The elephant hunt

Elephants are the largest land animals in the world. They are majestic, and with their large ivory tusks jutting out in front, they are an iconic image of Africa. For 3 1/2 years in the late 1970’s and early 1980, I was stationed in the isolated bush of Binga, Matabeleland North province, Zimbabwe, teeming with wild animals and primitive tribes of African people. The job of my unit was to protect the people from the communist guerillas warring against the Rhodesian government, and to control the wildlife from poaching, overbreeding, and overall maintenance of the land. One thing I did was issue hunting licenses for any hunter who wanted to go out and hunt the abundant wildlife that was in the district, like elephant, Cape buffalo, deer, lion, and many other animals. By far the most popular was the elephant.

I wasn’t in charge of setting the quota on the number of elephant that were allowed to be hunted, in fact, I don’t know where that number came from, or how it was calculated, but I do know that the hunting licenses that were issued every year was very small, about 10 in my district alone. More if the elephant population grew too large so that they were too destructive to the habitat in which they lived, or too destructive to the local tribal population. Licensed hunting was the best way to keep the hunting enthusiasts happy, and also keep the local tribes happy as well. If that didn’t keep the elephant population in check, then the department of wildlife came in with their professional hunter rangers, and they would do an organized culling. The tusks would go to a government warehouse and be sold off, raising revenues for the government, or destroyed so no-one would profit from the government action. The meat would be sold off to the people. Revenue for the government treasury.

One day my immediate ranking officer obtained one of the precious hunting licenses, and asked me if I wanted to come along on his hunt. Of course I said yes. I would never hunt an elephant myself as I wasn’t confident enough of my ability to shoot an animal correctly, or rich enough to be able to purchase a license . I was a marksman on the rifle range, but shooting a live, breathing, beautiful animal such as a bull elephant, no way. But I jumped at the opportunity to go along on the hunt.

Because we were at war with the nationalist guerillas, we organized an amoured troop carrier with 20 Intaff soldiers as backup protectors, and me as the junior officer and my immediate supervisor, the Hunter had an amoured land rover . So early one day we went off into the bush where our men and a local tribesman told us where the elephant were last seen. We saw herds of antelope, some zebras, giraffes and a lone Cape buffalo, but no elephants. Then, a shout from our tracker, who has spotted the spoor of 6 elephants across the dirt road. We stopped, and the tracker got out and followed the footprints off the road until he found some fresh scat. He put his hand into the large pile of elephant poop, and he smiled, the poop was still warm. He estimated that the elephant herd had crossed the road about 10 minutes before, so they were close, and we got out of our land rover, which we parked off the road, separated the soldiers into a defensive perimeter around the troop carrier and the Land Rover and 10 men to go with us to follow the tracks of the elephants, and to provide security. We all has our automatic rifles with us except the hunter who had his bolt action hunting rifle. We also had a portable radio so we could contact the truck to come to us when we killed the elehant. We tracked the spoor for about half an hour, and then we had our first sighting.There was a large bull elephant and 2 females, and 3 young infants. Making sure the breeze was in our faces, so we could smell the elephants but they could not smell us, we crept quietly and slowly towards them. They were eating leaves off the trees oblivious to our approach. When we were at a close distance to make a good shot, the hunter drew a bead on the bull, aiming for his heart so that it would be a quick kill. He fired, and the bull collapsed on the ground without a sound. The females and the babies reacted in shock and confusion, sqealing loudly, and stampeding away from us, and in a few seconds were gone. We could hear squealing and crashing of trees as the elephants ran. The men shouted and rushed forward to the felled bull elephant to look and touch him. We confirmed he was dead. The hunter immediately started to cut out the ivory tusks, as that was a delicate task, and he didn’t want any one else to do it and damage the tusks. Before he completed the job, local tribesmen converged on us, with our soldiers ensuring they weren’t terrorists. All the tribesmen were carrying personal pangas ( machetes) and spears and knives. We didn’t call for them, but they knew we were there and hunting.The bush telegraph was in operation, and drumming could be heard in the distance , broadcasting the event, and to come get some meat. Once the Hunter was finished removing the tusks, he waved on the tribesmen to begin skinning the elehant and carving up the meat. As they were doing that, we radioed for the troop carrier and land rover to come to us. About 50 tribesmen had arrived by this time to claim some of the meat for themselves, and chaos was occurring, as the tribesmen attacked the carcass. They didn’t have weapons to kill the elephants that raided their corn fields or their fruit trees, so they didn’t normally have this large a haul of fresh meat, maybe only a chicken once in a while. The scene became festive, as their women and children arrived, Carrying baskets to take the meat home. One man got stabbed by a spear wielded by another tribesman who was stabbing the carcass, as he had crawled inside the carcass to remove the liver and kidneys and heart. The Hunter asked one of his soldiers to translate for him, and asked for some of the skin to make leather for himself. And so the negotiations began. The tribesmen and their wives were happy, singing as they toiled away. Some meat, not much, was wrapped up in a piece of skin, and loaded in the back of the land rover, with the 2 large tusks, to go home with us to Binga village. The tusks would be cleaned, and mounted on both sides of the fireplace mantle at the hunters house, as a trophy. The meat he kept to make biltong( venison jerky, but much better)and the leather to craft into a belt and a wallet. The Hunter was ecstatic. A successful hunt. The local tribesmen were happy, they had a fun day, out of the ordinary, and they were all happy because they had lots of meat to eat. The kids were happy, because, well, they are kids. Anything different is exciting.

so that was my first and only elephant hunt, and it was fantastic. I was totally amazed at how the local tribesmen just showed up unannounced to work at butchering and claiming the meat for themselves. The hunt was more than a trophy kill, it gained us massive amounts of goodwill from the locals towards the government, and food to eat for a whole village and skin leather to make artifacts to use or sell. A win for everyone.The village and Kraals will be saved from too many elephants trampling and uprooting trees and crops. In the long run, the quality of life for the surviving elephants will improve by having a smaller herd.Now I only go on photographic safaris.