Take the Canadian Firearms Safety Course for stress-free border crossings.

American hunters traveling to Canada often encounter long lines, confusing firearms regulations, and hidden fees. But if you hunt in Canada often, there’s a way to avoid all of that.

Now you can prepare ahead, and cross into Canada with a firearm while dealing with less paperwork and fewer hassles. The key to easier border crossings is to complete a Canadian Firearms Safety Course (in Canada), pass a written test, and then file an application for a possession and acquisition license under the Canadian Firearms Act. After you pay a $55 test fee, and then a $70 application fee (at the time this was written), you’ll receive a card that will permit quick processing through lines when you reach the border and want to cross with your firearm. The at-the-border fees will also be waived.

Hunters completing the Canadian Firearms Safety Course.

The Canadian Firearms Safety Course takes approximately eight hours to complete. Don’t be surprised to find questions about suicide, obsolete cartridges, and questions about revolvers and other handguns-even though you cannot take handguns into Canada. Much like U.S. firearms and hunter education courses, the Canadian version covers hunting with groups and basic safety principles. The Canadian firearms safety course goes into deep detail on cleaning a firearm, and provides information on a five-shot magazine restriction.

For more details, call the Royal Canadian Mounted Police at 800-731-4000. You can also e-mail questions and requests for forms or course details to: [email protected].

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Hunters have an obligation to make sure their game meat is cared for and used, even when hunting far from home.

Once upon a time, a hunter hoisted his deer over a saddle and led the horse home proudly. Or he merely dragged it from the woods to shed or smokehouse. Then came decades of carrying game home on fenders and hoods, with the carcasses slowly cooking atop big Detroit motors.

Nowadays some of us are lucky enough to lay our game in the back of a cool pickup bed for the trip home, but, increasingly, many of us fly to our hunts, and that throws a wrench in the works. How do you get raw steaks, chops, ribs, and roasts from Alaska to Alabama?

To the embarrassment and shame of the fine traditions of hunting, most outfitters provide elaborate trophy care, directing clients to expediters and taxidermists to assure hides and horns get prompt and professional treatment, yet they ignore meat. Prior to a hunt last fall, our outfitter provided a page replete with names, addresses, and phone numbers for taxidermists. Not a sentence was devoted to meat. This overemphasis on trophies plays into the hands of antihunters and gives nonhunters more reasons to question our sincerity when we claim we hunt for food as much as antlers. It’s time we put our meat where our mouths are.

On a recent hunt, my partner and I were shocked when our guides tried talking us out of taking the quarters from the moose we’d shot. “No one’s ever taken any home before,” they insisted.

“Are you kidding? This is moose, the beef of Alaska! It’s fantastic eating.”

“Not this rutted, stinking bull. It’ll be disgusting.”

“We’re taking it. All of it.” Grudgingly, they started helping us butcher and pack, but didn’t give up trying to convince us to abandon an entire shoulder (because the bullet had gone through it) and a ham (because there was some contusion damage, probably from a fight with another bull). We trimmed away small amounts of bloodshot meat to reveal perfect muscle underneath.

The final straw broke when we pointed out the tenderloins. “We ain’t going into the guts for that!” the guides howled. We showed them how to reach them by sawing through three ribs and the spine without touching the internal organs. For three nights in moose camp, we gorged on some of the world’s finest red meat, introducing our poorly educated guides to the delicacy. We suspect they won’t be abandoning moose tenderloin in the woods again.

This abdication of responsibility for bringing the fruits of harvest to the table continued back in town, where we found no facilities (boxes, coolers, freezers, etc.) for assisting successful hunters with getting their game home. Everyone we queried seemed dumbstruck at the very idea, despite living in a gateway to the wilderness through which dozens of big-game hunters passed each fall, dribbling money in their wake.

With the generous assistance of a local woman who handled trophy transfers for area outfitters, we ultimately packed the meat in boxes and coolers and shipped them home, where the “rutting, stinking” moose proved satisfactorily delicious.

If you, too, hope to enjoy the gustatory rewards of your field labors, plan early and carefully, beginning with your guide/outfitter. Let it be known you are collecting meat as well as memories. Ask what, when, and how the outfitter intends to help you preserve and transfer said flesh from camp to airport. Coolers, temporary storage, complete processing services, shipping boxes, shipping services—whatever they are, be sure to arrange things well ahead of time.

What follows may prove a bit “earthy” for genteel readers. Buck up. Blood and guts are the reality of hunting, eating, and living for everyone, even vegetarians (who merely remove themselves as far as possible from the death of the animals sacrificed to grow their vegetables). If you can’t stand thinking about dismembering animals, you shouldn’t be hunting.

It is perfectly acceptable and fairly economical to ship raw game meat as checked baggage on commercial flights. Since you’ll likely have at least two bags of gear already, you’ll pay an extra baggage fee and/or overweight fee for additional coolers, usually $50 to $100 per item. Airlines vary in this, so check their Web sites carefully. It doesn’t hurt to print out this information in case the agent checking you in has different ideas. Generally you can fly meat home for between $1 and $2 per pound.

Because weight matters, you should trim carefully, removing bones and fat. Often game hangs in camp long enough to develop a protective, dry surface layer. Sometimes surfaces get a bit “high,” as the polite call it. Don’t assume this has ruined everything. Old hands who understand the value of hanging game to age it know that beneath any ripe surface lays perfectly healthful, tender, tasty meat. I’ve personally trimmed as much as an inch of overly ripe meat from moose hams to uncover the finest roasts my dinner guests have ever praised. Area foxes and magpies found the trimmings equally satisfying. In Nature, nothing is wasted.

Because meat is dense, a small cooler will easily handle 50 to 70 pounds–but check with your airline to find out the maximum weight allowed. One trick is to pack your clothing into such a cooler, along with a thin duffel bag, when flying to the hunt. On the return, transfer the clothing to the duffel and use the cooler for the meat. This saves buying another cooler locally (if you can find one.) Carry a roll of duct tape for sealing the cooler lid after it’s inspected. As additional precaution against leaking, place meat in strong, unscented leaf bags and seal them tightly before placing the works in the cooler. Ice, dry or wet, is not permitted. Don’t fret over this. Once meat has been thoroughly cooled and its surface dried, it will remain good within a cooler at room temperature for several days. To test this, trim the surface away at home and sniff the meat beneath. It should smell fresh.

Highway travel makes meat hauling simple. Fill your coolers and head home. Unless weather is unusually warm, ice isn’t essential, but if you insist on it, place it on the bottom of the cooler with the meat wrapped in waterproof plastic bags. Getting meat wet encourages bacterial growth. Keep it dry.

If your game promises more edible bulk than you can handle, determine to whom you can donate the extra and how this will be accomplished. Many outfitters have standing arrangements with local food banks, families, or Hunters for the Hungry organizations. Some require processing fees for this service, others include it in the cost of the hunt. Be prepared to cover the cost. Last fall, Scott Denny of Table Rock Outfitters in Cheyenne helped me donate a mule deer to a facility that made jerky and shipped it to our troops overseas. Outfitters in wilderness areas usually know rural families who welcome donated meat. Sometimes guides eagerly take it for themselves and friends.

A neat, simple solution is to have your game processed locally and shipped to your door. Most big-game country supports mom-and-pop butcher shops ready to convert your game into steaks, roasts, burger, jerky, and sausage. Ask your outfitter for recommendations, but check them out carefully. Ask for references: Some sloppy butchers grind dirty meat and hair right along with clean meat. A few still mix various hunters’ game, doling it out by weight rather than ownership. If you bring in 200 pounds of well-cared-for elk meat, you might get back 160 pounds of someone else’s less-than-clean elk meat.

Such shenanigans inspired me to start processing my own meat thirty years ago, but last year, on recommendation from outfitter John Way of Paws Up, I left an elk with wild game butchers in Missoula and was pleasantly surprised. My elk was aged, trimmed clean, cut, and ground to perfection.

Shipping charges for finished meat can be steep. The stuff is heavy and should be shipped overnight or second-day air to prevent spoilage. You never know in which hot room or truck a box of burger might languish. Check FedEx and UPS before shipping meat.

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What’s the best way to defend yourself if you run into a grizzly while hunting—or if a grizzly tries to run into you?

Nearly all authorities on the subject agree that the first two words to memorize in this regard are “pepper spray.” I’m fully aware that some hunters associate pepper spray with politically correct, granola-eating, New Age, tree-hugger crapola. “Just give me my gun,” these guys brag, “and I’ll drop any charging griz like a sack of rocks.”

Other hunters are less fanatical on the subject, but simply have serious (and understandable) doubts about the efficacy of a spray can to stop one of the largest and most dangerous animals in North America. Doesn’t it just make sense that a high-caliber bullet is more potent, and more effective in a life-or-death situation?

It’s a reasonable question, and by no means should hunters dismiss the power and value of their firearms, as we’ll discuss later. But as is so often the case when it comes to bears, the answer is more complex than it might first appear.

Studies by biologist Stephen Herrero and others indicate that pepper spray works on charging bears about 90 to 96 percent of the time. Mark Matheny, a hunter who was seriously mauled by a grizzly several years ago while deer hunting north of Yellowstone Park, and who subsequently began a career devoted to bear self-defense and the manufacture of UDAP pepper spray, explains how a mere blast of cayenne aerosol can stop an angry griz:

“First, with a charging bear the loud hissing and billowing cloud startles them, lessening or turning their aggressive intentions into a state of surprise or even defensive evasion. When a bear hits the wall of fog and breathes it in, his sense of smell is instantly shut down, which confuses any animal. Chemically, pepper spray is an inflammatory agent, an irritant, that gets into the bear’s mucus membranes, causing temporary blindness, choking, and difficulty breathing. In many cases, they go off hacking and coughing.”

For those who believe a gun is still a better bet to stop a bear, Matheny adds:

“Some people think a .44 magnum or large-caliber rifle is going to have the ‘power’ to stop a bear. But you’re talking about a bullet not much wider than a writing pen hitting a vital area. That’s assuming you even get a bullet off. Most times when someone with a firearm is attacked, they don’t get a shot off. You’ve got to get the gun up, aim, and fire. With pepper spray, you can fire right from the holster, putting up a wide stream, even a fog, of deterrent. You can respond instantly and the likelihood of hitting the bear is much greater.”

Another compelling reason for the use of pepper spray instead of bullets is that many grizzly charges are not full “attacks,” but are only attempts by the bear to discourage and intimidate human intruders. For instance, if you surprise a grizzly feeding on an elk carcass (possibly your elk carcass), the bear might charge without intending actual contact, its purpose being to simply drive you away.

Of course, for those who aren’t expert at reading bear behavior, it’s fair to ask, “How am I supposed to know whether the bear means business or is just bluffing?” Which is precisely why pepper spray is a better alternative to a bullet in most situations. With the spray, you can very likely discourage the bear without worsening the situation or elevating it to an irreversibly deadlier level. If the bear breaks through the spray blast, and you’re an armed hunter, you still have your gun as a last resort. But if a sprayed bear veers off, the encounter is over. No one is hurt. Conversely, if your first line of defense is a gunshot, and you shoot at the bear, the results will almost always be more severe. If the bear was only bluffing, you’ve now either killed or wounded a bear unnecessarily. Also possible is that by wounding it you’ve turned a bluffing bear into a seriously enraged one, intent on killing you. Another scenario: You shoot at an attacking bear and–because they come so fast, unbelievably fast if you’ve never experienced it, often catching you in utter surprise–you simply miss. The bear is on you. What you missed with bullets you could have easily hit with deterrent spray.

But aren’t there times when you should shoot, or perhaps must shoot? While pepper spray is generally considered the best primary, first-choice bear defense, you wouldn’t want to make the same mistake as the hunter in Wyoming’s Bridger-Teton National Forest who, when charged by a sow grizzly with three yearling cubs, allegedly threw his high-powered rifle at the bear and pulled out a can of pepper spray, which by that time failed to stop the attack. The hunter was mauled until his partner shot and killed the 475-pound animal. Later, from his hospital bed, the hunter said he didn’t want to shoot the bear because he feared going to jail (for killing an endangered species) and losing his hunting privileges.

The reality is, if a grizzly attacks, sometimes you have to shoot, and, further, you would be foolish not to. That is why I think of pepper spray as “the first line of defense, when feasible.” If there’s no time to hit the spray button (and with the canister mounted pistol-fashion on your belt, you can aim and fire from the hip in mere seconds), or if you spray and the bear keeps coming, you have little choice but to shoot. With a grizzly still far enough away to dissuade, you can try a shot into the air or into the ground near the animal, hoping the muzzle blast or bullet noise will stop or turn the charge. But with a close, fast-incoming bear, don’t waste time with a warning shot. Aim for the deadliest point you can find. On a close-in, charging bear, this will probably be the face or upper chest. Often full-attack grizzlies lower their heads as they come in, so that’s about all you have to aim at. More than one Alaskan guide of my acquaintance suggests aiming for the snout–a high shot goes into the upper skull or even over the top, into the neck or spine; and if the bear hops or you shoot low, you have a chance at the throat, chest, or even a shoulder or leg, all of which can stop the animal, if only long enough for you to aim and shoot again.

Although this is legitimate self-defense, it clearly is not a desirable outcome. That is why Mark Matheny likes to tell hunters, “Spray ’em, don’t slay ’em.” He points out that too many close-encounter grizzlies are killed unnecessarily; which is not only bad for the bears, but also for hunting’s already precarious social image. Long-time bear biologist Chris Servheen agrees, calling the unnecessary killing of grizzlies by sportsmen nothing less than “a threat to hunting.”

In the end, the ideal is to protect yourself while sparing the bears, whenever that’s possible.

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A Vegetarian’s Hunt for Sustenance

Tovar Cerulli seems an unlikely hunter. Although he spent his childhood summers in New England fishing for trout and hunting for bullfrogs, he left such pursuits behind in his teens and, in an attempt to avoid killing and harming animals, became a vegan by the age of twenty. Some ten years later, in the face of declining health and increasing doubts about his meatless lifestyle, Cerulli came to the conclusion that a far more honest way to confront the truth about his impact on the natural world was to face it directly and take personal responsibility for the animals he realized he was killing anyway. He became a hunter.

The Mindful Carnivore: A Vegetarian’s Hunt for Sustenance is a book about Cerulli’s personal quest to come to terms with his meat consumption and his struggles with questions of morality and differing worldviews, but it’s also a gripping account of a man slowly teaching himself how to hunt–the challenges, the questions, the frustrations, and the disappointments that came with entering the New England deer woods and learning the basics of hunting, season after season–and what happened when it eventually came together. Any hunter who has taken this difficult journey will feel a connection.

Along the way, Cerulli examines questions that should interest hunters and nonhunters alike: Is vegetarianism really harmless? How much impact do our food choices have on the world around us? Is the issue of food perhaps the best way to bridge the gap between hunters and nonhunters and start a serious dialogue that could return hunting and eating wild game to the respected lifestyle it once was?

A gripping look at some of the central questions, both practical and philosophical, of human existence, this book is bound to make you think, not just about hunting but about the way our lives and all of the food we consume are connected to the larger picture. Read this book while you’ve got a venison stew simmering, and when you’re finished, pass it along to someone who doesn’t hunt.

Available for $26.95 from Pegasus Books and Amazon.com.–Diana Rupp

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A new initiative to restore lion populations across the African continent.

John Banovich, artist, conservationist, and founder of the Banovich Wildlife Foundation (BWF), has launched a new initiative to restore lion populations and ensure a future with lions in Africa. In February, BWF brought together some of Africa’s leading professional hunters and hunting/photographic companies, along with lion biologists and leading non-governmental organizations, to discuss how the hunting community can lead the way in African lion conservation.

Lion numbers have dropped to an estimated 30,000 in the wild, inhabiting only 17 percent of their former range. Much of the loss was historically due to exploding human and livestock numbers; spearing and poisoning has continued to decimate them wherever local people raise livestock. The news gets worse: Recent studies have shown that populations have also declined in many hunting areas, with too many young lions shot as trophies.

The petition by animal rights groups to list the lion as an endangered species could stop the import of lion trophies by Americans, the majority of hunting clients. Loss of that income would endanger much of the African hunting industry, together with the vast lands that trophy hunting shields from poaching and agricultural development: in Tanzania, over 100,000 square miles are used for hunting, compared to about 15,000 square miles protected in national parks.

The recent meeting was the first step in BWF’s initiative to engage hunting clients, professionals, and African wildlife authorities in a discussion on improving hunting policies and practices. We know how to manage lion hunting sustainably: Dr. Craig Packer and his colleagues have shown that if males live to at least six years of age before being harvested, lion populations will remain stable. Some major hunting companies in Mozambique have voluntarily adopted the six-year rule, and it is now law in Tanzania.

The meeting produced a broad consensus that hunters themselves must demand sustainable policies and practices, PHs need to learn the subtle cues that identify older males, and clients must recognize that many hunts will not produce a trophy.
Wildlife authorities also need to stop the lucrative practice of subdividing large concessions and assigning the original quota to each of the new smaller ones. Auctioning concessions annually is counterproductive; hunting companies have no reason to invest in anti-poaching activities, local community development, and good wildlife management if they are not assured of long tenure.

Local people need to earn much more money from wildlife if they are to value and protect animals rather than eat them. Wildlife income must be fairly divided among all local residents, rather than disappearing into government coffers. Effective conservation in a hungry continent is expensive; hunting alone is unlikely to produce enough income to protect large landscapes full of wildlife without financial help from other sources so new partnerships must be developed.

Participants discovered there was broad agreement on the major issues and genuine commitment to work together. BWF’s next step will be to convene a larger meeting of PHs, senior wildlife authorities from hunting countries, and lion conservationists.

“In order for any sort of sustainable future with lions, we in the conservation world must form coalitions today between NGOs, lion biologists, professional hunters, hunting companies, community leaders, and government officials, so that a collective understanding encompassing all stakeholders’ concerns is considered regarding a lion management strategy,” said Banovich. “At the end of the day, everyone ultimately wants the same thing: wild lions forever!” For more, visit www.lionsforever.com.

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A chat with the man who handled elephants, lions, and cheetahs during the filming of the 1962 classic movie starring John Wayne.

Of the cast and crew, both human and animal, who assembled half a century ago in east Africa to make the iconic safari movie Hatari!, only a few are still around. Star John Wayne, director Howard Hawks, and screenwriter Leigh Brackett all died more than 30 years ago, and actors Red Buttons, Bruce Cabot, Gérard Bain, and Michèle Girardon have joined them. Most of the professional hunters who worked as technical advisors, guides, doubles, security, wildlife wranglers, and capturers, have also passed on.

The principal game handler for the movie was the legendary Willie de Beer, owner of Tanganyika Game Limited, licensed for capturing wildlife; and working for him was a young Jan Oelofse. Today, Oelofse owns Jan Oelofse Hunting Safaris in Namibia and has recently published his memoir, Capture to Be Free, authored by his wife Annette Oelofse and available from www.janoelofsesafaris.com for $70.00 plus $12.00 shipping. Tom McIntyre interviewed Oelofse by phone to ask him about his memories of having worked on Hatari!

Tom McIntyre: Do you mind giving out your age?

Jan Oelofse: My age is 77. I’ll be 78 this year.

Tom McIntyre: How did you come to be a part of Hatari!?

Jan Oelofse: I was working for an old gentleman in Tanzania (it was Tanganyika at the time), Mr. de Beer, and Paramount [Pictures] wanted to do a movie, an African movie, and they came out and visited our camp. And the movie was more or less based on our lives there at the time. And since I was working for him [Willie de Beer], I was a participant in helping to work on the movie. He got the contract and, you know, I was a young man at the time, 50 years younger than I am now, and that’s how it happened.

Tom McIntyre: What can you tell me about Willie de Beer?

Jan Oelofse: His parents left South Africa. A lot of the Afrikaans-speaking people left South Africa after the Boer War. Early in the 1900s, when he was a small boy, his parents went up to Tanganyika. And there they settled, and he started in his young days to capture game. And it was always a dream for me to go and work with animals, and Tanganyika was the mecca of wildlife at that time. And then eventually I ended up with him. He was like a father to me, actually.

Tom McIntyre: How did you get to Tanganyika?

Jan Oelofse: I came up from Namibia, which was South-West Africa at the time [in the mid-1950s]. I worked a while in Zambia–I ran out of money by the time I got there. So I worked there for a few months, and then I continued up to Tanganyika.

Tom McIntyre: Before we talk about Hatari!, tell me about your career after the movie.

Jan Oelofse: I left East Africa in 1964. After independence, it was very difficult to get work permits there if you were of Western descent. So then I went back to South Africa, and I joined the Natal Parks Board. And I worked for them for eight years; and then during that time I designed a technique to capture animals in the thousands, and that really was the forerunner of the whole game industry in South Africa today. Previously, they couldn’t farm with game because it was difficult to obtain, because it was very hard to capture. With my technique, I could capture hundreds and hundreds in a day; and then it made it possible for people to buy game and stock their ranches and turn large areas over to conservation areas that were previously used for [cattle and sheep]. I [also] did a lot of movies for Mutual of Omaha, Marlin Perkins. I did a whole lot, about 20 series for him. I was quite involved in movie making until about 20 years ago or so.

[Oelofse’s memoir describes how he went into the private game-capturing business in 1973, using the now well-known “Oelofse Method” to capture wildlife and supply it all over southern Africa. Eventually he purchased a ranch in Namibia for surplus wildlife, turning it into the 60,000 acre Okonjati Game Sanctuary and Mount Etjo Safari Lodge. In 1982 Oelofse was named SCI’s “Most Outstanding Hunter.”]

Tom McIntyre: When did you first start work on the movie?

Jan Oelofse: I had been working for him [de Beer] for quite a while before the movie started. And the animals were all entrusted to my care, all the captive animals. About a year before the film crew came, I captured [the animals] myself, most of them. I started training the elephants for the movie for any parts they had to play, so I was involved quite a while with it. They [the young elephants] accepted me as a matriarch, and they followed me everywhere I’d go, and I actually slept a lot of nights with them in the cages, initially, to help them get used to me and so on.

Tom McIntyre: What were some of your jobs on the movie?

Jan Oelofse: I worked with leopards and all sorts of things and in some of the scenes we were capturing animals. We were doubling and standing in for some of the actors. But my main thing was to let the elephants do what they [the film crew] wanted them to do, and I also had a cheetah there that I brought from Namibia. Her name was Sonia. She also appeared prominently in the movie.

Tom McIntyre: Was Sonia the cheetah that came in while Elsa Martinelli was in the bath?

Jan Oelofse: Right. I was lying behind the bath, and I could see… I think I am one of the few guys that saw Martinelli’s buttocks (laughs). I lay behind the bath, and I called the cheetah in. She would only respond to me, you know. And then she walked up to Martinelli, and we put egg yolk and stuff that smelled like blood on her legs to attract her, and it was supposed to be soap that she was licking off.

Tom McIntyre: What other animals did you work with?

Jan Oelofse: I had about 42 animals, which included cheetahs, hyenas, lions, leopards, elephants, and some birds.

Tom McIntyre: But your main duty was the elephants?

Jan Oelofse: Yeah, I was involved in all the scenes. The elephants wouldn’t respond to anybody but me. And wherever you see the elephants, I was somewhere in the background or somewhere just out of screen, to control them. And when they ran down the street [in Arusha in the final scene], they were running after me. I was just out of view of the cameras.

Tom McIntyre: What was John Wayne like?

Jan Oelofse: He was a very nice gentleman and I spent a lot of time with him. Off set sometimes I took him out into the veldt and we went hunting and game viewing. I had good impressions of most of the stars. I can’t say bad about any of them. They were all nice people. And my only sad moment was when I had to leave all my elephants behind after we finished the shooting in Hollywood.

Tom McIntyre: How did the animals get to Hollywood?

Jan Oelofse: We did the movie in a couple of months in East Africa and then we moved across. I came in a plane across from Africa to Burbank Airport in Los Angeles. It took us five days with a DC 6 at that time. I was a couple of months in Hollywood. I can’t remember exactly how long now.

Tom McIntyre: Did you consider staying in Hollywood?

Jan Oelofse: Yeah, you know, it was a whole new world to me. But I was always yearning to go back to Africa. After I finished, I went on a tour through America and then Europe, and then I went back to East Africa again.

Tom McIntyre: And the animals?

Jan Oelofse: Paramount bought them from Mr. de Beer, and at that time I was just working for him. Once they finished the movie, I delivered them all to San Diego [the San Diego Zoo].

Tom McIntyre: How did you feel about that?

Jan Oelofse: You know, it was all in day’s work to me. It is the kind of work I did and I liked to do, and it was a wonderful experience for me. It was just sad to leave them behind in the States.

[As McIntyre talked to Oelofse about the elephants, Oelofse remembered there were five young ones he brought to Hollywood and then delivered to the San Diego Zoo, and he had long wondered what had become of them. By going on the internet, McIntyre learned that at least four, the only four recorded to have been donated by Paramount, are now dead. They died at relatively young ages, for elephants, none having gotten out of their 30s.]

Jan Oelofse: I am actually sad to know that they died. Since elephants normally grow quite old, there was probably something wrong with their diet or whatever that they died so early. I would have loved to have made acquaintance with them again after 50 years, but now it’s too late. My God, they probably missed me. Yeah, what a shame.

Tom McIntyre: I found out that the oldest female, Hatari, had a calf, which could still be alive.

Jan Oelofse: She certainly wouldn’t know me (laughs).

Read Tom McIntyre’s full feature on the 50th anniversary of the movie HATARI! in the May/June 2012 issue of Sports Afield. You can follow Tom on Twitter @mcintyrehunts.

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