Hunting Game

Book excerpt: The Hunting Game is a collection of hunting stories gleaned over the four decades the author has spent as a professional hunter in Southern Africa. Whilst many of the chapters are stories about specific hunting safaris the author has guided international clients on for different species, there are also chapters covering rifle calibers, bullet performance and related stuff. The author also includes a historical chapter on the hunting of crop raiding elephant (circa 1935) in Mozambique (what was then Portuguese East Africa). Another interesting chapter is about the author's experiences in dealing with tribal African superstitions when he was still a young game ranger with the Rhodesian Department of National Parks & Wildlife Management. Another chapter is a rather tongue in cheek humorous look at the often contentious gratuity issue in the safari hunting industry. Humor aside though, the author also issues a somber warning as to the critical situation in some of Zimbabwe's once great state owned hunting safari concessions, where rampant poaching, greed, gross corruption, and horrific mismanagement have led to a sharp decline in wildlife numbers, probably now well beyond the critical tipping point. The author considers The Hunting Game a light campfire read, which will be of interest not only to sport hunting enthusiasts, but to anyone with an interest in the sustainable consumptive yield of Southern Africa's wildlife resources.