Recent trophies from Mokore Safaris
The Mokore Safaris 2021 Season – bringing you a glimpse into the world we offer you, when on safari with our family operation.
Taxidermist profile – Frank Zitz
Taxidermy is my life
I got into the industry when I was quite young as I had worked for a furrier when I was just a boy. I had always been interested in taxidermied animals, and first started when I used a mail order from the back of a hunting magazine for a booklet on taxidermy. It was quite accurate though I think a little tough to understand for someone not trained in taxidermy. However, the illustrations and the tools they used for tanning were correct.
Just as I was getting ready to go to college, I worked for a famous local taxidermist, Louis Paul Jonas, from the American Museum. He had a studio north of us, about an hour away, and they did very simple work. They didn’t do any advertising, but their archives and what they had there was everything and more than you could ever imagine – like a museum studio.
Jonas died while in his 40s, and his clients were dispersed. Then I got a very famous Austrian gunsmith who dropped off a chamois for me to work on, and this was just as I was starting to work at Jonas’s former commercial studio in Mount Vernon, New York, down in the city. The studio was orinally the Tiffany glass factory before it moved to Long Island, so the place had a lot of history. The Austrian said if I wanted to really learn taxidermy, I needed to work for a place in a museum studio. We didn’t know each other, but he’s still a big friend of mine, hard to believe, 30 years later.
I went down there for a job interview and looked around. There was some archival stuff there, up to the roof – a lot of businesses had been there for 50 years or 60 years. There there old collections of work to be refurbished, and stock. They were overflowing with James Mellon’s trophies, that famous author who wrote African Hunter. There was amazing sculpture work and things from the original museums. The big elephant head that was there was probably one of the first reproductions. It looked like fibreglass, but made of papier maché and it was signed by all three Jonas brothers. It was was just so amazing. I never really realised taxidermy even went to those levels.
The person who interviewed me for the job at Jonas’s studios in New York, formerly Louis Paul’s commercial studio, was Steve Horn. Once I walked in the door, I was 100% sure that was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, and it’s not too many times in your life you’re that clear about anything. He made me call back there seven times to come get that job. I laughed because he said to me, “Well, what do you think you’re worth?” At the time I was 20, finishing my third year of college. I told him I had worked for a fur buyer when I was a kid. I did piece work for him, so by 12 years’ old l was trained in skinning animals using a beaming knife. I was probably making $10 an hour every day and it was an erratic schedule. I put in a lot of hours, and if necessary had to work on Christmas Day. It was fine, because that was my job, even as a young boy.
So when Steve Horn said, “Well what do you think you’re worth?” I said, “Well, I don’t know – I’m just sure this is what I want to do.”
He said that someone had just left and there was an opening for the shop. It wasn’t really as an apprentice, but Steve said, “You’ll learn a lot, you can work with these other taxidermists.” I was paid $4.10 an hour. I had to drive an hour and 40 minutes to work every day. So every week I wouldn’t really even take a pay cheque, I would just buy materials because I was doing taxidermy then, so I would buy pastes and have tanning done and things like that. But I worked there for years and I learnt a lot. I met some good, interesting people, and then as I progressed, I searched out other people in the industry, people that were connected to places that were very good in certain facets of taxidermy, like African work or doing cats. I would go work for them for free and then come back and I would retrain my men and change our material. So I did that probably three or four times in my life before I was 30.
At one point we were hired to work on Cabela’s projects and there was a pretty famous taxidermist who was handling those jobs. I had a tremendous amount of inventory that I had purchased over the years, and I kind of stepped into this strange job from this eccentric guy who wanted to build a Cabela’s type store, right in-between the two Cabela’s stores in West Virginia. They were going public, so they were making a big splash. We do all North American taxidermy, but when we got an opportunity to actually work for Cabela’s, they hired me to do exclusively African work.
Of course, African work is always the hardest with the highest level of detail, and I was really fortunate, because that’s when I met Wayne. They had sent their agents to collect skins and they made some deals with some guys in South Africa, game ranchers. They said, “Oh, we need kudus and this and this and this,” and they gave a laundry list. But the problem was, the first two times the skins came back, which is what they handed me, they were average-sized animals. The problem was, they wanted record-book-size horns which could be made as reproductions, but the skins were too small.
So I told him I had the inventory covered: “Why don’t you let me just supply the inventory, supply the grasses, the African birds, all the skins. I’ll do the reproduction horns so we have them from record-book-size animals. I’ll handle this for you, you don’t have any problem.” They agreed.
That helped me. Through those years I was able to do almost all African work for Cabela’s. I did a few other things for that Pennsylvania store, but they didn’t want to have one person handling everything. Africa was my thing. And then it also helped me to go to Africa and collect animals and spend a month over there with Wayne. He liked what we were getting, mostly skins, and I got the experience of hunting and vacation, and kept my own horns and skulls, and we used reproduction record-book ones on the animals in the bigger mounts in the stores. And then after that we did a lot of regular client African work, as well as North American work. On one occasion I was at Safari Club and had a big glass case with African birds in it, all the stuff that you see in a bird scene. I had maybe 15 birds in a case and a man walkedup to the case and said “Wow! I need those for my museum. Are those for sale?” I said, sure.
“How many do you have?”
“Oh, about 250.”
“I’ll take them all,” he said, shook my hand and said, “I’m Johnny Morris.” And that was the beginning of our relationship and he hired us for the African exhibits for him, and I think we did just short of 300 life-size animals for that museum. There were a lot of different parts of it that would take some expertise – not just doing it, but having the right brokers to bring these trophies in from outside that had been sitting in Africa for a long time. But we were able to get all that stuff done, as well as do some reproduction animals for him that were impossible to find, and do some restoration work on some things that were very complicated. Anyway, so it’s the African work and it’s what we do mostly.
Favorite animal? Almost everybody says cats because they’re complicated, and we absolutely have done lots of them. For me personally, my honest answer is, I don’t really have anything I would say is a favorite, but I like high detail and I like craftsmanship and natural positions on things, so I could say cats. But I don’t, because they’re probably the focal point in taxidermy. We’re not really doing any elephants or any lions, so that would have to mean leopards.
I think even though we’ve been fortunate enough to work on Cabela’s African displays and Johnny Morris’s African museum, and people with world-famous sheep and mountain scapes, we still do lots of normal work for people as far as African safaris and small safaris are concerned. We enjoy working with people when they’re new and when they start their trophy rooms and they start that journey of hunting of a lifetime. You start somewhere and start small.
And then we end up re-doing their trophy rooms, and we usually work for these people for most of their lives – and that’s true.
Contact Frank at frank@taxidermymuseum.com or visit www.taxidermymuseum.com
Highlights from John Sharp Safaris
Just a quick update to let you know what’s been happening with me in the field.
My first hunt of the year was a leopard hunt with Andy from North Dakota. We hunted on Malangani where I knew there was a huge leopard – we saw him in 2019 lying on a three-quarters-grown wildebeest that he had just killed. He was 50 yards off the road and we watched him for quite a few minutes before he slunk off. This guy was our obvious target but he proved very elusive. All we could find was 10-day-old tracks in one riverbed but nothing else.
We baited the whole area hoping he would show up but he never did. Andy ended up taking another cat right near the end of the hunt. Dropping our baits on the last day we found his tracks from the night before in the same riverbed where we had found his old tracks. He had followed our drag to our bait but then just walked away.
At the beginning of June, Patrick, a retired policeman from NY, arrived with his nephew, James, for a buffalo hunt out of Nengo camp, again in the BVC. After torrential rains the bush was thicker than I’ve ever seen it, and I’ve been in the area for over 28 years! We caught the tail end of two cyclones that struck Mozambique.
As there was so much water about everywhere it was only after a few days that we found buffalo tracks to follow. Starting at 9.15 a.m. we followed them for many miles, often getting pretty close to them, but were unable to get sight of their horns. We finally called it quits and broke for lunch at 4 p.m.
The next morning we again found their tracks and got after them. The wind wasn’t that good but we spotted two bulls and managed to flank them and get the wind more in our favor. Creeping in close, Isaac and I saw that one bull had a good head and he was feeding into a slightly more open area. Please understand that the bush was still very thick, but at least we could see him. Moving Pat forward he finally got a shot and the bull was swallowed by dense, thick bush.
An example of the incredibly dense bush in which the wounded bull was hiding – totally invisible!
Trying to skirt the very thick stuff, both trackers said they could hear his labored breathing and then announced that he had fallen over. We got around the large thicket and moved closer on the hind side to look for blood. A few feet in front of us the bush suddenly exploded and he launched himself towards us at full speed. There was little time to react even though I was ready. As he passed on my left side at a distance of no more than six feet, I snapped a shot at his head, knowing he was headed straight for Pat and James. I guess the blast in his face and the 500-grain .470 that penetrated the nerve in his horn, persuaded him to change course and he ran between me and my friends as I gave him the second barrel just below the base of his tail. Much to our relief and to cut a long story short, we finally put him down after 13 shots. The good Lord was undoubtedly standing with us that morning. I don’t believe I’ve ever hunted in bush this thick!
We hope that you will join us in our little slice of paradise real soon.
Blessings,
John
Hello world!
Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!
Man in the Middle
This is a cautionary tale for those of you that hunt internationally and wire large sums of money for deposits, trophy fee pre-payments for after safari final payments for extras.
In August of 2020 I booked several dangerous-game hunts in Zimbabwe for international clients. My normal procedure has been to issue a written quote along with a deposit wiring instruction PDF by email. Unbeknownst to me, criminals had hacked into my email account and were waiting for just such an opportunity. They intercepted and modified my wiring instructions to divert the funds to a series of fraudulent bank accounts in Texas, and began communicating with my clients out of my email account as if they were me. In some instances, the clients had received my original instructions but were subsequently contacted by the criminals and asked to send the funds to a different account. One of the hunters actually had his account frozen by his bank and flagged as fraudulent. He then attempted to contact me by email, but the scammers intercepted that email and provided him with another set of wiring instructions to a different bank account in Texas. In Europe they call this type of fraud, “Man in the Middle”.
At no time was I aware that any of this was occurring, as none of the clients’ messages were coming through. It finally came to light when I contacted two of the clients to inquire as to why I had not received their deposits. Once I became aware that multiple bank wires were missing, I immediately sent out a potential fraud alert to my client base and worked with the clients to try to pull the funds back. By this time, the criminals had surely withdrawn the money and disappeared. Fortunately, one of the client’s bank returned the pilfered funds, but in the other cases, the money had disappeared.
The banks should have never delivered the funds to an account where the recipient’s name was not on the account. But how do I hold someone’s foreign bank account responsible?
I filed an FBI Internet Fraud Complaint and to this date have not heard a word. This type of fraud is rampant, and losses occur each year in the hundreds of billions. There is just so much of it that the investigative agencies are overwhelmed to the point that they just let it roll, as they lack the investigative resources to chase every complaint. It appears they expend more efforts in accumulating statistics that they can report, than they do in trying to catch these criminals.
So how did they gain access to my email account? I will most likely never know. Our inboxes are full of phishing email scams seeking to gain access to our personal information. One wrong click and a virus can get through, or, providing any personal information on a seemingly genuine email request can give them access. I have had to update my security measures and no longer send wiring instructions by email. I now either send a photo of the wiring instructions by phone text or WhatsApp or the clients must pay the deposit with a credit card and incur a 3% fee. Most of my domestic clients in the US pay by mailing a check. The US Postal Service is incredibly reliable, and I have never had an issue with mailed deposits.
So how did this all turn out? Although I did nothing wrong and was also defrauded in this scam, the clients were defrauded while doing business with my company. To maintain both my own and my company’s reputations, I had to step up and try to make good with my clients. All the clients moved ahead with the booking of these hunts.
The total sum lost in these scams was $20,000. Only $2,000 dollars was recovered. That is a lot of money, but it could have been worse. Fortunately, the outfitter in Zimbabwe and another outfitter in South Africa also stepped up and helped me with compensating the clients.
I share this with the readers of the African Hunting Gazette to help bring you awareness that email is not secure for sending wiring instructions. There are just too many crooks out there looking to steal your money. To help secure your email accounts, use dual factor authentication. Then any new sign-in to your email account will generate a message to your phone that will require a password to gain access. Nothing is 100% foolproof, but this will make it more difficult for the thieves to gain access to your email account.
I hope this helps you avoid falling victim to one of these scams!
John Martins
Discount African Hunts – an Internet-based International booking agency based in Florida, USA. Formed in 2012 and over 1,700 clients in 53 countries.
Farewell to Brigadier General Chuck Yeager
America Greatest Legend of all times
We had the absolute privilege and honour to have the Late Brigadier General Chuck Yeager and his wife Victoria visit us twice in South Africa. During their visit in 2010 they spent two weeks with us hunting and touring. This was General Yeager’s first-time hunting and touring in Africa/South Africa. However, The General did mention to Nicole that he had “bombed” Libya (gunnery practice as US air base there) many years ago while still on active duty, but guessed this did not count as a visit. Needless to say, this was not arranged by any tour company….
The time we had with the General was incredible, like standing in the shadow of an elephant. He had an excellent memory and incredible dry sense of humour, often laced with technical information and sound advice. On hearing of his passing, 07 December 2020, that night we sat around a fire, something he enjoyed very much, and toasted the General, reminiscing some memorable moments of our time with him.
Victoria and Gen. Chuck Yeager with Bontebuck
To share but only a few. Upon their arrival at Cape Town International, we drove them to their Waterfront hotel. When we got to the hotel the General said “you should check your left front tyre, it needs more pressure.” I look at him with surprise and said that I just had the vehicle serviced including wheel balancing and tyre pressure. “Mmhh,” he said, “check it out tomorrow when you come and collect us from the hotel,” This bothered me the whole night, so the following day I woke early and proceeded to check the tyre pressures. Yip, he was right, the font left needed one more bar pressure. Then I knew he definitely had the right stuff.
On another occasion, while we were busy hunting, he noticed a water reservoir about 150 yards away from where we were standing and ask me to drive to it as he said, “the water pipe is leaking and we need to check it out.” It looked fine to me, but he insisted. Well, upon arriving, to my surprise he was right again, the pipe was leaking. He asked me if I have pliers and can I please bring it to him, after which he proceeded to repair the leak himself. A genuine humble man of the soil and sky. What was more amazing, that every time the General came to sit with us at our stand at the Dallas Safari shows he would ask me if the pipe had leak again. What a memory he had.
He would tell me about the times when he grew up on a farm in West Virginia and would help his dad, repairing things around the farm. As he said, in those days, you didn’t have all the modern equipment like today and you had to make use what was at hand. This no doubt had an influence for his love for all things mechanical and wide-open spaces.
Another incredible moment I had when we were hunting a Blue Wildebeest. The Blue Wildebeest was standing about 120 yards from us on its own. I got the General on my shooting sticks and said he should wait for the Wildebeest to turn broad side. The Wildebeest must have got wind of us and decided to take off, running to left at full speed. The General, not to miss an opportunity suddenly took the rifle off the shooting sticks, mounted the rifle to his shoulder and he took a running shot at the Wildebeest, to my absolute awe, the animal dropped like a stone, a perfect heart and lung shot. This at the age of 87. I asked him how he did it. Cool calm and collected he said “that’s how we shot those enemies in my P-51 Mustang..” Well, all I could do was shake my head and laugh. Now I know why you are the greatest pilot of all times with the real Right Stuff. The General had 20/10 vision and awesome hand eye coordination that helped him become the outstanding pilot he was.
Joe and Gen. Yeager with his Blue wilderbeest running shot
On another occasion, something I will never forget, and then again, I could go on writing more stories of the General, but this one shows how in-tune he was with flying machines. I arranged a flight with one of my friends from the Stellenbosch Air Club. We flew in a Bonanza Beechcraft to a farm just outside the small town of Citrusdal. Renowned as the Rooibos Tea growing area. Of course, the Generals wife, Victoria, is a big tea lover so I arrange to visit one of the large Rooibos tea farms whose owner is not only is a big tea grower but is also an avid pilot with his own hanger of planes and landing strip. Taking off from Stellenbosch myself and the General sat at the back and Victoria who also flies sat as co-pilot. She flew most of the way there and back. While we were flying and chatting over the microphones General Yeager called out, “you might want to adjust your trim.” Victoria and all had a good laugh. He was right again, that was just unbelievable.
During the second week we flew to Johannesburg and stayed in Pretoria where we arranged a very special dinner for the General and Victoria with our then current chief of Air Force, Lt General Carlo Gagiano, previous Chief of Air Force, the late Lt General Dennis Earp and wives, Fiona Capstick, the Late Adelino Serra Pires and myself. This was quite a historical moment for me to be with such accomplished people who have impacted the lives of many. Thanks to Fiona arranging this special day indeed.
From left to right: Jesse Roos, our pilot who flew us in the Bonanza Beechcraft, and Johan Ferreira, owner of the rooibos plantation, with Victoria and Gen.Chuck Yeager
We concluded our time up north by visiting the air force base called Makhado that was all arrange by Lt General Gagiano. Spent some time in Kruger National Park and then return to our home in Cape Town. It was trip I will remember forever. There is completed story of their whole trip publish in DSC Game Trails, 2012 convention. Can be also be viewed on my web-page “About us” under NEWS Articles www.capetownhuntingsafaris.co.za.
So, goodbye my dear friend, until we meet again high in those blue skies you know so very well.
Products
-
1 Year Magazine Subscription - Digital
$49.00 for 1 year
-
3 Year Magazine Subscription - Digital
$129.00 for 3 years
-
5 Year Magazine Subscription - Digital
$199.00 for 5 years