News Archives - Page 27 of 85

On safari with Steph Marais

Feb 11, 2021 | News, Newsletter

My name is Stephen (Steph) Marais. I was born on 19 January 1989 in the small town of Grootfontein, Namibia, as a third generation Marais in Namibia. From the early age of only fifteen months, I was constantly travelling around Namibia with my father, him being the owner of a construction company and moving from one site to the next. My mother was a full -time teacher, so instead of going to a day care, my father took me with him to work.

When I was three years old my father bought the ranch, which today is the heart of the Safari Operation. My father had a lot of ex-military personnel working on the ranch and for the construction company, which helped me gain a lot of first-hand experience in tracking and general knowledge of nature survival as I grew up.

At times while we were on the ranch my parents had a hard time keeping me in the house, therefore my father took one of his trusted trackers and gave him the duty of looking after me. He had to go where I went.

Steph Marais is a PH with Keibeb Safaris

My father and grandfather that loved hunting. We always hunted for meat, which was also the first rule about hunting when I started with a slingshot shooting birds. “You eat what you kill.”

At the age of four, my father started the tradition where every year on my birthday, I was allowed to hunt one animal that I really wanted. So on my fourth birthday, with the assistance of my father, I shot my first animal, which was a steenbok, with a .22 Long Rifle. That was the day I remember I told my father I wanted to hunt for a living.

Steenbok Taken by Bjarne Mikkelsen November 2013

I learned almost everything I know about hunting from my father and grandfather. My grandfather always told me the stories about the “Good Old Days” when he grew up hunting in Africa. During that time animals were everywhere to be seen and not afraid of humans. They hunted elephants for ivory and hippos for their fat, which if cured correctly could last years in the salt-chests under their beds.

I would say the most important thing I had learned from my grandfather and father about hunting is to respect the animal you hunt, and never shoot at an animal if you are not absolutely sure you can make a quick and clean kill shot.

I started my hunting career on Keibeb Game Ranch, in the northern part of Namibia. After finishing primary school in Namibia, I went to South Africa to attend High School in Upington, Northern Cape. Because I loved hunting so much I got my professional hunter certificate in South Africa after High School and started hunting for one of my friend’s father in the Northern Cape Province. I quickly learned that bullet construction made a much bigger difference in the penetration on the African animals then the caliber.

After hunting in South Africa, I returned to Namibia, where I got my Namibian Professional Hunters Certificate in 2007, started my own safari company, Keibeb Safaris, and continued my hunting career in Namibia. I also conducted some hunts in Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe. I always wanted to experience Africa like in my grandfather’s stories, so when I got clients wanting to hunt in different countries across Southern Africa, I jumped at the opportunity.

If I could return to any time and place in Africa, I would return to the late 1800s and early 1900s when the ivory hunters was going into the Dark Continent to look for elephants to hunt, and where a hunting safari could be as long as a couple of years at a time. Hunting for meat for the camp, moving around Southern Africa, hunting as you move along and just seeing the untamed beauty of Africa before civilization, would have been my dream.

The southern greater kudu is my favorite animal to hunt in Africa. When I was eight years old I made a promise to myself that the day I shot a 60’’+ kudu bull I would never shoot another big kudu again. Over the years I guided a lot of excellent kudu trophies of which the biggest was 63’’, but I never shot a bigger bull than 59⅞ “myself.

The best trophies my clients took over the years were a Cape eland bull measuring 42.5’’ and a waterbuck bull measuring 33’’ in length. It was just a wonderful feeling knowing those animals were really mature and way past their prime. The thickness of the horn bases and the battle scars proved they had had a long and successful life.

One of the two most memorable hunts I had was when I shot my first eland at the age of eight, a couple of days after my eighth birthday. We were driving around the ranch checking the rain gauges when we saw a track of a lone eland bull. The dewlap that was bigger than both of my shoes together was dragging between the tracks. It was early in the morning around 7a.m. when my father asked if I wanted to hunt an eland. I immediately said, “Yes”, and within five minutes I was ready to start following the spoor.

Eland Taken by David Lang 2017

I was armed with my father’s .30-06 and the tracker followed the spoor, I followed the tracker, and my father was right on my heels. It only took about 10 minutes before we could hear the clicking sound of the eland bull as he was slowly walking around. Another 15 minutes passed, which felt like a couple of hours, and there we had the big eland bull standing broadside 50 yards in front of us browsing on the leaves of a bush. It took me forever to get ready and steady enough to make the shot which hit him right in the heart, and the eland ran off. We followed the blood trail and soon found the eland where he had collapsed.

The second memorable hunt was when one of my clients was hunting with a longbow, and we decided to do a walk and stalk with the bow on a big giraffe bull that was always fighting with the younger bulls. We stalked for four hours and twenty-eight minutes before we finally got to the preferred shooting distance of between twelve and eighteen yards. It was a full frontal shot. The arrow hit home, and the giraffe almost looked as if it were going to start stomping at us before it just silently collapsed a mere nine yards from where it was shot.

Once I had a couple in camp where the husband was hunting and the wife was an observer. She had Alzheimer’s which I only became aware of by the third day of the safari when she got lost after deciding to follow her husband and me. We were stalking a group of zebra that we had seen earlier. When we left the truck and started out following the zebra, she stayed in the truck, but as soon as we left she told the trackers that she wanted to go with us. They could still see us so they let her follow, and while she was following us she wandered off and somehow got lost after a couple of hours in the bush, and forgot where she was or where she was going.

It had started raining soon after we left the truck and we had a very hard time tracking the old lady down. Luckily I had some really good trackers that had experience in tracking humans. The rain made it very difficult to follow her tracks, but in about three hours or so she was found unharmed and brought back to camp. For the rest of the nine days we started every morning with the same stories about her life and had to reintroduce ourselves to her every time she saw us. That became a very long week of hunting.

In 2017 I had an accident with my one trucks and broke my left leg really badly. I had to undergo surgery, where the doctor had to remove 11 small bone fragments and then attach the remaining bones with a metal plate and screws. At first the doctors wanted to amputate my left leg, but luckily I found a doctor willing to operate and save my leg. After the surgery, while still in recovery I had clients coming to hunt, and getting a replacement guide at such short notice was quite difficult. So it was a very big challenge at the time to hunt, because I was not as mobile as I used to be, but I pulled through and guided a few hunts with crutches, and later on in a boot. That was probably my toughest year throughout my entire hunting career.

When clients ask me about what type of rifle they can hunt with when on an African safari, I always say that a smaller caliber like .308 Winchester or .270 Winchester with which a hunter can shoot very accurately is a better choice of rifle for the first-time hunter in Africa. You can use a lighter bullet of good construction with a precise placement of the shot on plains game rather than a bad shot placement of a bigger, heavier recoil bullet or rifle. If you are to bring a bigger caliber, be sure to practice with it beforehand. No guide wants to have a hunter wound and not find an animal.

Another recommendation would be to practice shooting off shooting sticks before you get to Africa, as most of your shots will be off shooting sticks under 200 yards. For your safari you can only bring your rifle and ammo, binoculars and camera. There is no need for a rangefinder as your guide will give you the range. Clothing for an African safari can be two to three pairs of hunting clothes, light khaki or natural colors like olive, brown and grey, with good, well broken-in hunting boots, two sets of casual clothing and shoes for the evenings. Washing will be done on a regular basis normally every day.

For a backup rifle I use a Ruger M77 in .458 Lott with a 550-gr bullet when hunting dangerous game as well as for any wounded plains game. The pure reason for this is that it has more than enough stopping power if you need to stop a charging elephant, buffalo or lion, and for plains game you do not really have to worry too much about branches or bushes that are in the way. It will pass right through it and keep travelling in a straight line to the target.

The only time that I really had a close encounter with death was when I had a wounded leopard which we followed into a really thick acacia scrub area. The leopard charged at us after it killed one dog, while the young hunting dog in training ran away towards us. From the moment we heard the dogs getting mauled till the moment we saw the leopard was in a blink of an eye. I took a full frontal shot on the leopard with my .458 Lott, hitting it just above the left eye and dropping the leopard seven yards from us.

The hunting industry had changed quite a bit over the past decade, with the media and a lot of uneducated people trying to put hunting off as a barbaric way of just killing animals for their horns. This is not true by the way, because everything from a hunted animal gets used in Africa, nothing goes to waste. In the last couple of years it seems to me that more young people are getting into hunting again, but we have a generation gap within the middle-aged hunter. It has also become more of a unisex sport rather than a mainly male sport as it used to be in the past.

When booking a safari always make sure what is included and excluded from a safari package. A lot of people compare prices and just take the cheapest price they can find, which might not be the cheapest at the end of the hunt. Make sure to read the fine print and also make sure to book with an outfitter in an area where you want to hunt and that they have the animals that you are looking to hunt. If you have physical disabilities or are not so young and fit as you used to be, do not book a mountain area hunt as it will be very hard on you, and at the end you might not be able to get the trophies you are looking for. Rather book a hunt in an area that has a flat and even terrain that would make it easier for you to walk and stalk. Always tell your outfitter about any and all handicaps or disabilities you might have so that they can prepare for that beforehand.

The only way conservation of African wildlife will work in the long run, is if hunting is used as a form of conservation. Wildlife in Africa has a value and that is only measured by the meat and food it provides and the money it puts on the table of hundreds of locals, directly or indirectly involved in the hunting industry. The moment you take the value away, nobody will care about it and it will be destroyed and killed to give domestic livestock better grazing opportunities. Also, predators will be killed to avoid human wildlife conflict as well as to protect livestock. As long as people are generating money or food from themelves, everybody will help protect the wildlife which then has a value for them.

Lastly, my ideal safari would be if I could have a month or two to go on safari to hunt the African Big Five like in the old days. Tracking a big, black-maned lion and leopard on foot in the Kalahari from the first day you see the track until you track them down and maybe get a shot at them, or hunting the Cape buffalo in the Caprivi and Luangwa Valley. Taking very old, well representative trophies of a species, and not necessarily going for the biggest trophy even if it means it is a younger animal.

Hunting Crocodile in Africa

Feb 11, 2021 | News, Newsletter

African crocodiles are large aquatic reptiles that have been on the planet for more than 150 million years, living in the warmer bodies of water like the Okavango Delta in Botswana. There are four main types of African crocodile: the big one – the Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus); West African crocodile (Crocodylus suchus), also known as the desert crocodile; the Slender-snouted crocodile (Crocodylus cataphractus), and the Dwarf crocodile (Osteolaemus tetraspis). There are other species, but they aren’t hunted. All four species of African crocodile continue to grow their entire life.

The Nile crocodile is a large, aggressive reptile with a broad snout that is more noticeable on older animals. Coloring runs from dark bronze to deep brownish-black as it ages. If you decide to hunt Nile crocs, anything between 13 and 15 feet would be considered a very good trophy. They are found throughout sub-Saharan Africa, and can live in brackish water, but prefer freshwater habitats. These are the reptiles that come to mind most often when a hunter imagines croc hunting.

The West African crocodile has been shown through recent studies to be a distinct species from the larger Nile crocodile. Its territory stretches from Gambia east along the Atlantic Ocean. It is on the critically-endangered list and cannot be legally hunted.

The Slender-snouted crocodile is found in Central and Western Africa. It’s a medium-sized reptile that feeds mostly on fish and small vertebrates. Weight runs between 275-500 pounds and length can vary in mature adults from 9 to 13 feet. It’s hunted primarily for meat and hides, and usually not considered a trophy.

Last, there is the Dwarf crocodile. Its habitat runs from Angola to Senegal and is the smallest of all living crocs. It’s heavily armored and is uniformly colored black. It lives in tropical forests, and is a very shy nocturnal hunter. During the day, it digs a burrow, sometimes with an underwater entrance, where it can hide.

Most hunters who go on a croc safari plan on hunting the Nile crocodile. They can be hunted in numerous countries. Almost all the large rivers in Africa have a good population of these professional-grade assassins. An awful lot of villagers have had their last bath courtesy of the big Nile crocodile. The crocodile is mostly teeth, tail and appetite. He’s an equal opportunity eater; consuming just about anything he can get into his mouth. He’ll also digest anything he gets down his gullet. If you hunt crocodile, you want to remember that given a chance, you could easily become his next snack.

Nile crocs have been found to have everything in their stomach from warthogs to rocks. The stomach acids are strong enough to dissolve bone – and your shoes, should you happen walk too close to a hungry croc. And don’t think something that prehistoric, that large, and being run by a brain the size of an ear of corn is slow. Crocodiles have been known to come out of the muddy water and catch an impala 30 feet from the bank before the impala could get cocked and locked.

Their teeth are hooked and not suitable for chewing. What they are good at is holding on to some part of their new meal’s anatomy. Then they spin until said part of the anatomy is removed. Open goes the mouth and whatever is there disappears down the gullet. If the animal is too big to eat, the Nile crocodile will take it down to the river bottom and stuff it under a convenient tree root until it decomposes to its liking. Not fussy eaters, the Nile croc.

Actual hunting crocodile can be very exciting. The Nile crocodile is truly a cold blooded reptile and can absorb a tremendous amount of punishment and still live. There’s an old African saying among Professional Hunters that is as valid today as it was 100 years ago: “A croc ain’t dead until the hide’s salted and on the wall.” Even then, it would be prudent to have some sort of large artillery close to hand.

Crocodiles being cold blooded have to regulate their body temperature with the sun. They spend a lot of time working to raise their internal temperature by lying on the river bank soaking up the heat. They are quite difficult to stalk and the usual procedure is to park the safari truck at least a half mile away from the river bank and walk in from there. Quietly, it goes without saying. Because if the croc hears you coming it won’t even leave a ripple in the water as it disappears.

Shots can be anything from 50 yards to 200 yards, or further. This will depend on how well the hunter can approach the crocodile and how good the hunter is with a rifle. If a Nile crocodile is shot, but not killed, it will most likely head for the water, swim to the bottom and die and be lost. Remember, the brain is very small and it’s protected by a boney skull. Shot placement must be right behind the eyes. The most reliable shot is from the side where the target will be two to three inches wide and deep.

Caliber? An accurate .30 caliber rifle with at least a good 180 grain bullet like a Trophy Bonder Tip with ballistics of 2900 feet per second and 3500 foot-pounds of muzzle energy would do the job. The .33 to .35 caliber rifles with a similar 250 grain bullet would be a better choice. However, as you will probably be shooting from a prone position, anything in the .375 range, and up, will smack your shoulder pretty hard, but, if that’s the rifle you’ve got, go with it.

Seven Crocodile Facts

Scientific Name (Nile): Crocodylus niloticus
Adult weight range: 900-1800 lb
Adult length: 13-15 feet – some much larger, up to 19 feet, but very rare
Range: Somalia to South Africa
Speed: Land 8-9 mph, water up to 20 mph
Life span: 60-110 year
Prey: Up to small elephants and Cape buffalo

A range of trophies below, hunted by some of the African Dawn Members

The Rise of the Eco-Greenshirts

Feb 10, 2021 | News, Newsletter, Uncategorized

On the 15th of January, The Guardian, hardly noted for being a hotbed of right wing hubris, ran an article about scientists’ concerns that UK celebrity power is undermining global conservation efforts. In the article, reference is made to a meeting in parliament hosted by the Campaign to ban trophy hunting (CBTH) attended by activists, politicians and the media.

The CBTH is not a charity; The Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting Ltd is a private company registered in London. It is a privately owned eco-chugger, raising money “to save animals” but none appear to be saved and its idiotic campaign, although no doubt highly profitable, will do more harm than good. It was set up by one Eduardo Goncalves, who learned to harvest donations some time ago whilst CEO of the League Against Cruel Sports (LACS), and the CBTH Ltd company registration now shows his wife as its only officer. To all intents and purposes, the person of significant control is clearly still him. LACS, you will recall, was instrumental in getting fox hunting with hounds banned in the UK, a spectacular success that destroyed a five thousand year old tradition but saved not a single fox, 400,000 of whom are now killed every year in this country according to the Burns report.

Eduardo Goncalves

Goncalves reportedly owns a cork forest that he bought in Portugal and thus makes an additional living himself out of harvesting nature. He has recently written three “books”, purporting to be exposés of the trophy hunting industry but they are, in fact, a collection of propagandist trash of such magnificent proportions, they would have made Goebbels orgasmic with delight had they been trendy at the time. All three “books” are published by Green Future Books Ltd that, by some amazing coincidence, has only one registered officer, a certain Mr Goncalves.

These books are, in fact, as truthful to the hunting industry as a vuvuzela is to orchestral music and are blatant advertising tracts for the CBTH Ltd worthy of examination by the Trading Standards Department. They proudly state within their worthless covers that “all profits will be donated to the CBTH”, which, noted above, is also the very same Mr Goncalves. How very cosy and generous. Nobody is suggesting that the CBTH is a scam, but its advertising “books”, slogans and headlines are a tissue of subjectivity, lies and deception, so if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and swims like a duck, the question must be asked, what is this odious little chugger, whose Facebook page has Hunt Saboteurs and Keep the Ban among its relatives, doing holding a meeting in our parliament?

It gets worse. Very ominously worse. The Guardian article also reports that a certain Dr Amy Dickman was asked to leave this meeting, a meeting apparently concerned with wild animal conservation. But not so, my gullible friends. You see, Dr Dickman is extremely well qualified to be there; Kaplan Senior Research Fellow in Felid Conservation, Pembroke College, Oxford, one of the UK’s leading big cat conservation experts, and a member of Oxford’s WildCRU (Wildlife Conservation Research Unit) with twenty five years of award-winning, scientifically-based, top-drawer academic and practical conservation work in Africa – the sort of whom we can be very proud of as a nation. Dr Dickman was asked to leave no doubt because she is intelligent, understands the real problems of wildlife management and conservation in Africa and has published in many scientific journals a truth that is carefully concealed and denied by the Fagin-like messiah of the CBTH Ltd.

Most important of all, if a world-class British expert was outrageously asked to leave the meeting in the Mother of Parliaments, where truth and free speech must surely form the bedrock, why didn’t one of the politicians present make any move to support Dr Dickman’s presence? Could it be that they were all too busy scoffing free publicity at Goncalves’ porcine trough?

The CBTH Ltd lists a formidable array of supporters, including zoo operator Chris Packham, the celebrity truth bender, and also one Peter Egan. According to the Guardian article, Mr Egan has referred to Dr Dickman as “a very limited scientist”. Quite apart from being another outrageous lie, it is a bit rich coming from a gobby thesp who makes a living from pretence, whose own chest of wildlife qualifications contains only navel lint, and whose trademark British voice was actually learned at RADA, perhaps to hide his Irish ancestry. It should also not surprise you that the leader of this detestable cult, the wily Goncalves, has only qualifications on political science, not in wildlife management. No wonder they all love wildlife – these people have more neck than a bloody giraffe.

A visit to the CBTH Ltd website is a further wonder to behold and it should surely form the prime text-book example for every propaganda and hard-sell course taught at university level. From the very start, it displays powerful images. The first, outside 10 Downing Street, features the usual suspects, plus the imposing presence of a Mr Boniface Mpiro dressed in his traditional bright red shuka. He is advertised elsewhere by the CBTH Ltd as “a senior Maasai elder”, although he must do his senior eldering from Waterlooville in Hampshire, where he reportedly lives and must obviously love the local wild lions roaming there.

Below the number 10 photo-op there appears a fascinating array of Africans holding up signs, at least two of which are the same sign held by different people, suggesting that the holders were paid or persuaded to hold them up for the camera. At first glance, it would appear to be concerned village Africans protesting about trophy hunting. But look closely – the good people appear to be Kenyans – trophy hunting has been banned in Kenya since 1977 (and is probably the main reason why Kenya has lost more than 70% of its wildlife outside its reserves, unlike the animals in the southern Africa hunting grounds that have increased five fold). The slogans are therefore meaningless to Kenyan villagers. The slogans, all of which are demonstrable misrepresentations, have been ingeniously devised to appeal to exploitable foreign viewers. It’s actually a propaganda montage!! They have been duped, of course. Misusing Africans dishonestly in order to hide the deceit of your UK money-harvesting machine might be considered a tad distasteful and might even be construed to be more than a little colonialist. So why do it?

The reason for the appearance of this photo-pastiche of Africans is even more fascinating, Dear Readers. You see, the CBTH Ltd campaign is, without doubt, damaging the lives of southern rural Africans and their attempts to conserve and harvest their wildlife sustainably whilst deriving much-needed income and food. Funnily enough, it is similar to Goncalves harvesting cork, by sustainably tearing the skin off his oak trees. Not surprisingly therefore, last year, fifty genuine leaders of millions of rural Africans across Southern Africa, wrote an open letter to organisations like Born Free and CBTH Ltd, asking them to stop their anti-hunting campaigns using UK celebs because the campaigns are hurting rural Africans and wildlife. The open letter represents the voice of real rural Africans, and it was their letter and real voice that the CBTH Ltd tries to obliterate with their own counterfeit trump card – the grubby photo montage of their African pseudo-protesters. You see, there really is no end to the subterfuge of wily Goncalves. Not only does he mis-use Africans to fool UK supporters, he uses them as willing donkeys to stifle the real voice of fellow Africans. Such breathtaking cheek! No wonder Pinocchio Packham is one of his strongest supporters. It’s a wonder the Kenyans were not holding aloft a few dead birds of prey for good measure.

Of course, we are all quite used to our politicians speaking in words of fluent testiculation, and we are prepared to overlook the sadness that some of the cherished celebrity darlings of our nation are, in fact, bottom feeders in the fish tank of human intellect, but when a herd of self-seeking, parasitic eco-chuggers, under the protective wing of DEFRA, can throw an eminent scientist out of a meeting, inside our parliament building, the very home of truth and free speech, there is something very ominous going on that has nothing whatsoever to do with animal welfare.

John Nash grew up in West Cornwall and was a £10 pom to Johannesburg in the early 1960’s. He started well in construction project management, mainly high rise buildings but it wasn’t really Africa, so he went bush, prospecting and trading around the murkier bits of the bottom half of the continent. Now retired back in Cornwall among all the other evil old pirates. His interests are still sustainable resources, wildlife management and the utilitarian needs of rural Africa.

News from Byseewah Safaris

Feb 10, 2021 | News, Newsletter

I have been asked several times as to when I was going to send out another newsletter. I did not think this was a good idea under the circumstances, as what was there to report? 2020 was a bad year for most people. Then I got thinking. We still have a lot to be thankful for. We started off the year with some good rains to break the terrible ongoing drought. The grasses came back immediately which was a good surprise for us. This was a very positive thing for us. We really thought that after so many years of drought that we would have lost most of the seed bank. Our dams filled up and Lynda even managed to pump water out of the house dam till mid-October to water her garden!

House waterhole on 5 January 2021

We had lost many animals during the severe drought in 2019, so this last year has given us the quiet time to recover. It is always a joy to see calves feeding on the fresh grasses. We took delivery of a breeding herd of blue wildebeest and waterbuck mid-year and we were really happy to see a new-born little blue wildebeest calf when we did a game drive this last Sunday.

We have had to reduce our staff, and the ladies now only work half day, and the lads have taken a reduction in their salaries. Even though we did not have guests for a year, we still have to maintain things on Byseewah. At least we did not have as much damage from elephant this last year as we had in 2019. The lads spent these last months replacing damaged and old fencing. It takes a lot of work to maintain 100 km of fencing! The girls sanded and varnished any piece of wood furniture that stood still and spring cleaned everything within an inch of its life!

There were 22 baby ostriches running down the road!

We have a new project – to build a camp on top of Griet’s Mountain! First we have to build the road before we can start on the camp itself, as many of you know just how that road looks like that goes over the mountain! Need a decent road to take the supplies over and up the mountain. It’s a project to get excited about as it means another place for our clients to experience.

The rains started last week with a very heavy downpour at the lodge. We got to watch the river come down and actually fill up the house dam, something which brought us a tremendous amount of joy. Went to check on Freedom Dm, and although not full yet, it still had a nice lot of water in it.

2021 will certainly be a different year for us. As many of you know we suffered a great loss with the passing of Naftal. He will always be remembered by his ready smile and happy disposition.

Discover more at Byseewah.com

In memory of Naftal Aebeb

Feb 10, 2021 | News, Newsletter

Naftal Aebeb, hunting guide at Byseewah Safaris, passed away suddenly due to metastatic parotid cancer. Naftal will be remembered by many people around the world, and be in our memory books for his great company and his special skills out in the bush. Always smiling, he was a really special person, an example to us all. Naftal did not have any formal education but became one of the first local hunting guides to qualify in Namibia. He spoke five languages and taught himself to read and write. He lost his left arm in a car accident 17 years ago, but never let this get in his way of doing his job, whether it was guiding, changing a tyre or digging a hole! He was part of the Byseewah family for 30 years and he would have turned 45 this month. He leaves behind his three children, Evangelina who is 21 and works in Outjo, Smedley (15) and Heroliena (14) who are both in Grade 8 in a school near Windhoek. Lynda has applied for guardianship of the two younger children and will continue to look after them along with the rest of the Byseewah staff.

Below are some letters written to Naftal by friends who have known him a long time.

Dear Naftal

I think the first time we met was in 1994. Right from the beginning it became clear that the two of us are a good team. I love to work with everybody on Byseewah but we always had a special relationship.

Due to this fact we spent a lot of time together. We learned of each other. We talked about our hopes, fears, philosophies and later the children, which I could watch growing up. We had patience with each other although that was not exactly our strength. Our friendship was growing each time we met. We called us brothers.

You impressed me in many ways. As a hunter, as a father, your way to be honest and straight in your very own way that was far away from mainstream. There is a reason why the name of my son is Raphael-Naftal. I wish he could have met you.

When I got the news of your death it was a heavy blow. Since years I was very aware of the fact that I felt privileged and lucky having you as a friend. Even death can`t take away all the special times and moments we had together. This way of looking at it eased the pain a lot and gave me strength. You leave a big gap but we will go on. You would have done the same. Never give up.

Some years ago we were talking about death. You said you were afraid that people could forget you. I promised you I wouldn`t. Well, keeping this promise is an easy one. How could somebody forget you?

So, farewell my friend. Hope to see you later.

Dirk Seemüller – Germany

My dear Friend Naftal

The first time we met was in 1998 on my first trip to Namibia and Byseewah. Although you were 2 or 3 years my senior, life had bestowed upon you more wisdom and life to your years.

In the following years, we saw each other one or several times per year and you taught me new skills on every occasion. I grew a lot as hunter but also as a human being and this in no small way by being inspired by your spirit.

You fully deserved and defended your place in life. With more support and means during your young childhood, I am convinced that your intelligence and perseverance would have brought you to upper academic and professional levels. This was sadly not the case, but fortunately your talents were not wasted nor neglected. Your intelligence and drive to acquire knowledge was fuelled by self-study, you taught yourself to read, to speak Lanky (imagine what would have happened if Ken spoke Oxford English)…Not only languages were your forte, but what a fine connoisseur of human psychology you were, not to be fooled and knowing how to react in emotional situations that are intertwined with hunting circumstances.

You had a doggedness to achieve your goal and this invariably influenced those you were interacting with. The rare talent you had to read the land and mind of your prey and the anticipation on its next moves were only hindered by the burden of the hunter who gave up and ran out of steam (some out of heart). If it were up to you, you would have persevered and would have followed to hell and back. Never give up.

To never give up was also shown when you recuperated from the loss of your arm. You overcame the mental and physical strain with the support from the whole Byseewah team and by self-determination. I have never heard any complaint about the unfairness and a lesser soul would have found ample reason to wail and sink into self-pity. Not you, my friend, not you.

We spoke a lot about our families. You were so proud of Evangelina, Herolina and Smedly. As parents we had the same hopes for our children, the same worries as well. You brought them up and this mostly as a single parent, no simple feat, considering that you wanted them to aim high and that you gave them all the opportunities and assistance you were deprived of during your childhood. Only future will tell, but I have very strong hopes that you have succeeded and that they will strive in life.

It would be an honour for me to sit with them and to recount what I learned from you and share our mutual hunting achievements and stories. We also knew failures, but let’s say that it might more be due to me and to no fault of your own. There was never any bitterness when such a failure (very seldom) occurred and we set them behind and moved on to do better next time.

You leave a huge void behind. All your Belgian friends remember you very fondly and are devastated by the news. To all of us you were an integral part of Byseewah and it is hard to imagine Byseewah without you. I hope that you will keep an eye out for us from above and that you will keep on guiding us through life. Where you are you will meet friends who preceded you and I am sure you will guide them again.

We feel the deep and indescribable sadness of Ken and Lynda. They looked upon you as a son and your loss cuts deeply into their soul. They also may not give up.

All your friends from Byseewah will wake up to a new world, a life without Naftal, hardly imaginable, but sadly the reality. We also want to offer our condolences to them and share their grief.

Evangelina, Herolina and Smedley, this is the time where you will have to pull together. You are not alone to do this. You will be carried by the base your father laid and supported and cared for by the family of Byseewah. It is however up to you where you will stand in life and how you will approach your future. You have it in you to become as outstanding as Naftal, your father, a name and a legacy to carry proudly.

My dear Friend Naftal, you were an exceptional man and we were all privileged to have come to know you.

Jean and Caroline Vande Vyvere – Belgium

I am deeply saddened by the loss of my friend Naftal.

We lost a great human being, father, and an amazing professional hunter.

I send my deepest condolences to his family and friends.

Some of my fondest memories stem from experiences shared with Naftal.

He and Moses submerged me into the passion of hunting. I was a young boy who nervously handled his rifle when they first took me out into the wild plains of Byseewah. Naftal used to run through the bush – always going too fast as Ken would say – while I usually got stuck in needles and burrows, often scaring that animal which we had been chasing for hours away. As exhausted as we’d be, he never got impatient, never lost his temper. He’d rather smile when seeing my hat hanging in the acacia thorn as That One Oryx fled, never to be seen again. I missed some shots too, some of which I’d still rather not talk about, not that he ever would have… There was always a valuable lesson to be learned from almost every outing.

How much I – and perhaps most of us – have lost that. We tend to keep on going forward, sometimes trampling our way in search of quick satisfaction. With Naftal, I had moments where I felt ashamed of my own frustration when thinking about how he must have felt. Chasing endlessly with a loud and clumsy European tourist behind him. But he never complained.

Then there are those magical moments. It’s a Byseewah trademark apparently. I feel grateful and humbled thinking about the emotions felt in the field in Naftal’s presence. He took me to the best hides. There’s one, and I still rather not reveal its location, as we agreed upon – or rather as I urged him – not to reveal. I kind of suspected he’d known about it for ages, but he made me feel as if we found it. Hiding in that small bush not so far from the Iron Rock water hole – and I’m already revealing a lot here – has often been the highlight of my trips to Byseewah. Eland bulls towering above us just a few meters away, a kudu herd just settling there for ages, just long enough for us to figure out who is who, who has how many stripes, who seems to be misbehaving, etc. And jackals… He could spot them from a mile. I must admit, I’ve told him many times “yes I see them but they are too far”. I actually never saw them until they came up too close and me, once again, startled them, and made them flee so fast that I could never lift my rifle on time. Again, Naftal just smiled.

Those many hours spent in the Uri, I treasure just as much. No point talking about football with Naftal. He just made me feel as if I just quickly read a Wikipedia page about the sport. In music though, I felt we had a connection. I felt bad last year as I forgot to bring him some CDs. I planned on making up for it this May. These unfortunate events decided otherwise. I still hope I can share some of my memories and perhaps some music too with the people whom he cared so much about. My thoughts are with them now. I believe the many hardships which Naftal endured throughout his life are eclipsed by the goodness he brought around him. To me, he is as authentic a man as the positiveness and joy he exuded throughout the 25-odd years I’ve had the immense pleasure of knowing him. May he rest in peace and may his relatives find peace in his memory.

Charles van Marcke – Belgium