, “We are telling our ancestors that an animal that could kill us or our children or our livestock has been killed!”

Immediately following the rifle’s report, Dylan, watching through his binocular announced, “You shot the top half off his right tusk!”

“Albiño says that the only thing that will happen if you go with him to get the ram is that he will have to carry both of you back.”

Well, my new book, BRINGING BACK THE LIONS: International Hunters, Local Tribespeople, and the Miraculous Rescue of a Doomed Ecosystem in Mozambique, is nearly there! July 12th is the launch date - the date it will be “thrown out into the world”, to quote Winston Churchill about his own books.

We listened as the Brocket continued its noisy passage through the dry leaves lying inches deep on the forest floor. I continued shaking my head in disbelief. How could I possibly miss a seven-yard shot with a shotgun?!

Whether as a source of well-informed advice for appropriate cartridges and rifles for ‘gazorks’, or as an enjoyable exploration of the preferences of one of the greatest hunting and gun writers of our time, Favorite Rifles and Cartridges will not disappoint.

The probable outcome of the battle between Coutada 11’s Bushbucks and Nyalas is clear. Given the seriousness of the battle’s resolution, culling of Nyalas, plus encouraging an increase of leopards through continued habitat conservation and anti-poaching, seems a logical management scheme for Zambeze Delta Safaris. Without intervention, from humans and leopards, an iconic spiral-horned antelope, the Bushbuck, could disappear from the wonderful Coutada 11 landscape.

The scientists in South African Conservancies noticed two factors that gave the Bushbucks a fighting chance in the face of the Nyala incursion. In the first place, they observed that humans could limit the Nyalas ability to drive Bushbucks to extinction through so-called culling. This conservation management practice has come under serious attack by many who feel that nature will work population balances out if left alone. Others argue against the practice simply based on emotions, arguing that killing off scores of animals is barbaric. Regardless of the emotional heat generated towards culling, animals always have limited resources, and some, like overpopulated elephants and Nyalas do terrible damage to their habitats including other species that get in the way of their excesses…

Returning to Coutada 11 and the Nyalas and Bushbucks, we can ask why the latter are declining in numbers. Is it just because of competition with the swarms of Nyalas? Before we look at possible answers, let’s revisit the ‘cousin’ status of these two species. Unlike the Elk and mule deer, that belong to the general ‘deer’ category, Nyalas and Bushbucks are kissing-cousins. Seriously, back a few million years ago a Bushbuck and an Nyala, or more likely several of each, made babies.

A very real overpopulation problem is occurring in the Ndumu Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, where one species of antelope, the Nyala, is crowding out another species, the Bushbuck. (Fay and Greeff, Nyala and Bushbuck I: A Competing Species Model)