Weren’t You Scared?

Many non-hunters are under the impression that hunting involves all sorts of hair-raising experiences and that a hunter confronts death on an hourly basis (actually, it’s only 3-4 times a day!). Seriously, that’s our topic for today’s blog – what were your fears when you faced that Cape buffalo, brown bear or whatever else threatened to stamp “deceased” on your passport?

I can honestly say I’ve never been afraid of a dangerous game animal in a hunting situation – suitably armed, unless I screw up, I know I will walk away the winner. I’ll also say that I’ve certainly experienced a very high sense of awareness and been extremely focused on the task at hand. It doesn’t matter how one becomes imperiled – sometimes it’s through accident, sometimes sheer stupidity and other times it was just the way the cards got dealt that day. My first encounter with a dangerous game animal was with a Cape buffalo I had wounded on my initial safari. We were following the occasional blood drops in very late afternoon when we saw him looking at us from about 175 yards. I then hit him two solid shots and he very slowly eased over a small knob. We were running hard when we crested that same knob and found him 5 yards away, waiting for us but unable to mount a charge. One more put him down and another between the shoulder blades finished him. Should I have been scared? Heck yes! I’d read Peter Capstick and knew ALL about the dangers of tracking wounded buffalo in the twilight. I also thought that no sane man is going to be five yards from a wounded buffalo and not be afraid. But, for me at least, concentrating on doing the job and finishing it has always overridden any fear I might have had.

Lots of writers have told us that in Africa the shot from a blind at a leopard is the easiest there is and also the one that’s botched most often. Why is this? Because reading Capstick’s writings about leopard hunting were never intended to calm you down, you’re probably worried because this setup shot IS the easiest in Africa and you’ve been on pins and needles ever since you heard the leopard vocalizing with his “sawing” sound from a mile away – knowing he’s on the way to your bait tree. This all adds up to a different type of fear, not fear of the leopard itself but fear of failure. None of us wants to acknowledge, either to our friends or ourselves, that we failed in something as primal as hunting. Hunting is where man has succeeded, well, most of the time, since the dawn of time. We’re supposed to be inherently good at it so failure is not supposed to be an option. But fail we do. Maybe your finger pulled hard enough to straighten the trigger out because you forgot to thumb the safety off; quite possibly the sun picked the moment of truth to shine right in your rifle scope; it’s possible there wasn’t a shell in the chamber. All of these things happen – they happened to me. The one thing that won’t happen to me is the fear of failure – don’t let it happen to you, either. Stay focused, concentrate on doing the job, visualize your success and the fear of failure won’t be a factor.

OK, time to fess up! Let’s hear about YOUR hunting fears and what scares you – just click on the “Comments” bullet at the top of the page.

The Crocodile Pays His Own Way

You’ll easily run out of fingers and toes if you start counting up all the critters that can put an end to your listing as a living, breathing human being. There are microbes, insects, reptiles and mammals that can all, some slowly – some quite promptly, cash your chips in for you. In Africa, one of the large critters that probably accounts for many, some say most, human deaths by a large critter is the crocodile. Given that, it’s difficult to entertain warm, fuzzy thoughts about this huge lizard but he truly is one of the great examples of placing monetary value on an animal to restore it to huntable populations.

The Nile crocodile, Crocodylus niloticus, occupies a vast portion of sub-Saharan Africa. He can be found in huge lakes, small streams and two of the longest rivers in the world – the Nile and the Congo. I once saw one in Burkina Faso (western Africa) in a rapidly drying water hole that was about five yards across and 25 yards long – the next closest water source was about eight miles away! Now, there are a lot of crocodiles around, but that wasn’t always the case. Post-WWII Africa had many men trying to earn a living; and hunting crocs for their skins was profitable. This eventually led to a crash in crocodile populations during the late 1960’s. In the mid-1970’s the crocodile was listed on Appendix I, the most critical, of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) rankings. He was considered endangered in some areas and threatened in others so this precluded hunting in many areas, among them some portions of Zimbabwe. I don’t know who gets credit for it but I’m sure it was just some guys trying to make a buck. They came up with the idea of commercially ranching crocodiles for profit. They convinced the Zimbabwe government that the game department should allow them to collect eggs in the wild. The ranchers would see them hatched out, raise them to a respectable size and then on a “two or three for you and one for us” basis, return the appropriate number to the wild. The ranchers would keep theirs until they were large enough for commercial harvesting and then start selling crocodile skins. The government didn’t see how it could lose so they gave their approval. The one thing no one apparently factored in was the hatchling survival rate in captivity versus that in the wild. It wasn’t very many years before the government was telling the ranchers that there were now more than enough crocodiles in the wild and, please, could the ranchers keep all they raised? Many other countries soon adopted the highly successful “Zimbabwe Crocodile Ranching Scheme” and the croc has returned as a highly desirable, huntable species.

In 2001 the small African country of Malawi could no longer comply with CITES concerning its crocodiles and had to exterminate several hundred crocs. This was due to the crocs man-eating propensity in highly populated areas of the country. As Malawi had no safari hunting to curb populations these exterminations were carried out by commercial hunters and officials. Safari Club International (SCI) recently reported that Malawi, after being closed to hunting since 1986, is now going to be open to sport hunters. However, the number of huntable critters is limited to only one specie – the Nile crocodile, still paying his own way!

As always, your comments are appreciated – just click on the “Comments” link at the top of the page.

The Curious Case of the Cheetah

The African cheetah is truly a different cat. As one of Africa’s big cats (along with the lion and leopard) he is in a class by himself when it comes to speed, spots and CITES.

He’s long and lean, he has a dog-shaped head, also like a dog he has non-retractile claws, he has spots instead of the rosettes of a leopard and he’s considered the fastest land mammal on earth. On one side of the continent (east Africa) he is considered endangered, in southwestern Africa he causes so much damage to livestock that he’s shot as vermin, much like coyotes in North America. He’s legally hunted: Namibia has 150 export permits for 2010, Botswana had 5 in 2009 and Zimbabwe has 50 for 2010. Yet those export permits will not be fully utilized because one country, the United States, will not allow US citizens to import them.

CITES is the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. There are 175 member nations in CITES, including the US, and all but one concur that there is a viable population in southwestern Africa that can sustain hunting. Thus CITES grants those export permits to those three countries. The US Fish & Wildlife Service, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that it will not issue any import permits for the legally hunted cats. USFWS has made many demands and they have all been met, mainly by the Namibian professional hunters. Court cases have been brought forward by US hunters who still have their trophies in Namibia, yet USFWS continues to hold its illogical position. This is certainly not the first instance of USFWS flying in the face of CITES. Like the cheetah, any hunter in the world (including the US) can legally hunt the polar bear in Canada; they can take their trophies home, a US hunter cannot. There are several species of argali and urial sheep in Asia and the Middle East that also fall under this onerous decision by USFWS. So why does USFWS take this course of action?

In the opinion of many, the US state and federal governments are becoming less hunter-friendly and more anti-hunter each year. It’s certainly the case in our education systems that hunting is “out” and anti-hunting is “in.” One only has to see the propaganda that the Humane Society of the United States makes available to our schools to see how this is happening. It has been happening for so long that the “greening” of USFWS is now taking place, just as it is in state fish, game and wildlife departments nationwide. Can this trend be stopped or reversed? Only if hunters are willing to spend time, money and dedication to seeing that our youth learn and value what we as hunters know to be true – that hunters are the real stewards of wildlife.

Your comments are always welcome, just click on the comments bullet at the top of the page.

Where to Find Your Mountain Lion

Since the dawn of time man has had a fascination with the big cats. The saber-tooth tiger was probably one of the most ferocious beasts to ever walk our planet. The tiger of today can be just as bad tempered as his prehistoric predecessors but his numbers are greatly diminished from his heyday. The African lion and leopard are still spread throughout much of Africa but that’s the problem, they’re in Africa. The snow leopard and jaguar are endangered species and thus listed as CITES I animals. However, here in the western hemisphere we have a big cat that ranges from central British Columbia to the tip of South America. He is puma concolor, better known as the cougar, mountain lion, catamount or puma.

The latin word concolor tells us a great deal about his coloration – he’s a solid tawny color except for a white underbelly and black tail tip. The average male is a little over seven feet in length and weighs between 130 -150 pounds. (The author’s cougar in the photo went 7’4” – 130#). He is a pure carnivore and the deer species constitute most of his diet although, like all cats, he’ll take what’s offered – sheep, elk, cattle & horses! He is solitary, furtive, shy and often nocturnal – some western ranchers and experienced outdoor people will tell you they’ve never seen one in the wild. He is hunted throughout the western portions of Canada and the US except for California (that law/idiocy will be in another blog!), all of Mexico and all of Argentina.

There is really only one way to hunt these great cats and that is with dogs – north to south, east to west, that’s how it’s done. In the northern latitudes, winter snow is often the first sign that cougar season is now open. Driving roads with the hope of picking up a hot track is a popular method of locating a cat and, by the size of the track, determining if it’s big enough for the hunter to trail. Following Mr. Kitty can be done by vehicle, snowmobile, horse or on foot. Further south, dry ground tracking by the hounds is often the only option. This entails turning the dogs loose on an often faint imprint in the dust and following on horseback. Regardless of the method, once the dogs get on a hot scent the chase is on. If following baying hounds doesn’t get you excited maybe we need to set you up in the retirement home – chasing a big cat with dogs can be as thrilling as hunting gets!

Cougar populations are steady or increasing (especially in California!) throughout their range. Mexican and Argentinean ranchers often have huge ranchos and estancias where they raise their cattle and many of them employ full-time hunters just to keep the big cats (both puma and jaguar) under control – yet they still grow in number. Note: Argentina allows foreign hunters to hunt and kill mountain lions however they, along with any other indigenous species, may not be exported – go figure.

We offer a variety of cougar hunts – contact us and we can put you in the chase! As always, your comments are welcome – just click on the Comments link at the top of the page.

The Moose of Canada

Over the last several blogs I’ve covered the largest moose (Alaska-Yukon) and the smallest moose (Shiras, predominately in the US). However, the MOST moose reside in Canada and that’s today’s topic.

The two major record-keeping organizations differ as to what resides where in Canada. Safari Club International (SCI) holds that there are two sub-species: eastern and western Canada moose with the dividing line being right through the province of Ontario from James Bay to Lake Superior. The Boone & Crockett Club (B&C) contends that there is just one subspecies for all of Canada except for the Alaska-Yukon moose in the far north- west. Regardless of either point here, it is generally accepted that there are a LOT MORE moose in eastern Canada than in the western provinces. For sure, the moose density in Newfoundland has to be seen to be believed. Moose weren’t introduced to that island province until around 1900 and their numbers exploded in the virtually perfect habitat. I’ve hunted both moose and caribou there and there’s an excellent reason you wear knee-high rubber boots all day long – the entire countryside “squishes” when you walk. Even then, when your attention wanders a bit, you’ll step into one of their “black holes” and you’ll go in up to your crotch and the freezing water will go down into your boot and you’ll be quite uncomfortable the rest of the day, your only solace being the number of moose you will see. A real plus is meeting the people of Newfoundland, the “Newfies” as they’re called. They are some of the nicest, finest people you could hope to hunt with anywhere in the world.

B&C Alaska-Yukon Moose	Eastern Canada Moose & Woodland Caribou

I  know there will be some (maybe many!) who will say that I’ve stepped into a moose patty here but, on average, the moose of western Canada are larger antlered than their eastern cousins. In the central provinces this may not be as true but once you get into upper British Columbia, near the Alaska and Yukon borders, the antlers are noticeably larger – many being taken in excess of the coveted 60” spread. It only stands to reason that the largest of the moose sub-species, Alaska-Yukon, will have traveled, and moose are great travelers, into the fringe areas of their zones and inter-bred with other moose. This has accounted for some real busters coming out of B.C. from just north of Telegraph Creek to the Yukon border. Further south, as they transition into Shiras moose territory, they gradually become smaller.

Are you interested in hunting moose? Click on Contact Us and we’ll be glad to answer any of your questions. As always, take the time to leave a comment by clicking on the Comments bullet at the top of the article.