Written by Lou Hallamore and Bruce Woods (Trophy Room Books, 2011, 238 pages.) Review by Ken Bailey
With few exceptions, African literature has generally been intended to allow the reader to live vicariously through the words and experiences of the author. As readers we’re inspired by thrilling tales of hunting adventure, and often it’s those stories that compel us to visit Africa for the first time. Once we go there, of course, we’re hooked, and African hunting literature helps quell our thirst for Africa until we can return.
Chui!: A Guide to Hunting the African Leopard is not like most African literature, but then, leopards are not like any other African game animal. There is a science to hunting leopards that is unrivalled by that of any other species. Leopard hunting is not a tracker’s game, as is the case for elephant, Cape buffalo, lion (often) and most of the antelope species. Certainly, finding and identifying tracks is part of the leopard hunting experience, but once you’ve identified a prospective leopard to hunt, it becomes a tactician’s game. A chess match of the man against beast variety. And there is arguably no better tactician hunting leopard today than Zimbabwe’s Lou Hallamore.
Leopard hunting is characterized by interminably long, often fruitless, waits over bait. It’s a game of patience, and for those accustomed to shooting two or three species a day, it can be an agonizing experience. In part, that’s because, as visiting hunters, most often with little or no previous leopard hunting experience, we really don’t understand the complexities of the strategies at play. And leopard hunting, as with almost any other activity, is a whole lot more interesting and enjoyable when you know what the hell is going on. In this regard, Chui! serves as a textbook and reference source that will help you understand the many nuances that are part of a leopard hunting game plan. That understanding, in turn, will help make leopard hunting infinitely more rewarding.
Hallamore has been hunting leopards for more than 40 years. That adds up to a lot of lessons, many, if not most, learned the hard way. In Chui! he reveals all the tricks, tactics and secrets he’s accumulated on the trail of leopards across those decades. For readers, and wannabe leopard hunters, this book offers a detailed education as to what you can expect when pursuing your leopard and, more importantly, why your PH is doing what he’s doing to help you go home with that cherished rug.
Individual chapters are dedicated to the importance of selecting the right bait, hanging it, locating and building a blind, blind techniques and equipment, PhD-level tactics for problem cats, dealing with wounded leopards, and how to handle the hide to ensure your trophy arrives home as you imagined it would. Nowhere else is this level of leopard hunting know-how found within the covers of one book, and reading it, and knowing it, will go a long way toward helping you become more than just the trigger man in the grand scheme. Becoming more engaged in the whole process goes a long way in getting through those inevitably long hours in the blind, and help you come to grips with what went wrong on those too-frequent occasions when leopard hunts aren’t successful.
Of course, no leopard book would be complete without at least a few harrowing tales of man-eating leopards and hunts gone wrong, and Hallamore and Woods include some decidedly hair-raising accounts. Chui! is also liberally illustrated with images and sketches that enhance the reading and learning experience.
If you’re interested in hunting Africa, undoubtedly a leopard is on your “must do” list of game. I can think of no better preparation for that experience than reading Chui! from cover to cover. And then reading it again. There will be test one day, and you’d best be prepared!
I was born in Queenstown in 1967 and grew up on the farm, Bowers Hope, in the Tarkastad district.
My father, Murray Price, pioneered the hunting business in the Eastern Cape, with the first clients arriving in 1963. As children we were to be seen and not heard, so we used to hide under the table to listen to all the hunting stories passed around between legendary hunters from across the globe. That must have been the early influence resulting in my hunting career!
I grew up in the field in the Eastern Cape, mainly on our fifth generation-owned land, with my father and various PHs and trackers who taught me through experience. I learnt many things in my career, and one of these was to be more patient during the hunt and to wait for the best trophy we could get.
I currently hunt in the Eastern Cape on our fifth generation-owned and conserved property, as well as on one of the largest hunting concessions in the Northern Cape where the pristine land has been rehabilitated and managed to be the ultimate hunting area in Southern Africa.
Other countries I have hunted were Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, and Cameroon. In my time I have been in some amusing situations. One I remember in particular was a gemsbok charge when I was with an F16 pilot who had been shot down over Bosnia and lived to tell the tale. The gemsbok was wounded and charged us, and the client ended up shooting it from two yards. We laughed over a beer later, picturing him surviving Bosnia and ending up being killed by a charging gemsbok – imagine the headlines! On another occasion, but not funny, was I nearly being taken out by a buffalo in the Charisa area close to camp.
A very special memory is of one of the most interesting and challenging hunts I have had, hunting with a family with an autistic child. Watching him grow and open up during the safari as he gained in confidence and an attachment to me, touched everyone deeply, especially the parents, seeing their child come alive.
Another memorable hunt was with a client who came on a 30-day safari to hunt the Big Five, having very had very little hunting experience. He was high on testosterone shots and various other drugs. After he ran out of marijuana, we ground up elephant dung in desperation and gave it to him to smoke as a joke! When he realised it wasn’t the real stuff, he completely lost it! But we had a good laugh about it later around the fire.
We also had our share of disasters. We had a group of elderly clients travel to us all the way from Canada, and upon arrival one of the ladies fell down a step and broke her hip. She had to be transported by ambulance to East London for surgery, and they ended up staying with us for a month recovering. They were very gracious about it, as it put an end to their safari.
And a close brush with death was in a recent buffalo hunt where the client wounded it and my son, Grant, finished it off as it was charging, and it landed on top of the cameraman!
My weapon of choice as back-up for dangerous or wounded game is the .458 and I recommend the .300
.300 Win Mag with 180 grain for plains game, and the .458 for dangerous game. And if clients want to improve their safari experience, I suggest they give themselves sufficient time beforehand and practice shooting off sticks as well as getting as fit as possible.
The best trophy animal one of my clients ever took was a 48 inch buffalo, though my favorite animal to hunt is the Vaal rhebok, as they are such beautiful, rare animals that always produce a challenging hunt in the mountains.
In my role as an editor and a writer, I get to read many interesting things, and some of them are so good that they need to be shared with others. Such is the case with a wonderful essay called ‘This Land of the Ligers’. Kartik Shanker is an evolutionary ecologist and professor at the Centre for Ecological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He is also the co-founder of Dakshin Foundation, a coastal and marine focused NGO, and founding editor of Current Conservation, a magazine bridging conservation and art.
This Land of the Ligers was published in the ACU Review, the initials standing for The Association of Commonwealth Universities, based in London. You can read the whole essay here: https://www.acu.ac.uk/the-acu-review/this-land-of-ligers/. Professor Shanker examines how romanticised ideals of the natural world overlook and undermine deep historical relationships with nature based on various forms of use. He touches on the issue of hunting, which will interest our readers. Dealing with ‘The Myth of Virgin Nature’, he writes:
“In north America, Henry David Thoreau’s portrayal of nature in Walden and his writings on ecology and environment led to the development of an idea of pristine wilderness. John Muir, the ‘father of national parks’ took these ideas into the state domain and campaigned for the establishment of national parks that would be free of human presence and influence.
“On a camping trip with President Theodore Roosevelt deep in the heart of Yosemite, the latter referred to a sequoia forest as a ‘temple built by no hand of man, a temple grander than any human architect could by any possibility build’. No wonder then that this movement to create pristine natural areas should become nothing short of a religion by the 20th century – one that might be called ‘pristianity’.
“But landscapes such as Yosemite and Yellowstone were not in fact pristine. They were myths created in the 18th and 19th century by adventurers, naturalists and, later, that PR wing of pristianity: nature photographers. These landscapes had been peopled and modified by Native Americans for thousands of years. What the colonisers saw and admired were actually areas that had been used, burned, grazed, and occupied. But they saw them at a time when their own actions had extirpated or displaced those human populations.
“How deeply ironic then that the very idea of a conservation landscape derives from this false notion of virginity, created by the descendants of those responsible for the illusion. And how strange that a century later, we would continue to define conservation in this way across the world, as outsiders.”
Professor Shanker ponders about the currently strong belief in the ‘sanctity of species’, and shares his childhood memories of many visits to the zoo in Kolkata (then Calcutta), where hybrids born of lions and tigers were called ‘ligers’ and ‘tigons’ respectively. In his own field of expertise, the sea turtles, many species hybridise and produce fertile offspring in the wild. He says that the fundamentalist approach of some conservationists is perhaps best reflected in our confused ideas about our utilitarian relationship with nature.
“I have also often used the phrase ‘I love turtles’. Almost never is this interpreted to mean anything other than that I love watching them or that I conduct research on them or that I want to protect them for their own sake. Never would it be interpreted in ‘civilised’ society as meaning that I love turtle meat.”
We hear a lot about ‘animal rights’, and indeed this is one of the issues that is often used to demonise hunters. Professor Shanker observes that:
“But these rights often only extend to certain animals – typically birds and mammals, and sometimes extending to all vertebrates – depending on whom you are talking to. Among conservationists, it is not unusual to find rights conferred upon the animal that one ‘loves’, such as dogs, dolphins or elephants. The inherent irrationality is not dissimilar to the simultaneous existence of many monotheistic religions.”
“In Africa, western conservationists have driven the narrative of conservation for nearly a century. Kenya’s national parks were established by a British conservationist, and similar stories abound across the continent. What is galling is that, in addition to past atrocities, animal rights activists, compassionate conservationists, and others of their ilk continue to try and control conservation in distant and often low-income nations.
“Recently, the controversy surrounding trophy hunting has attracted much media attention. While there can be valid critiques with regard to which animals are hunted and whether revenues reach the people who need it, anti-hunting campaigns are often misinformed or intentionally misleading. Moreover, most of the opposition is actually about the killing itself. This is odd for many reasons. Hunting has been closely linked to human evolution, with animal protein regarded as an important driver of the increase in brain size. But the sports hunt may have had a role as well; in fact the hunting of large dangerous animals is believed to have been used to signal dominance of both individuals and societies.
“But evolutionary history apart, the right to use nature – through hunting or other means – is both philosophically justifiable as well as practically necessary. After all, biocentrism is itself a construct of human thought, and while those who subscribe to it are entitled to do so, foisting it upon a large diverse world is as colonial as any other form of oppression. And like other hierarchies, this cultural oppression disproportionately affects the vulnerable and marginalised.
“At a practical level, practices like trophy hunting can bring significant income to poorer communities across the global south. Traditional fishing and hunting offer sources of nutrition otherwise not accessible to those communities. Most importantly, what version of equity allows those in the west (or in cities) who have already destroyed their environments, and whose lives have enormous ecological footprints, to dictate that others cannot benefit from their resources in a manner that is ecologically sustainable?
“These deep, historical relationships with the natural world based on use – where nature can be simultaneously revered and eaten – form the most fundamental basis of sustainability and conservation. And yet, across the globe, these rich cultural practices are being eroded by the misadventure of modern conservation. In addition to the imposition on culture and economic growth, movements that create exclusionary spaces for nature seek to sever connections with nature for the wider world while preserving these privileges for an already dystopian urban elite. This constitutes an egregious failure of the ethics of equity and human rights, as well as a fatal error in the path to a more universal acceptance of environmental conservation.”
As 2021 draws to a close, and as the world continues to be constrained and complicated by the Covid-19 virus, we should be grateful to people like Professor Shanker for providing such valuable thinking to the relationship between humans and the other species with which we share this planet. Hopefully 2022 will see Africa opening up to international travellers once again, and hunters returning to conduct their ‘rich cultural practices.’
Dr John Ledger is a past Director of the Endangered Wildlife Trust, now a consultant, writer and teacher on the environment, energy and wildlife; he is a columnist for the African Hunting Gazette. He lives in Johannesburg, South Africa.John.Ledger@wol.co.za
Chris and Bob from Montana have hunted with me on many occasions and we’ve always done pretty well as a team. They are the nicest people, so when Chris contacted me for a possible late season double buffalo and plains-game hunt, “of course, no problem,” I said. Having hunted many buffalo together over the years and always taken very good old bulls, the “monster buff” had always eluded us. However this has never been the focus of a safari. Chris is a guy who enjoys the hunt for what it is, and is more interested in how a particular animal is hunted rather than what it measures – one of the reasons we have always had stress-free and successful safaris.
December is not typically a prime hunting month in Zimbabwe, as often the rains would have begun, the bush starts to thicken, and rivers start flowing, making access to some areas difficult or impossible. But at the same time it is a time of year that is so beautiful. Animals start having their young, flowers are in bloom, there is new growth of leaves, and sometimes there are spectacular electrical thunderstorms. Chris and Bob were well aware that we could spend a lot of time getting wet or unstuck from the mud, but whatever the circumstances, we would still have a lot of fun.
Humani in the Save Valley Conservancy owned by the Whittall family is one of the most beautiful places I’ve had the pleasure of guiding in, an area of riverine bush along the Turgwe and Save Rivers, mopane woodlands, malala palm forests and many kopjes. The abundance and quality of game is incredible. You can expect to see close to a thousand head of game a day, including black and white rhino, elephant, wild dogs, lion, leopard, buffalo and, of course, all the various types of plains game.
When I arrived in camp, I was told that a really big buffalo had been seen the previous day in a herd of about 100 animals. The description sounded really good, even if taking the information with a pinch of salt. A few days later I decided to go to the area where this bull had been seen, and found fresh sign of a herd literally a mile or so from where the buff had been spotted. Excited and full of anticipation we got ready, me with ammo belt, binoculars, shooting sticks in one hand and my rifle in the other. Chris and Bob were prepared for a long morning, with Chris’s weapon of choice a .416 Remington fitted with a Swarovski scope.
Chris, Bob, Mudini, Ishmael and National Parks Ranger with Chris’s magnificent buffalo
Mudini, an exceptional tracker was in front and on tracks. Following a herd of buffalo of this size was pretty easy for someone of Mudini’s talent and it wasn’t too long before we heard the first sounds of a buffalo grunt and mooing in the distance. “Sound advice” as I like to call it. Making sure the wind was in our favor we took a big loop around the herd and positioned ourselves in among some rocks at a slightly elevated angle, expecting the herd of buffalo to casually and slowly graze past us. It was the right spot for ambush, as front of the herd started to slowly make its way towards us. Man, the suspense was quite something as the front of the herd passed us at no more than 40 yards, completely unaware of our presence! A couple of good bulls passed. No sign of the “monster.” Surely this is the same herd I asked myself. I thought we were going to have him, but alas he was not in this herd. Disappointing.
We were making our way back to the closest road when we bumped a bachelor group of bulls. We did not actually see any of them but knew they were all bulls just by the size of the tracks. Mudini reckoned there were five. We gave it 10 minutes before deciding to follow them. After roughly 30 minutes on the tracks Mudini suddenly stopped, crouched and pointed ahead. He had spotted movement. Swish of a tail is all he had seen. Lifting my 10x42s Swarovskis, and looking into the thick, green cover, I could only make out two bulls and neither of them was what we wanted. Trying to get a different angle to lay eyes on the others made me to give my position away, and with a loud snort from one of the bulls, the group thundered off. We continued to follow, but it was obvious they knew we were behind them as they kept running off. I called off our pursuit to give them time to settle again and we headed back to camp for lunch and a rest.
A while later we were back to where we had left the tracks, and after roughly half an hour Mudini told us to wait. He needed to backtrack a bit to make 100% sure that we were still on the same tracks, as at this point there had been sign of a herd that had moved through the area, and we wanted to stick to the Dagga Boy spoor, so working this out needed some meticulous and sharp tracking skills. Bob, Chris and I stood on a well-used game trail while Mudini did his thing.
Author and PH Thierry Labat with the “monster” buffalo bull
We were having a quiet chat when something caught my eye. It was a buffalo bull, its head down, slowly walking directly towards us on the game trail we were on. It was less than 40yds away and without having to look through my binoculars I knew this was what we had been looking for. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I set the shooting sticks up, told Chris to get onto them and just wait as the bull kept getting closer and closer, completely oblivious to our presence. At roughly 25 yards the bull must have sensed something. It stopped and looked up at us exposing his whole chest and giving us an absolutely beautiful view of his horns. The mass, shape, width and drop were everything any buffalo hunter could dream of!
The silence was shattered by Chris’s .416. It was a solid hit in the centre of the chest. The bull bucked and his nose almost hit the ground at the impact of the bullet. After the shot we all kind of stared at each other in disbelief of what had just happened. A few moments later Mudini came back to where we were standing with a look of surprise on his face. As a joke we told him we’d shot at an eland. You should’ve seen his look of disappointment! A short follow-up, and again the look on Mudini’s face when he realised by the tracks that it was not an eland we’d shot. But the best expression on his face was when he laid eyes on the bull that had succumbed to the shot. What a sight!
After much backslapping and congratulations, reality sank in, and we had to acknowledge that we were just in the right place at the right time. I mean what were the chances? If it’s meant to be it will be, with a bit of effort of course. Chris had finally bagged himself a “monster” bull. A 45” bull with a beautiful shape and serious bosses. Que seras!
BIO
Thierry Labat of Thierry Labat Safaris is a freelance, multiple award-winning professional hunter who customizes safaris for clients all over Africa to include Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Uganda, Mozambique and Mauritius. Contact him directly on phthierrylabat@gmail.com or through his website: www.thierrylabat.com for any enquiries relating to hunting safaris in above mentioned countries.
We started to hunting the Savannah again in January and actually it was only July that we finished our forest season – with the same (and in some cases, better) level of success as always. We saw to it that our areas were not abandoned during the pandemic. And although fewer hunters than normal, all of our usual PHs were guiding. However, where we could, we deployed them to different areas in order that everyone could at least get some work during the season.
Having fewer hunters gave us more time to give attention into the important areas that in busier times sometimes get less attention. Renovating camps, and for some, even moving the entire camp to brand new areas. Opening roads, exploring remote areas that we have not hunted and establishing new salt points. All in the interest of future success. So, while a stop in the hunters in 2020, we managed to set the foundation for this year. The result was very positive as it helped us prepare really well. Friends desperate to get traveling came to help. They were tired of being “prisoners” at home.
The cancellation of the hunting shows, which coincides with our main savannah season, also gave us the opportunity, especially to my father and I, to travel to more of the savannah areas than we have in the past. We could also dedicate more time (to our staff, the authorities, and to the areas and camps. It is always a challenge because while it would be great to have PHs at the shows, when they are at the shows, talking with potential clients, they can’t be in the savannah hunting with existing clients.
A negative aspect of the pandemic was the shortage of food and this meant more poaching – which needed more anti-poaching from ourselves. We hired team leader Greyling Van der Merwe a young enthusiastic ex-military South African from the French Foreign Legion who is now overseeing the anti-poaching. He could combine the French-Cameroon style of our local staff with the South African and Zimbabwean/Tanzanian style of our PHs. Poaching is not a quick battle – but rather a long war. We are already starting to appreciate the changes in our areas and I’m sure we will notice more from his work next season.
So, in summary, we took a positive approach from this pandemic and from the trophies you see – the areas, the camps, the staff – we have all delivered – and for the past year’s clients – we say thank you.
Book edited by Craig T. Boddington and Peter Flack (Safari Press, 2004, 606 pages); Review by Ken Bailey
When James Mellon’s book African Hunter was published in 1975, it was hailed immediately as a classic, a thorough and contemporary guide to hunting Africa. But, in Mellon’s own words from 2003, “My book is no longer relevant to conditions in today’s Africa.”
Enter Craig Boddington and Peter Flack, two well-respected hunters and writers. They took up the challenge and compiled what is undoubtedly the most comprehensive book dedicated to hunting Africa in the 21st century. African Hunter II builds on what Mellon started and created what Mellon suggested will be, “the standing work in its field for decades to come.”
The 600-page book is an engaging amalgam of encyclopedia, guidebook and captivating treasury of hunting tales from across all walks of Africa. Twenty-four countries are featured; for each, the editors provide a summary of the hunting regions, the game animals available, and a brief overview of the history, geography, climate and basic national facts and economic statistics. The primary species hunted in each country are covered in reasonable detail, providing hunters considering a safari some inside knowledge that will help in their planning. Clear, simple and beautifully-created maps accompany each country chapter. Once the “facts” have been covered for each country, readers are treated to some fine contemporary magazine-style writing, compelling tales of hunting in the region, some previously published, but all written by accomplished hunter/writers. In fact, if you had no interest whatever in the “guide” portions of the book, you could spend many rewarding evenings just soaking in the many well-crafted tales of African safari hunting.
There are a few add-on chapters designed to assist both the first-timer and the safari veteran alike. As might be expected with Boddington at the helm, included is a thorough overview of rifle/cartridge combinations. Other chapters provide guidance for booking your safari and what medical considerations you should be thinking about before you go. And from cover to cover, this book is well-saturated with wonderful photography of the game, the people and the places.
By their very nature all guidebooks have a shelf life, and this is no exception. Some of what was reflective of the African safari world in 2004 may not be exactly the same today. Notwithstanding that, it’s still a very relevant overview today, and the sheer volume of information about hunting in Africa makes this a treasure that will last a long time. In fact, when they eventually take away all my stuff and put me in that home, this is likely to be the one book I keep at my bedside.
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