Zimbabwe is struggling with an overpopulation of elephants in many areas, despite media reports to the contrary and public hysteria over the issuance of export permits for legally hunted animals. Photo by Denver Bryan/Images on the Wildside

Elephants in Zimbabwe are under threat from the very efforts intended to “save” them.

In the March issue of Sports Afield we looked at the story behind the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s (FWS) decision on Zimbabwe elephants under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in late 2017. The finding—that legal hunting will enhance the survival of elephant there–should have allowed American hunters to import elephant trophies once again, but the White House responded to the media firestorm by putting permits on hold.

The landscape has changed somewhat since then. In response to a DC Circuit Court decision, the FWS withdrew all country-wide enhancement findings in a March 1 memorandum, stating that permits for elephants, lions, and other listed species would be considered on a case-by-case basis. That means permits should, once again, be a go, but none have been issued.

Now is a good time to look at the gulf between the priorities of FWS and those of the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZPWMA), which faces complex elephant management issues that vary from region to region.

The FWS treats trophy hunting of elephants as though it were a key part of species management, lumping it in with other offtakes. In reality, hunting quotas are a fraction of a percent and the few elephants killed by hunters have no effect on the biological status of elephants in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe’s expensive efforts to address the FWS import suspension have mainly distracted from what should be a more important issue: the fact that three of the country’s four elephant subpopulations are considerably larger than ZPWMA wants them to be.

Ecologist and wildlife consultant Rowan Martin worked for what is now ZPWMA from 1972 to 1997, also serving as Zimbabwe representative to CITES. According to Martin, much of the country’s protected woodland areas are paying a price for continued inaction over high elephant densities.

Says Martin, “Canopy woodlands begin to disappear when elephant densities exceed one elephant to five square kilometers, and the worst problems are in Matebeleland North. Hwange National Park itself is an ‘eco-slum,’ with over 45,000 elephants at a density of 3 per square kilometer. There has been an increasing migration of elephants from the park into neighboring safari areas (rather negating the hypothesis that elephants would seek haven from trophy hunting in the park) and Matetsi now has some 5,000 elephants at 1.1 per square kilometer.

“There is considerable vegetation damage in the Lower Zambezi Valley, which consists almost entirely of hunting areas, including communal CAMPFIRE areas. Despite the high level of illegal hunting taking place, elephant densities are still unacceptably high (0.7 per square kilometer). Elephants in the Southeast Lowveld, including Gonerezhou National Park, have reached densities exceeding 2 per square kilometer, causing widespread habitat degradation. Incredibly, Zimbabwe received a congratulatory message from FWS for the ‘good news’ that the park population had reached 12,000 elephants.”

Martin notes that biological species management and management for trophy game are separate matters, a point that seems to confuse FWS. “In the 2014 finding that started the suspension, they wrote ‘In order to manage any population to ensure an appropriate population level and determine whether sport hunting is having a positive effect, it is vital to have sufficient data on population numbers and/or population trends to base management decisions.’ This is incorrect. With adaptive management, sport hunting can be managed indefinitely using the feedback from trophy quality (e.g. mean tusk weight) to increase or reduce quotas. If trophy hunting is benefitting the population, it doesn’t matter what the biological status of the population is.”

Because of the ESA’s demand that hunting enhance the survival of the species, FWS has developed a fixation with high numbers and an obsessive concern with offtake. But concerns about elephant densities and the health of the ecosystem as a whole largely glossed over. Populations are artificially high in national parks, largely because of pumping that maintains water pans throughout the dry season.

Rose Mandisodza-Chikerema is the chief ecologist for ZPWMA, and oversees research and management across Zimbabwe. She confirms that Zimbabwe wants to address the high elephant populations, particularly in Matabeleland North.

‘There is an overabundance of elephants, and the biggest effect is modification of the habitat. Another impact that you also have is a decline in plains game species like giraffe, impala, and zebra. For example, game count results in northwest Matabeleland show increasing elephant and declines in a number of herbivore species.” Mandisodza-Chikerema says that there may have been even more marked declines in antelope during the rapid elephant growth after Zimbabwe halted culling programs in the late 1980s.

Despite this, current plans don’t involve culling elephants. “We may translocate some animals to areas like those in Sebungwe and the Lower Zambezi Valley, says Mandisodza-Chikerema. There may also be some live sales, not to manage the population, but to raise funds. In areas like northwest Matabeleland we may look at the option of closing some of the waterpoints.”

Mandisodza-Chikerema notes that culling would only be a temporary solution, because the artificial water holes allow the elephant population to rebound rapidly.

Vernon Booth is a freelance wildlife consultant who began his career as an ecologist with the ZPWMA, working in the Matetsi for thirteen years beginning in 1979. He says that the park is heading toward a critical juncture.

“What’s happening in the region now is the same thing has happened in Chobe National Park in Botswana, where the only trees left are miombo and other unpalatable species. In Chobe you still have buffalo in the floodplains, but virtually all antelope have taken flight. It’s an insidious and slow process. There isn’t a lot of hard data on the effects on other species, but impacts are visible. The area around Sinamatella Camp in Hwange was called ‘Impala Park’ with 200 impala per square kilometer in the 1980s, and now impala are virtually absent. That’s to say nothing of what’s happening to reptiles, insects, and other animals. No one knows. The big problem is the water pan pumping. I think somewhere along the line that population is going to keep growing and growing and we’re going to a situation like in Tsavo in Kenya on our hands, where much of the wildlife dies off.”

A fierce debate burns about whether there can be “too many elephants,” with some biologists arguing that elephant-dominated landscapes are part of a natural cycle that took place in the pre-colonial era. There are, however, very few protected wildlife areas in Africa that don’t have permanent artificial waterpoints within close proximity, causing elephants to complete dominate the landscape. Recent research has turned to waterpoints, suggesting that woodland biodiversity may be maintained if permanent pans are better managed. Waterpoint management may prove to be an effective strategy for Zimbabwe in curbing biodiversity loss. If so, elephant numbers will drop, a point that the international community should be willing to accept.

For hunters and wildlife managers, the bottom line is that elephant populations have exploded in much of Zimbabwe, and there is no reason why the country should continue to go without key revenue from elephant hunting. Says Mandisodza-Chikerema, “In some ways we have been punished for conserving our elephants while other countries have been less sucessful. FWS has treated the country unfairly by not allowing Zimbabwe to see the rewards from its successes.”

While revenue from trophy elephants may not make or break ZPWMA, it may tip the scales for communal wildlife areas in the CAMPFIRE program, some of which have already turned hunting areas to other uses, such as farmland. This means compressing elephants in ever-smaller spaces.

Whatever the good intentions of the FWS, the fixation on numbers and data around a few charismatic species will continue to obscure difficulties facing ecosystems in Africa. These problems are local in nature, and poorly served by the broad strokes of ESA policy.

In mid-March, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke issued a statement on Twitter saying, “Let’s be clear: Since the President’s statement, we have not issued a single permit for elephant trophies. We support the President’s policy.” Zinke seemed to be referring to Trump’s November tweet putting permits on hold. It is not known when, or if, this policy will change. It clearly isn’t based on science, as ESA policy is supposed to be.

When the ESA is being controlled by political whims, it’s time for the U.S. to walk back our outsized influence on wildlife management in African countries.

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Click here to read a fascinating article from the Journal Rangeland Ecology & Management entitled “Wildlife Conservation on the Rangelands of Eastern and Southern Africa, Past, Present, and Future,” by Jerry Holecheck and Raul Valdez.

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One hunter’s guns go missing–for three months.

On June 4, 2017, I arrived at the Miami Airport on an overnight flight from Buenos Aires with two over and under shotguns in my checked baggage.  The guns were properly declared in BA to the local authorities and the airline upon departure.  My flight arrived at 7 a.m., and after clearing U.S. immigration, I went to the secure luggage area to get my guns and duffel, clear customs, and transfer to my next flight. After my duffel appeared but not my guns, I went to the Information Desk at customs.  In the meantime a fellow hunter who was with me on the same trip had neither his guns nor duffel.

Upon inquiry and presenting the claim slip, I was told my “bag is in the building” according to “the computer information” and to wait by the oversize luggage belt even though my gun case is not oversize.  After waiting another forty minutes, I went back and explained I was in danger of missing my 9:30 a.m. connection to Los Angeles and asked how to file a missing luggage report.  I was told, “Your bag was likely transferred to L.A., which sometimes happens by accident.”  I was unable to file a missing luggage report with the Information Desk within customs.  So I cleared customs, checked back in for my next flight, went through security, boarded my connecting flight, and left.

In the meantime, my friend had missed his flight.  Having nothing to do, he made inquiries and eventually ended up in a U.S. customs office where they showed him his gun case and where, he noticed, my gun case stood in plain view.

My friend presented his 4457 Certificate for Registering Valuables and was given his guns.  As soon I landed in Los Angeles, I filed a missing luggage report with the airline.  I was told my luggage would be delivered the following day.  My duffel bag did arrive, but my hard case with the guns in it had been removed.  (I have a double-bottom duffel with wheels where you can put the hard gun case inside the bag.) After a dozen phone calls to the airline and U.S. customs, I finally got to speak with a Miami U.S. customs supervisor, Mr. Amyx.  He told me his computer showed no guns seized for the day of my arrival and “the guns must be with the airline.”  When I insisted that my friend (who is a medical doctor and 100 percent reliable) had seen my gun case in the possession of U.S. customs, he said that they must have returned them to the airlines.  When I asked if U.S. customs would return a firearm to an airline without any kind of paper trail, he said, “You assume we had the guns to begin with.”

Obviously this type of circular logic was getting me nowhere.  In the conversation, something interesting came to the fore when Mr. Amyx told me that it was U.S. customs procedure at MIA to “hold all guns in arriving luggage back and wait for the passenger to come to customs to claim their guns.” A search on Google show no such policy posted anywhere, and obviously nobody in the MIA luggage area was aware of this, either.

Later that week I wrote a registered letter to the MIA Port Director Mr. Christopher D. Maston, explaining my situation and pointing out this is not the way U.S. customs should be acting.  Then on Saturday night, June 10, I got a call from Mr. Brian Amyx and Herman Ouran of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.  Without any apology, I was told, “We have your guns here.”  I was asked to e-mail proof of ownership and a copy of my driver’s license.  Mr. Amyx again repeated the story that MIA airport, for security reasons, holds back guns headed for the carousels.  I bit my lip, for I wanted to ask both men, “Why did you repeatedly deny having my guns?”

Now the guns were handed over to a contractor from American Airlines, and I would have expected that they would be placed on the next available flight from Miami to Los Angeles.  No such luck.  It would take till August 7 before I would see my guns. I was assigned to a Mr. John Hallal in the Phoenix, Arizona, lost luggage center of AA. When I finally got him on the phone he contended that I had “abandoned” the guns and the only way to get them back was to return to Miami and pick them up there in person.  After much up and down he agreed that a person with a notarized letter from me could pick them up in MIA.  On the day that person was to drive to Miami airport, Hallal changed his mind, so this idea was dropped.  I then went up and down with Hallal as to how to get the guns but he eventually settled on this: “An FFL dealer needs to come to MIA and pick them up and transport them to you.”  The cost for this service and the transport would be mine.

I made a mistake in trying to work it out with Hallal too long; it was obvious I had done nothing wrong, and Hallal had taken it upon himself to dictate policy at AA.  Several calls, even to his supervisor, had no effect.  I then did the right thing and wrote an intense, detailed, and very polite letter to AA CEO Doug Parker.  That letter was sent on August 2 and arrived in Ft. Worth on August 7 via registered mail.  Much to AA’s credit, I got a phone call Monday morning, August 7, saying that my guns were in L.A.  I drove to the airport that day and claimed them.

As these events happened, I kept careful note of all dates, names, and occurrences. Now, more than three months later, I feel this was the worst ever gun/airport encounter I have ever had and I have no desire to repeat it.

There are some lessons to be learned: First, some airports have procedures regarding guns that are not posted, and the airline personnel may not even know what they are. Keep asking questions if your guns do not show up. Expect the unexpected.

Second, writing a polite letter helps.  In both cases when I did, I had immediate results.  Making dozens of calls and sending three dozen emails was much less helpful.

Now that I know what is going on at the Miami Airport, I think it is fine to travel to and from it with guns.  But I do wish the ground personnel inside the luggage area and the airline personnel would have told me what the rules were when I inquired.—Henry van den Broecke

The shotgun in the photo above, in their case, went missing at Miami Airport for almost three months.

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Hunter, conservationist, writer, and author of many bestselling big-game hunting books, he left his mark on the outdoor world.

Author, editor, publisher, columnist, and lifelong Arizonan William R. “Bill” Quimby has died at age 81.

From 1983 to 1999, Quimby was editor and publisher of Safari Club International’s Safari magazine, the annual SCI Record Books of Trophy Animals, and the monthly Safari Times and Safari Times Africa newspapers. From 1967 to 1994, he was the outdoor editor of the Tucson Citizen and a member of its editorial board from 1987 to 1994.

He was born in Tucson on September 30, 1936, and attended schools in Yuma before returning to Tucson in 1954 to enroll in the University of Arizona’s College of Business and Public Administration. After graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Marketing, he was employed in the advertising divisions of Levy’s and Jacome’s department stores, and at local advertising and public relations agencies. He founded and published Arizona Outdoor News, a regional newspaper covering Arizona’s hunting and fishing opportunities, for three years in the 1960s.

He was a founding member of the Tucson Art Directors Club and southern Arizona chapters of Ducks Unlimited and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. He also served as the 1990 president of the One Shot Antelope Hunt’s Past Shooters Club in Lander, Wyoming.

During the 1960s, Quimby won several metalicas siluetas—long-distace, high-power rifle shooting contests—in Sonora, Mexico.

In 1973, the Arizona Wildlife Federation presented Quimby with the Conservation Communicator of the Year award for “outstanding contributions to the wise use and management of the nation’s natural resources.” In the 1980s he served as a member of a governor’s panel that advised the Arizona Game and Fish Department on fundraising methods.

After retiring in 1999, he divided his time between his home in Tucson and a cabin in Greer, and wrote or edited more than two dozen books on international big-game hunting subjects.

One of his books, Royal Quest, told of the hunting expeditions of Prince Abdorreza Pahlavi, brother of the last Shah of Iran. Another of his books chronicled the history of Safari Club International. His own memoir, Sixty Years a Hunter, was published in 2010.

Quimby received numerous awards as a reporter, columnist, editor, and publisher, and, in 2003, he became one of only three authors to be presented the Peter Hathaway Capstick International Literary Award, the highest award a hunting and adventure author can receive. He was inducted into the Arizona Outdoor Hall of Fame in 2006.

Quimby hunted in North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, South America, and the South Pacific, taking more than sixty different types of big-game animals, including all ten species found in Arizona. Utilizing his knowledge of hunting in Africa, he moderated Safari Club International’s popular “Your First African Safari” seminars for nearly twenty-five years at the club’s annual conventions in Nevada.

He is survived by Jean, his wife of more than 62 years, daughter Stephanie Quimby-Greene of Tucson, and grandchildren Natalie Greene of San Francisco and Logan Greene of Tucson.

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Hunters in two states are funding pro-hunting public relations campaigns in an effort to beat the antis at their own game.

Back in the 1990s, hunters in Colorado were smarting from a series of anti-hunting ballot initiatives that had recently passed in their state, including one that banned spring bear hunting. A few of them realized that the majority of the voting public didn’t know squat about hunting’s contributions to wildlife management and conservation, nor about the positive impact that hunting has on the economy.

They saw that public sentiment was being shaped by media campaigns run by well-funded anti-hunters and decided it was time to strike back with a PR campaign of their own. These sportsmen banded together with a mission to develop an ongoing media-based program to educate the urban, non-hunting public about the scientific, economic, and conservation benefits of hunting and fishing.

In a recent article, I wrote about what those forward-thinking Coloradoans came up with—legislation establishing a Wildlife Council with a long-term funding mechanism, via a license surcharge, fully dedicated to a pro-hunting mass-media campaign. This resulted in the “Hug a Hunter” ads you might have seen if you’ve been in Colorado recently—friendly, pro-hunting ads geared toward the non-hunting public that run on regular TV and radio channels and appear on billboards (watch them at https://hugahunter.com/watch-our-videos).

This proactive public education program has transformed the hunting landscape in Colorado. Since the “Hug a Hunter” campaign has been running, surveys show that seven out of ten people say they would vote against any new hunting restrictions—a huge change from the 1990s. Further, 30 percent of non-hunters say they are more supportive of sportsmen than they were before they saw the ads. And perhaps most important, since the campaign started, not a single anti-hunting ballot measure has been introduced in Colorado.

Alan Taylor of Michigan, a successful businessman and avid hunter, heard about the Colorado program and thought it was such a good idea he decided to launch a similar initiative in his home state. He formed a group called The Nimrod Society to do just that, and they were successful. In 2013, Michigan governor Rick Snyder signed legislation establishing a surcharge of $1 per hunting and fishing license as a dedicated fund for a PR campaign aimed at educating Michigan’s urban, non-sporting public about the benefits of hunting, fishing, and wildlife management. The Council hired a professional ad agency and launched its own pro-sportsman PR campaign (see it at www.hereformioutdoors.com).

“That’s two states down, forty-eight more to go,” said Taylor.

Think about it: If hunters and anglers could get pro-hunting PR campaigns like Colorado’s and Michigan’s started in every state, it could make a huge difference in ensuring the future of wildlife populations and our hunting heritage. Best of all, there is now a proven model in place, and The Nimrod Society is eager to help sportsmen in other states start a program of their own. Learn more at www.nimrodsociety.org.

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What’s behind the alarming drop in caribou numbers in North America?

With their spectacular migrations and stunning, widespread antlers, caribou are icons of the North and of enduring wilderness. While moose, deer, bears, and a host of other wildlife species will live in our backyards, caribou will only be found in the wild, untrammelled spaces, far away from humans and our congested world. Since their first appearance in Alaska more than a million years ago, the species has helped shape and define the northern reaches of the continent, their movements tattooed upon the land’s surface in spider web trails and their close passing accompanied by clicking steps unique in the ungulate world.

They can be found from coast to coast in North America, inhabiting mountainous regions, northern forests, and the expansive Arctic tundra. Forever wandering, caribou are integral components of these northern ecosystems, influencing vegetative structure and nutrient cycling over vast areas and serving as the most important prey base for other high profile wilderness species, wolves in particular. For indigenous peoples living in these remote areas, caribou have been critically important to their very survival and remain a foundational component of their cultural identities and mythologies. Northern communities, indigenous and non-indigenous alike, still rely on the harvest of caribou as an important food source and the annual caribou hunt is a tradition that has been shared for generations, indeed for millennia in the case of indigenous groups.

Caribou have also been vitally important to local and regional economies, beyond their contributions to human food security. Recreational hunting provides direct income to many families living in northern, rural communities, and caribou outfitting operations and guided hunts bring tourists and their dollars to these distant regions. Thousands of caribou hunting permits are provided each year in Canada and Alaska for use by indigenous peoples, and local residents and non-residents alike. Indeed, 3,500 American hunters alone head to Canada each year in search of caribou, supporting an outfitting industry that is worth millions of dollars annually.  In Alaska, just the sale of caribou tags for guided hunts brings in over $100,000 a year. When you include the revenue from non-guided hunts, and payments for local accommodations, food and transportation, the value of the outfitting and the wider hunting industry quickly adds up. It provides much-needed cash to economies that struggle on the economic and social margins where employment and business opportunities are hardest to deliver. For these many reasons a North American north without caribou would be like a sea without fish–empty, aberrant, and incapable of supporting human communities in any traditional sense.

Unfortunately, caribou have not been faring well in recent years. Population declines have affected herds across the continent. In fact, by 2017, most caribou herds that have been assessed were in decline, some of them falling rapidly and to alarming extents. Across North America these caribou herds can be divided into four groups, also known as ecotypes, based on the habitat they live in: woodland caribou are found in the boreal forest, mountain caribou are found in mountainous regions of western North America, barren-ground caribou live across the expansive mainland Arctic tundra, and the small, white, Peary caribou are found on the islands of the high Arctic. The overwhelming majority of these animals live in Canada and Alaska. In fact, the only caribou left in the contiguous United States consist of about a dozen mountain caribou that are found in a tiny pocket of habitat in Idaho and northeastern Washington. The other populations south of the Canadian border blinked out late in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in New England, Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin. What is striking about the current decline is the fact that caribou populations from all ecotypes are affected and the declines have been reported from across the entire species’ range. This makes the search for a unifying cause quite problematic, as many factors vary from place to place.

Even within a geographic region, however, caribou populations can be influenced by significantly different ecological circumstances. Thus, in the far eastern part of their distribution, in Quebec, Labrador, and the island of Newfoundland, there are migratory barren-ground caribou and woodland caribou in the two former regions but woodland caribou only on Newfoundland. In Quebec and Labrador wolves play a significant role in caribou population dynamics, as they do in most caribou herds, but these predators are effectively absent from the island of Newfoundland.  Yet virtually all caribou populations in these quite different regions have very significantly declined in the last two decades. Major barren-ground herds like the George River and Leaf River, centered in Labrador and Quebec, respectively, have declined by 95 and 50 percent, while the smaller woodland herds of Labrador, such as the Lac Joe, the Mealy Mountain and Red Wine, have declined by 90 percent or more and are classified as Threatened under both federal and provincial legislation in Canada. Meanwhile, the numerous Newfoundland herds have fallen by 70 percent or more and everywhere the declines appear to be continuing. So, what can explain these observations and what do they mean for the future of this magnificent animal and the human hunting traditions so long associated with it?

Most biologists will likely agree that the greatest threat facing caribou throughout their range is habitat loss and fragmentation. In the far North especially, their tundra habitat is threatened by climate change, while, farther south, industrial development is fragmenting and destroying their forested range. Mining, forestry, and energy development all require infrastructure, such as roads, seismic lines, and camp installations; and they all involve an active presence by significant numbers of people and associated machinery. Caribou generally avoid these features, especially ones where activity is taking place. This avoidance drastically impacts their ability to use the landscape, and to space away from predators and take advantage of seasonal food sources. Predation is also a major threat, of course, and it is thought that predators are aided by human disturbance. For example, corridors cleared for roads in the boreal forest allow wolves to penetrate deeper into those ranges where caribou exist. Even as governments, scientists, and local communities work to conserve caribou by minimizing such threats and protecting habitat, the scale of industrial intrusion to caribou range continues to increase, and as a warming climate enhances conditions for human travel and habitation in the north, this pattern will only continue. None of this bodes well for the great wilderness of Canada and Alaska, nor for the caribou that inhabit these lands of mystery and wonder.

In the meantime, low caribou numbers mean hunting restrictions are in place for many herds. For example, the Northwest Territories has banned all commercial and recreational hunting of barren-ground caribou since 2007. While hunting is allowed in some herds of barren-ground caribou in Nunavut, Manitoba, and Alaska, the migratory herds found in Northern Quebec and Labrador have recently been subject to severe hunting restrictions. The George River herd, which once numbered more than three quarters of a million animals has been closed to all hunting since 2012, including a voluntary suspension in subsistence harvest by most Indigenous groups. The Leaf River herd of Quebec will be closed to sport hunting starting in 2018. Woodland caribou, meanwhile, cannot be hunted in any province in Canada, except on the island of Newfoundland, while mountain caribou cannot be hunted in their very small population in the United States, but limited hunting is still allowed north of the border.

So what is the future for caribou and will they return to their former abundances?  How long might this take? Indeed, is it possible these alarming trends will worsen? The truth is that none of us know the answers to these questions, at least not for certain. Caribou populations experience 60- to 90-year cycles of abundance and usually remain at low numbers for many decades following a severe decline. In the past, they have gone through such cycles across their range but recovery has always followed decline. We should also note that while overhunting may have contributed to these previous losses there is no indication that legal hunting has been a factor in recent declines.

The real question for caribou, and for us, is whether we will leave the land for them, undisturbed and in sufficient expanse to accommodate their natural need for space. It will also depend upon whether the rapid changes in climate will outstrip the natural capacity of these magnificent animals to respond and adapt. Already we are seeing signs in the high arctic that caribou and their forage species may be out of synch and that the recoveries we hope for and might otherwise expect, will elude us and them. The prospect of boreal and arctic landscapes devoid of these animals is virtually unthinkable. The challenge looming before us is how to render such a nightmare scenario impossible.

Caribou populations across North America are experiencing alarming declines. Biologists aren’t sure of the reasons, but a variety of factors are likely in play.  [Photo by Ron Spomer]

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One of the most expensive rifles ever sold belonged to the cavalry officer who captured Geronimo.

In April, 2016, one of the rarest and most desirable Winchester rifles of all time landed on the block at Rock Island Auction. It was a Winchester Model 1886, serial number 1, and it belonged to Henry W. Lawton, a captain in the 4^th Calvary. The rifle sold for an impressive $1,265,000.

Lawton and his men were credited with the September, 1886, capture of Geronimo and his group of Apache fighters after a 1,300-mile chase across Mexico and the Arizona Territory. Geronimo’s capture effectively marked the end of a 25-year battle between the United States government and Apache forces. Lawton received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his service and the rifle was presented to him as a gift by Lieutenant George E. Albee, a fellow Medal of Honor winner who was a close friend of the Browning family. In addition to the rifle, the lot contained a gold pocket watch made by C. Howard & Company that was presented to Lawton by the Cattlemen of Central New Mexico after Geronimo’s capture.

Lawton was born in 1843, enlisted in the 9^th Indiana Volunteer Infantry in 1861 and subsequently re-enlisted in the 30^th Indiana Infantry. During the American Civil War he fought at the battles of Atlanta, Shiloh, Chickamauga and other conflicts before being awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in August, 1864 for distinguished gallantry at the battle of Atlanta. In 1867, he was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the 41^st Infantry and four years later he transferred to the 4^th Calvary and fought against the Kiowa and Comanche before being named a Captain. In 1886, under orders from General Nelson A. Miles, Captain Lawton and Captain Gatewood led a force comprised of Calvary officers and Apache scouts into Mexico in pursuit of Apache leader Geronimo and his Chiricahua fighters. After trailing Geronimo for more than 1,300 miles across the desert landscape Lawton captured Geronimo and negotiated the Apache leader’s surrender. Lawton was later named a Major (1888), a Lieutenant-Colonel (1889) and finally a Colonel (1898). He fought in the Spanish American war, including service at the Battle of San Juan Hill, and in 1899 was promoted to Major-General and traveled to the Philippines to lead the 1^st Division, VIII Corps soldiers. On December 19, 1899, he was killed at the Battle of San Mateo and was honored as a hero for his lengthy and distinguished service record. The town of Lawton, Oklahoma is named in his honor.

The rifle that Lieutenant George Albee presented to Lawton was a Winchester Model 1886 Sporting Rifle in .45-70 outfitted with a 26-inch full octagon barrel and a full-length magazine tube. The following is a description of the rifle from Rock Island’s records:

“The barrel has a standard sporting front sight with nickel silver blade and a folding leaf rear sight marked ‘1876’ at the top of the leaf. The barrel, magazine, bolt, and loading gate are blued and the forearm cap, receiver, hammer, trigger, lever and crescent buttplate are color casehardened. The stock and forearm are straight grain American walnut with a polished finish. The factory inscription ‘ALBEE TO LAWTON’ is located on the top barrel flat between the rear sight and the receiver. The serial number ‘1’ is stamped in script on the lower tang between the lever and the rear tang screw. The two-line legend (MANUFACTURED BY THE WINCHESTER REPEATING ARMS CO. NEW HAVEN. CONN. U.S.A.) is roll-stamped on the top of the barrel ahead of the rear sight. ‘45-70’ is stamped in script numerals on the top barrel flat between the inscription and the edge of the receiver. The upper receiver tang is roll-stamped MODEL 1886 between the tang screws. The 1884 and 1885 patent markings found on the lower tang of later production rifles are not present on this rifle.”

The Winchester’s condition at the time of sale was listed as Excellent. Rock Island listed the condition of the bluing on the barrel and the magazine tube as 95 percent, and the bluing on the bolt was near-perfect. The case colors on the receiver was listed at 90 percent, and the condition of the color case on the forearm cap, hammer, trigger, lever and crescent butt plate were listed at 95percent. Even the wood stock remained in superb condition, with “a few scattered and relatively minor handling marks.” Estimated sale price was $500,000 to $750,000 at the time of sale, so the Lawton Winchester sold for well above its expected value.

Lawton’s lengthy military career is quite impressive, and he stands as one of the preeminent American soldiers of the nineteenth century. His military career spanned nearly forty years, and he fought in some of the most important engagements in our nation’s history. It’s unlikely that anyone will ever match his record of service, so it’s no surprise that his personal rifle brought such a high price. We’re not likely to see a weapon of this quality and historical significance for sale any time soon. –Brad Fitzpatrick

For more information about Rock Island Auctions visit their website at www.rockislandauction.com

Photo courtesy Rock Island Auction

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Is it better to bring your own rifle on an overseas hunt or to borrow one from the outfitter?

If you’re a dedicated gun enthusiast, part of the fun in planning any hunt is figuring out just exactly the perfect rifle, cartridge, and load to bring. Even if you’re more of a serious hunter than a rifle nut, it may seem just as important to bring a rifle that’s a comfortable old friend, one in which you have total confidence.

I’m a bit of both, but these paths don’t always coincide with my job. Whether I’m writing articles or involved in that strange phenomenon we call “outdoor television,” I often don’t get to use my own favorite rifles. Therefore, it’s extra fun when I can start from scratch, planning a hunt and deciding which favorite old rifle I’ll bring with me.

My next major hunt, to Congo, started out that way. My primary quarry is dwarf forest buffalo. They’re small, maybe 700 pounds, so a cannon isn’t needed, but they are buffalo, and encounters are likely to be close. The area also has a lot of bongo. I don’t want another bongo, but Jason Hornady and I are hunting together and the bongo is his main quarry. There is other game, so versatility is needed. Forest hunts are hard on equipment, and the rains should be starting. Not a good place for a nice rifle, and you need something light and fast-handling. I decided on my Ruger Hawkeye in .375 Ruger, and Jason made the same decision.

Then we learned that it’s difficult to bring rifles into Congo and we needed to use “camp guns.” So, we inquired as to exactly what these might be. Once in a while great minds really do think alike: The rifles we’ll be borrowing are Ruger M77 Hawkeyes in .375 Ruger…with 300-grain Hornady DGX.

Don’t count on coincidences like that, however. I’ve hunted in a number of places where it’s impossible to bring firearms. Ghana, Liberia, Peru, and the Philippines come quickly to mind. You use what they have. Otherwise, there’s a conscious decision: Bring or borrow? I travel with firearms a lot. So long as you follow the rules problems are rare, but there are extra hassles: More paperwork, protracted border clearances, necessity to safeguard them, and schlepping that heavy case all over the place. It’s easier to travel without firearms! So, honestly, when I learned we couldn’t bring our guns to Congo one part of me was bummed…and the other part was relieved!

The Philippines was a place where firearms could not be imported, and private ownership is pretty much limited to shotguns. The lone outfitter, now deceased, borrowed M14s from the local gendarmery! This is a Philippine bearded warty pig, taken with an M14 using military ammo.

Because it’s simpler, a lot of hunters leave their guns at home. The wisdom of this depends on the destination. In Africa, Europe, both Americas, and the South Pacific, most reputable outfits have suitable firearms available. If, by local law, you can’t bring a gun, it’s common for both firearms and ammunition to be supplied. If you can bring your firearms but choose not to, then gun rental and/or ammunition fees are common. This doesn’t seem out of line to me. Firearms and ammunition are expensive. Normal wear and tear is unavoidable and there is genuine risk of damage. Don’t be surprised if borrowing guns isn’t free. If you are considering not taking your own firearm(s) ask your outfitter what they have available for you to use—and what the charges might be. Only then can you make a considered decision.

Oh, I left Asia out. In Asia, “good” rifles and optics are probably the rarest on the planet. You could well be handed an open-sighted military rifle! There are exceptions; a few outfitters have managed to obtain one or two good camp rifles.

Some countries are also exceptions. There are plenty of good guns in Pakistan and Turkey because both countries have strong hunting cultures. I’ve taken my own rifle on most of my Pakistan hunts, no problem, but last year I did a hunt for axis deer and wild boar with Pir Danish Ali and there was no time for a gun permit. Danish had an accurate Blaser in 7mm Remington Magnum and, very cool, a Winchester Model 70 7×57. Then came a big surprise. Danish organized a driven partridge hunt and hauled out the camp shotguns: well-worn but very fine English doubles! You bet, there are some very fine guns in Pakistan.

For an “add-on” driven partridge shoot in southern Pakistan the Indus Safaris team trotted out a selection of fine British doubles. I used a gorgeous Boss sidelock, a far better shotgun than anything I’ve ever owned!

Aside from legalities and pure convenience, there are other reasons why it may be difficult or impossible to bring your own rifle. For instance, anyone planning a European stopover or other tourism before or after a hunt can have problems.

So let’s get down to business. Realistically, if you do bring a gun case, and assuming you do all the paperwork correctly (U.S. Customs Form 4457, airline notification, transit airport clearance if needed, arrangements for temporary permits where you will be hunting), there are still four possible outcomes. First, and by far the most likely, you and all your baggage will arrive together and on schedule, and you and your guns will have a great hunt. Second, you and your gun case will arrive, but your duffel bag with all your other gear and ammo will be mysteriously delayed somewhere along the way. Third, you and your duffel bag will arrive, but your gun case will be mysteriously delayed. Fourth, you will arrive…but all of your baggage will be mysteriously delayed.

The last three aren’t common, but do happen. Usually misplaced bags turn up in a day or two; permanent losses are almost unheard-of today. Against this eventuality, good insurance is the only assurance. Delays are not as unlikely, but when bag(s) are delayed you usually don’t know when they will turn up. This creates hard choices because, increasingly, you must personally do the Customs clearance. Thus, you either wait for them, losing valuable hunting time; or you go on to your hunting destination, hoping that your bags will catch up if that is possible; or they will be held by Customs until you return to that airport for your trip home.

Obviously, this varies with the country. Your outfitter has dealt with it before and will offer whatever solutions exist. But there are certain things you should do against the last three eventualities.

1. Activate “international calling” on your cell phone, carry a satellite phone in your carry-on, and have phone numbers for your outfitter, travel agent, and booking agents so that you can notify everyone as soon as you know bags are delayed. Traces can be started and alternate plans can be laid.
2. Pack your carry-on as if this is the only bag you will receive. I’ve said this before, and it remains critical. All medications, camera, binoculars, extra eyeglasses. You can beg, borrow, or buy enough clothes and toiletries to get by, so think it through…and wear shoes you can hunt in.
3. In the second instance, receiving gun case but no duffel, consider avoiding oddball cartridges. This is why I have a lifelong aversion to wildcat cartridges. There are good gun shops in Namibia and South Africa that will have common cartridges, likewise Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Elsewhere you must rely on “camp stashes,” which may be nonexistent, but in my experience, depending on where you are, most likely are .270 Winchester, 7mm Remington Magnum, .308 Winchester, .30-06, .300 Winchester Magnum, maybe .300 Weatherby Magnum, maybe .375 Ruger, and definitely .375 H&H. I took a .264 Winchester Magnum to South Africa a couple years ago and, sure enough, I got the rifle but it was a week before I got my duffel. I figured it was hopeless, but Safari & Outdoors in Pretoria loaded me up some .264 handloads! I have also purchased 7mm-08 in Namibia. But neither cartridge is likely in remote areas.
4. If you can’t match your ammo, and definitely in the third and fourth cases, you’re gonna borrow a rifle and ammo. This doesn’t happen often, but it does happen…so why not prepare for it? When booking a hunt, perhaps these are “what-if” questions you should ask: What firearms and ammunition does the outfitter have on hand (or readily accessible)? What are the fees for gun rental and/or ammo used? Plans are good. Backup plans can be even better!

You pack your bags with high hopes but, realistically, although delays are rare there is never any real guarantee your bags—or your rifles and ammo—will arrive on schedule. It’s wise to know what alternatives are available…and mandatory if you plan on borrowing or renting firearms.

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With a lion just inches away, a hunter faces down his darkest fears.

“Want to swap your leopard for a lion?” asked Alex, my professional hunter.  “We’ve got a permit left.”

The offer came as a surprise. But then, the whole safari had been a surprise. Even the proposal to travel here had caught me off guard. It was in 2011, and I was at the stage in my life when everything was about work. I was toiling frantically over ambitious projects. Work displaced everything else: my family, my relationships, my time, my strength, my health, my soul. If the offer to go on safari hadn’t reached me then, I don’t know what would have become of me.

It was my first African safari, and my experienced friends advised me to start small, with antelopes, for example. But I wanted something out of the Big Four. But what? An elephant seemed too big and too pricey. A lion felt kind of frightening. On the other hand, buffalo and leopard sounded just right. I know now that most PHs consider lions less dangerous than leopards or buffalo, but subsequent events showed that the gut feeling that had tried to warn me against lion hunting was not completely groundless.

At the end of July my friend and I arrived in Lebombo, in Mozambique. This hunting concession stretches for 25 miles along the border of one of the country’s biggest national parks. I felt like I had stepped into a TV show. It was hard to believe my eyes when I saw the thousands of antelopes crowded next to the water holes. I felt the magic of the place and the way it enchants and draws in people from other continents. It was like a fairy tale. We were dumbfounded, and couldn’t adjust to the new reality at first. One thing that helped was the warning from the PHs not to leave tents at night without a light. We were in the middle of the bush, and a curious leopard or lion could turn tables on us and make the hunters the prey. It was a good reminder that the African fairy tale could become a horror story.

In the next few days, while I amused myself chasing antelopes across the savanna, my friend got a leopard. It was one hell of a leopard, a huge male that weighed 187 pounds. Naturally, it got me fired up and eager to go after the big cats. It was my turn now, but my luck just wouldn’t cooperate. We spent day after day driving around from bait to bait and seeing nothing. Finally, one of the baits was eaten , but not by a leopard. It was a lion.

That was when my PH, Alex, surprised me with the suggestion to exchange.

My first thought was of that old saying that a brave man is frightened by a lion three times. How does it go? The first time is when he thinks about lion hunting, the second is when he first hears a lion, and the third is when he first sees the lion through his sights. I’m not sure if I got it exactly right, but the first part proved as true as can be. A surge of fear ran through me. A lion can break your back with a single blow of a paw. It’s a killing machine. Was I ready to challenge it?

But, I thought, if that’s the way fates have it, why not try? I could live with the idea. In a few more hours, it began to excite me. We returned to the camp to have a midday rest, and at 3 p.m., we drove back to the bait.

What happened next would come back to me many a time in the next few months, and I think I’m going to keep the memory until the end of my days.

The bait hung from a lone tree, about five feet from the ground. It was a rear leg of a buffalo with lots of meat on it. We were to wait in a blind, made out of a small tent, which was set on a slope of a hill facing the tree, some sixty yards from it. Right below the tent the slope went almost vertically steep, and there was a small lake below, between us and the bait, so everything looked perfectly lion-proof.

In the front the tent was reinforced by two sticks dug into the ground, with another lying across them like a cross-bar. This bar had a dual purpose– it served as the rest for my rifle. They even tied my rifle to it with a rubber band, aimed at the bait. This is done for convenience and speed of aim. It is not easy to focus on and to find the target in your sights in the light of a flashlight. The tent was further camouflaged with some fresh branches until you couldn’t tell it from a bush.

We approached the tent from the left, and we expected the lion to come from the right. As the PH and I settled in the tent, the fear went away, it even felt like fun. We were happy and even tried to joke in sign language. The rest of the team drove off, far enough not to spook anything. Everything was quiet and peaceful. A long way away, to our right, baboons started to cry. As the sun was going down behind the horizon, we heard a rustle in the bushes. It came from the right, just as we expected. That was why the baboons must have been crying. Alex looked out of the little window in the tent and signaled that our quarry was there.

At first, the hunters were relaxed and joking in the blind. Then things got scary.

The lion, however, didn’t go to the bait. Something was holding him back. Meanwhile, the light was going, and darkness was settling in. The lion’s time came. Lions can see at night five to six times better than us, and much better than most other animals. It is at night that the lion really is the king. During daytime he may be wary, but at night he has no fear. He walks through his ‘hood like a mafia boss.

When it was fully dark, the lion roared nearby, and I remembered the saying again. The feeling is too much for words. Low and loud, the roar passes through you, making every internal organ tremble in resonance. Somewhere deep inside us the primeval terror that our ancestors felt for of the majestic animal comes back to life. The lion roared again, just to show us who was the boss here. In the distance a lion that held the neighboring territory thundered his reply. No matter how I tried to hold it back, fear, sticky and obtrusive, was soaking under my skin, making my heart beat frantically. Keep calm, I kept telling myself. Soon, I thought, he would approach the buffalo leg and it would be our turn.

But the lion didn’t go to the bait. In the next moment, the roar sounded thirty yards to our left. That was not what we had planned for. In the darkness I felt Alex pick up his rifle from the floor. Something was wrong. The lion couldn’t miss crossing our tracks now–and what would he do next?

My mind painted apocalyptic pictures. A save-and-protect prayer went pulsing through my head like a faulty record. If the lion attacked, what could I do? My rifle was tied to the cross-bar and pointed at the tree. The only thing I had was ae knife. I could possibly cut the rubber bands and would be free to wield my rifle, but could I do that in the split second that would take the lion to attack? Or, after freeing my gun, I could jump forward into the little lake. If I didn’t break my neck in the fall, there might be a chance to face the lion and shoot . . .

This maze of thoughts ran through my head at terrible speed, blended with prayers. But fifteen minutes passed, and the lion didn’t show its presence anywhere. He had probably caught our scent and decided it wasn’t worth the risk. Thank God!

Then, right behind me, a stone rolled down and came to rest against my back. My heart jackhammered. The lion was there. All that time he was sitting just a couple of steps behind us. He had approached without any sound and was taking his time to study our tent. There was no time to lose. I reached for the knife to cut the rubber bands, but Alex stopped me with his hand. Wait. Sit tight and wait.

Now there was terror. The lion decided he didn’t have to hide, and decided to openly investigate what was going on. Picture yourself on a park bench, with a big, angry dog–a Doberman, or even a Great Dane–circling you and sniffing at your legs. Now imagine it’s a totally wild animal, three times bigger than the biggest dog, taking in your smell through little holes in a tiny tent. There were only twenty centimeters and a thin layer of cloth between us.

At that moment I felt my time had come. Did I really have to travel so far to leave this world? What about my family, waiting for me now at home–what are they going to do if I stay here forever? Those were not even half the thoughts that ran through my mind in the twenty minutes that the lion spent padding around our tent. You can do a lot of thinking in twenty minutes if death is just outside the door. The lion examined every hole in the tent, sticking his nose through each of the tiny side windows. One of the windows was just over and behind my ear, and I felt the huge nose suck in the air in long steady inhales.

This was surely the end unless I did something. But what could I do? Make noise and shout? What if it only made matters worse? If I had given my trust to Alex in this world, so alien to me, then I should do what he expected me to do. And he did everything to show that I had to keep calm.

All right, then. I was calm. I was cool. I turned into a stone. I kept calm even as the lion’s breath reached my ear. My hearing became sharp enough to hear ants crawling under my feet. Every gulp of saliva sounded like Niagara Falls. If I am to stay here forever, I told myself, I’ll take it with dignity. I won’t squeal like a piglet. My heart was beating steadily. Let God decide what will become of me. I accepted my fate and was ready for anything.

Then everything was over as suddenly as it began. The lion simply disappeared. But he wasn’t gone for long. We heard the sounds of bones crunching from the place where the bait was. The lion finally thought it was lunchtime, and the good news was the lunch wasn’t us. Or he might have thought the two white-skinned creatures in the tent would make a nice dessert–who can tell?

A boma at a safari camp in Mozambique, lit by firelight.

Alex checked if the lion was on the bait and confirmed that he was. His next question turned me out of the stonelike condition which I had so fortunately entered.

“Are you ready to shoot?”

Was I ready to shoot?

We’d been balancing on the edge of life and death for half an hour. All my nerves were jammed in one tight ball of barbed wire.

Was I ready to shoot?

I fully realized that if I made a bad shot, the lion knew exactly where to look for the source of his suffering.

Was I ready to shoot?

Of course I was. We had to play this out to the end.

I held the stock of the rifle tight against my cheek and took a couple of deep breaths. I was ready. Alex switched on the light.

I couldn’t see anything. The lion had disappeared. It was just gone. What was wrong with our luck and how long it was going to last? Alex looked through his binocular again and saw him. The lion had torn off a big chunk of meat from the bait and was enjoying it while lying down in the grass two yards below the tree. You can’t shoot a lion lying down because the internal organs move out of place and you can’t be sure of a good hit. So be it. We had to wait. The good thing was that the light didn’t seem to bother the lion at all.

Finally he got up, walked to the bait, and stood broadside to us. It was now or never. I held behind the front leg and pulled the trigger. Boom. The lion bent up and began to thrash around. If anyone could have measured the time I took to work the action, I’m sure it would be the world record or close to it. I pulled the bolt back and slammed it shut with such force that the metal took the skin off my fingers. I was ready for a second shot but it didn’t look necessary. The lion thrashed around for a few seconds and lay still.

Alex turned off the light. For about five minutes we just sat there in the dark. I had no power to speak, and no words to say; everything seemed to freeze and time seemed to stop.

When I could open my mouth again, all that came out of it was a single four-letter word that starts with F. Alex echoed with the same short and expressive reply and we kept silent for another five minutes. I asked Alex to turn on the light again and see if the lion was there, or if we were in for more surprises. But he was there, all right.

It was time to call up the truck and the rest of the team. As luck would have it, the radio signal couldn’t reach them. So we went for a walk through a forest full of beasts, in the dead of the night, until we were close enough for radio contact. But now, at least, there was a rifle in my hands, and I was feeling much better. We walked as if we were starring in an action movie, back to back with rifles at the ready. A quarter-mile later the truck crew heard us, picked us up, and we headed back to the scene.

The lion was right where we left him. He looked unbelievably powerful, with steely, muscled paws, huge claws, and enormous teeth. It took four of us to load him into the truck.

I could have put a full stop here. Great hunt, great trophy, traditional celebration, end of story. But I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that there was something more to this hunt than simply killing a lion. There were lots of joking and laughing in the truck as we drove back to the camp, but I was shaking all the way back. I just couldn’t get to be my old self again.

I have spent a lot of time since then living through the events of that night again and again in my mind. That night, I felt frightened and helpless. Or, to be precise, first came helplessness, then fear. What causes fear? The feeling of helplessness? The unknown? The potential loss of your life, your family, your comfort, your money? In the blind I wasn’t just facing the lion, I was facing my own fears.

As a child, I suffered from nightmares about lions and panthers that somehow escaped from zoos and circuses and came after me. When I grew up, these nightmares didn’t bother me as often, but still, whenever I was stressed or anxious, they came back. This is probably why I was so reluctant to hunt lions in the first place—lions embodied my subconscious fear. But the hunt turned into a real-life therapy session and liberated me. The nightmares left me, never to return. I had killed my fears along with the lion.

This lion stands now in my house as a full mount. Every night before going to sleep, I visit him with a cup of tea, look in his eye, and thank God for the life He gave me, and for the joy and glory of living every new day.

The author with the magnificent lion, taken in Mozambique.

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You follow for as long as you can . . . and then you keep going.

Last summer, hunting in South Africa with Diekie Muller, I made a terrible shot on a buffalo. I was using a big handgun, a .460 S&W. It’s plenty of gun if I’d made a good shot, and a bad shot is always the shooter’s fault. The presentation was perfectly broadside. I was steady on sticks at less than 60 yards, with an Aimpoint on the big revolver. All was perfect…except the buffalo turned away as I finished the trigger squeeze. It was too late to call back the shot, and I knew I’d hit a bit far back.

That was about 9 a.m. There wasn’t much blood and it was slow going, but we tracked him until dark, jumping him two or three times in stuff too thick for a shot. The next morning, we started again. Now there was almost no blood, but we had to assume the bull had stayed in some thick riverine bush, so I stayed with the trackers, painstakingly working our way, while Diekie looped ahead of us. It was noon, another five hours on the trail, and Diekie was just out of sight beyond some thick, dark thorn. We heard one snort, then the boom of Diekie’s Krieghoff .470…slight pause, then the second barrel. Diekie was still standing, reloaded; the buffalo was down at his feet. I paced six steps from the buffalo’s nose to Diekie Muller’s shoelaces.

A tracker searches for blood. The great African trackers have two great attributes that we can all learn from: Uncanny powers of observation, plus patience. A third, almost impossible to learn without great experience, is a sixth sense of where the animal might go.

On the next-to-last evening of our 2017 Kansas rifle season my buddy Derek Barnes hit a buck, exactly the kind of buck he looks for, mature but with funky antlers. I was on a stand not far away, so I came to him and we took a look. He was shooting a 7×57 and felt good about the shot, but the deer had been in shadowed timber. His buck had run, then stood and there was plenty of blood. We took the trail, but less than an hour later, with light fading, we were down to just a drop every few yards. Not good, and in our heavy oak leaves any disturbance can quickly erase what trail there is. We flagged the trail and called it until morning.

Going slowly, we managed to follow the trail off neighbor Chuck Herbel’s place, across the road to my place, and along the ridge. At about a mile and three-quarters we lost the blood completely, but the direction had been pretty straight, and headed toward a creek at the bottom of the ridge. Chances were good he headed for water, so we kept going, following faint disturbances in the carpet of leaves. I found one more spot of blood a couple hundred yards above the creek, and just perhaps some scuffing where an animal had headed downhill. We separated, looking into every thick patch, and eventually reached the creek. Derek was off to my left; I took a few steps, looked into a patch of weeds along the creek, and called out, “Derek, here’s your buck.”

Just after Dallas Safari Club I went to Sonora on a Coues deer hunt with Mossberg’s Linda Powell and a couple other writer/friends. Three of us got nice bucks quite easily, no drama, but just before dark on the fourth evening our last hunter shot a monstrous buck at about 300 yards. It was dark by the time they got over there, so they wisely waited until morning, and then we went up there with me, all the guides, and cowboys on horses.

At dusk things had looked really good. The buck jumped high at the shot and hurtled downhill, and they’d found blood immediately at the hit site. In stark morning light things didn’t look so good. Guide Ron Shelton had found and flagged blood at the hit site…but there wasn’t much more, just enough to get a downhill angle. Honestly, this didn’t mean that’s all there was; the crumbling granite with sparse vegetation is horrible for tracking. But we couldn’t find any more. Working downhill and sidehill, and back uphill to do it again, eight of us searched all day and never found another trace. The next morning, our last, all the guides surrounded the mountain and glassed until their eyes fell out. No further trace.

At the hit of a Coues whitetail just a few drops of blood were found…and not much more. With very little sign it proved impossible to determine where the animal might have been hit, and, ultimately, exactly which direction it went. Two days of searching yielded nothing, and now the hope is for birds or coyotes to tell the tale.

In the first instance, on that buffalo, I was horribly embarrassed because I made a bad shot. And, since it was a buffalo and not a buck, I was deeply relieved that nobody got hurt. In the second instance I just happy we found Derek’s buck. I’d be the first to say there was some luck involved, but it is home turf and we’ve trailed deer there before. Usually we—or one of the neighbors—eventually find them along a creek.

In the last instance, well, that’s a tragedy. We didn’t have enough to go on, not even enough to have a clear idea of where the buck might have been hit. That one, by the way, is not over. At this writing three weeks of the season remains. This was a distinctive buck with a tall frame, and the rut is in full swing. If he’s hale and hearty somebody will glass him chasing a doe…and if he’s not birds will lead the cowboys to him.

It’s still a regrettable tragedy, but the reality is that, even with the right equipment, careful preparation, and the best of intentions shots are not always perfect. Even if you’re not certain of a hit ethics require an exhaustive search. Once one drop of blood is found any and all effort must be expended to recover the animal. I personally like the African ethic that “one drop of blood equals an animal taken.” It makes one more careful with the shot! Sometimes, however, tracking is necessary. Bowhunters tend to be pretty good at this because even perfect hits often require trailing. African trackers are legendary, and most guides are pretty good at it because they’ve had practice. But we all need to be as good at it as we can be, and exhaustive in our search.

The most important thing, I think, is patience. Derek’s buck was hit just slightly back and low, hardly two inches from perfect…but that buck took us two miles. So, a primary ingredient is patience. Good bowhunters like to wait at least a full hour before taking a track. This is a good idea unless you’re reasonably certain of the hit. The first step is to mark carefully and precisely where the animal was standing when the shot was taken. There often won’t be a single drop of blood for thirty or forty yards, but you can usually find running tracks where the animal took off.

After maybe a hundred and fifty yards the assumption should be made that the hit wasn’t mortal, at least not immediately. The blood will give often give clues: Bright pink lung blood, good news; very red muscle blood, maybe okay, maybe not; dark blood with stomach matter, bad news. Don’t look just at the ground; you need to examine grass and leaves for the faintest smears and splashes. Remember exactly how the animal was standing and try to get a feel for where the animal might have been hit. Things are not always as they seem!

Mornings are wonderful because you have all day and can take your time. Last-light hits are problematic. If you push the animal in the dark you may mess things up badly, so unless a really good hit is reasonably certain I prefer to back off and wait for good light. This means a long, sleepless, and worrisome night…but if it was your or my errant shot we deserve that. Aside from risk of pushing the animal ahead of you, there’s also a risk of erasing the trail while bumbling around in the dark. On the other hand, leaving it until morning runs the risk of predators intervening. That makes this a tough call, but it depends on the sign, and also terrain and cover.

Because they are so often shot late this is a common decision with leopards…and hyenas are a serious risk. Most PHs will give it a couple hundred yards in the dark, and then wait until morning. The only guy I knew who preferred to follow wounded cats at night was the late Ian Gibson. He believed his chances of avoiding a charge were better at night because the lights would pick up the eyes. Maybe…but I’ll pass on wounded cats in the dark!

Due to presence of hyenas most PHs will trail cats up to a couple hundred yards in the dark, but then a wounded animal must be declared and the track resumed in daylight. This leopard was found dead within a hundred yards, a happy conclusion after a few scary minutes.

Perhaps the hardest part is deciding when to quit, that all traces and all hope are gone. Regrettably, this happens. It’s a decision that must not be made lightly, only after all routes and all possibilities have been thoroughly examined. If you’re alone some serious soul-searching is required: Have you truly done all you can? If in a group, it needs to be a consensus decision. Is everyone certain that all that can be done has been done? If so it’s something you must live with, but if you’re a real hunter, it will haunt you for a long time.

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