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If hunting is not typically your thing, you may identify it with shooting, which is something different, and not carried out during every hunt including some of the best. The response on the part of some friends of mine who have a blind spot, or even intolerance, for something they do not do nor understand (quite often even insisting that no one else should then do it either, despite its primordial place in man, the hunter-gatherer), is to ask on my return: "Did you catch anything?" Let me be your guide to introduce you to this fundamental feature in human nature.
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I have been on photo safaris past counting. But I am also an eager participant in the chase when the outcome is more lethal--potentially on either side. I have shot 35 mm, right enough, but also primitive arms such as arrows, atl-atl, muzzle- loaded patch and ball. I have also carried considerably greater fire power, a quite useful tool particularly when dealing with African Big Game. As in most things that require concentrated learned skill, it is the pursuit that is often more memorable than the bag, and I have nearly invariably enjoyed the hunts, whether or not shots were fired. Most of this experience has been in North America; but I have enjoyed the hunts on four continents, often led by native trackers, fellow hunter-gatherers who could appreciate the kindred arts of the hunt when little else was held in common in shared cultures.
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I have thrilled to the shrill bugling of elk in Idaho, Colorado and Montana, sometimes armed with rifle, sometimes with bow, but always with a camera--and you see Cervus cervus here in the Rockies, before each of us turned our separate ways imprinted with memories of the encounter. I was fortunate to find myself in the middle of moose rutting season on my last trip to Alaska. I was nearly caught up between two belligerent bullmoose who performed as you see here, oblivious of a voyeur's presence, until I ran out of film and they ran out of hostility and energy.
Mule deer in British Columbia, Montana bighorn rams lookin over me and the Missouri River breaks from crags that have not changed much since Lewis and Clark floated by, wary Pennsylvani whitetail buck, and big turkey gobblers--each species listed in ascending order of wary woodsmanship--are each big game trophies worthy of the stalk in the beautiful North American wildernesses they inhabit.
Following a long and careful hunt in the Chamberlain Basi of Idaho's mountain wilderness, I finally caught up with the "Monarch of Richardson Ridge" who came out of the snowy mountain with me after he turned in response to a few chirps on a cow elk call--I rode out through deep drifts on a horse and he came alongon six mules. The barren ground caribou bull, Rangifer tarandus, was collected at 435 yards over the tundra in Northern Quebec close to the Arctic Circle. I had a chance to experience this cold remote area of the recently glaciated world in which the caribou herds are migrants through a boggy home range. I learned a lot about arctic tundra up close and personal when stranded in unplanned overnight bivouac, cutting a spruce nest from the dwarf pines to get up out of the freezing water and listening to the howling of wolves--an environment in which the amphibian caribou are better adapted. I have also collected caribou with a bow by stalking them upwind. In flying the meat out in a bush float plane, I agree with the chorus of wolves--"cordon 'bou" is delicious.
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The most difficult big game animal to get in really trophy size, oddly enough, is one of the most common throughout North America--including the Derwood deer woods--Oedecoelius virginiensus, the whitetail buck. The trophy measurements are set very high, and the savvy bucks do not get to be that big without getting to be very smart. I had heard of a pair of very big bucks in my woods when one of them was struck by a Suburban, which was totaled in the collision. A teacher coming upon the scene on Avery Road said "I know that one of the pair," pointing to the huge dead deer; "That is the smaller of the two.
I went in search of the "Phantom of the Derwood Deer Woods" for four years, getting only blurred glimpses of him twice in the dark. I had gone muzzle-loading in Garrett County Wester Maryland, and returned with the Hawken still holding a charge since I had removed the cap and did not want to try shooting it in the rain. On the last day of the season, I was home in Derwood packing up for a visiting professorship in Phoenix. On lookin out into the woods I saw a group of does being approached by a good ten-point buck. As I watched the buck was very skittish, looking at something threatening his approach. I went out with the camera to photograph the buck, but then also picked up the Hawken and armed it with a cap. With a crash behind me, a hug buck came charging forward running off the buck and goring a dead stump in front of me. When he raised his head I saw clearly the Phantom--he was worth waiting for and the patient search paid off when the smoke cleared. And that is how I come to have a Boone & Crockett trophy whitetail buck mounted.
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Still enjoying small game, rabbits and upland game birds, (the photo shows wingshooting pheasants) and the Chesapeake flyway for waterfowling, I have graduated to deer, and then turkey hunting. The next step is the planned excursion into the rooks Range of Alaska for Dall rams and bear in North America.
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I had first hunted in Southern Africa for blesbok, and wildebeest, then later in Central African subsistence hunting with my favorite group of hunter-gatherers where I had scored on waterbuck (Kobus defassa) and bushbuck (Tragelaphus scriptus)-- one of the "twisthorn" antelope. There are other very magnificent twisthorn specimens, and I had dreamed about the lordly Greater Kudu for years. The only antelope more beautiful than the Kudu is the rare Bongo, which happened to live near where I was working in Zairean rainforest.
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I finally came upon the Greater Kudu bull trophy in stalking along a rocky hillside in Namibia in the enchanted minutes of slanting golden light before sunset. In this memorable setting the long range focus on Tragelaphus strepticercos on a mountain ledge brought this symbol of the great Namibian Desert bush to occupy an honored place in the Derwood woods. The even more typically desert antelope, the Gemsbok, Dorcas gazela, can go without ever drinking through an adaptation to heat regulation that does not involve loss of water by evaporation.
I still have not collected a bongo, although I have been quite close to them, while they have been so close to me in the forest in their sun-striped camouflage peering from under the understory of such thick cover that they could chuckle as they bolted past my clumsy efforts to move through the world in which they live. I have hunted often with Jean Marko (his Pazande name is more interesting than his French name; "Pung Balete", meaning "There is nothing in my mouth", or "I am speechless"--his father Buli's comment at his birth) and I have learned a lot observing.
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My African hunting stories could include some with close encounters with other hunters competing with us--a pride of lions, and one very brazen leopard whose disdain proved he had not heard that I was a representative of the King of Beasts--and wild elephants on parade in the marsh circling around me before each respectfully took leave of the other--but in none of these instances were we pursuing them only as trophies, and no shots were ever fired. We were hunting out of hunger, and were only attempting to avoid other carnivores. For that reason, there was a special interest in one animal that represents a lot of "Myama"="meat", over a ton of very angry beef.
My African hunting stories could begin and end with the Cape Buffalo. Syncerus kafir has a vindictive streak, and does not take kindly to disturbance. Ill-tempered buffalo are plentiful in northern Zaire and a major source of scarce protein intake, when available, for my Azande friends around Assa. But, "Nyati" exacts a very high human price for the stalking, a sacrifice that seems worth the risk for the hungry hunters, who typically pursue them for days trying to get very close within range of homemade weaponry. The heavy hit from my magnum rifle should tip that balance in favor of the hunter, but that is not always apparent to the buffalo, and the play is acted out upon their stage at their direction.
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I am told (although I have never seen or been close to such a practice) that there are trophy hunters elsewhere who have killed a big game animal, and left the carcass to rot after stripping the head and horns. In contrast, among the expert trackers of my colleague subsistence hunters in Africa, I recall the day we had tracked a buffalo herd for 25 kilometers since dawn following it from the watering hole. We had carefully advanced only when a lone straggler at the rear guard was clear of the herd and not endangering the other hunters with me who were armed, as usual, only with spears. At the sound of my long- range shot, the trackers cautiously advanced and finally spotted the downed bull, coming forward not with shrieks of triumph, but with quiet gratitude: "No one of us was killed, and, at least for now, we will not go hungry." After the masterful breakdown of the carcass and careful apportionment of all the meat and every other part to be preserved with as little waste as possible, they loaded heavy awkward dripping burdens on willing heads to set off in single file for the long haul back to the rejoicing village. I looked back as we bearers marched off; the only thing left back in the trampled tall grass?--the inedible horns!
Africa continues to be a continent full of hunters--but the game is quite frequently other hunters. I had hunted in Mozambique, which has been used to armed men in camouflage prowling around through the bush, doing a lot of shooting, and "living off the land" with lavish ammunition to deploy as reason enough to plunder what they wanted. The terms "missionary" and "mercenary" are often hard to distinguish for a non-English speaker, so as little as possible resemblance would be a wise policy in areas where there is recent or ongoing hostility and strife. There are few areas in Africa where impoverished areas would be considered stable, and armed violence is common either in official state-sponsored suppression, or entrepreneurial crime.
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My hunts in Africa are not the kind that involve catered safaris with Bwana in a pith helmet carried in a sedan chair. I am among friends who know me well and delight in a chance to teach Bwana something he seems so eager to learn along with them. After all, we hunter-gatherers think alike, and communicate this. In fact, this may be how individuals got bonded together for mutual support to begin with and an impetus to language development was made to support strategies in the hunt. Settled farmers gather and store up commodities to be useful in a later season. We hunter-gatherers store up mutual obligations to support each other and distribute what we know, have and can do, and need to rely upon each other in tough situations. I continue to be an African hunter-gatherer.
Some subsistence hunting and fishing sustained our small explorers' encampment on the first-ever summit exploration on Yutaje and Yavi Tepuys in Amazonas Territory Venezuela. "Pato real" (the royal duck) and "lapa" (agouti) supplemented "pavon" (peacock bass) in our living lightly off the land in the interior rainforest. But most of the trophies to be collected here were of the least intrusive kind--merely spotting and identifying, i.e. bird watching. The biodiversity of this rich ecosystem provides a large variety to add to any life list.
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We are all hunter-gatherers, differing in the objects of our quest and the means. Let me give you what I see as the five stages in the evolution of the maturing hunter-gatherer: 1) The Shooting Stage, 2) the "Limiting Out" Stage, 3) the Trophy Stage, 4) The Method Stage, 5) The "Mellowing Out" Stage. At different times, circumstances and species, I (and perhaps you, too!) are in different phases of this pursuit. But we would both like to think that the trend has been toward the mellowing end of the spectrum in each, in which all parts of the experience are rewarding, especially when helping out a few fellow hunters in their progress. So, yes, I enjoy the hunts; yes, I am a photographer, an archer, a rifleman; yes, I DO want to find the bongo!
For you, and for me, I wish "Bon Chasse!"