Whenever someone asks me what it’s like to hunt in Africa, I’m kind of at a loss for words.
The African bushveldt, you see, is pretty difficult to hunt. Here’s a representative sample:
It’s pretty dense — not tropical jungle, though as much densely covered, and visibility is often measured in feet rather than in yards.
To give you an idea of what this means: from a standing start, a lion can cover 100 yards in about 3.5 seconds. Typical visibility in lion country: about 100 feet, as above. (Do the math.)
And death is everywhere, the minute you leave the relative safety of your Land Rover or hunting camp. It could be a mamba, a scorpion, a Cape buffalo, or any number of things with teeth and claws, for whom a human is kinda like a marshmallow: can’t run that fast, no tough hide, no horns or whatever to protect itself, and laughably slow reflexes and crap hearing by comparison to the typical prey animal.
Like this leopard:
Now you know.
20 virile, almost naked, young mens in group set out with long pointy poles and short beating clubs to do the groups grocery shopping…some of them may not come back…
My Africa experience is limited to Tanzania which is similar to the above but less dense and the Savannas of Kenya. I watched a pack of 5 Lioness stalk a herd of buffalo unsuccessfully. They disappeared into the scrub grass as they advanced in a wide curved line. Each only visible as they advanced 25 feet or so at a time. when they stopped, they blended perfectly with the environment Just like the Leopard above.
However, humans are evolved to predators, not prey animals. Our eyes are close together on the front of the face, not on the side like all prey animals. Tourists in Land Rovers are ignored by most predators, Chetahs will use the Land Rovers to gain some height to spot their prey. Don’t get out of the Land Rover.
…….. and armed Humans are at the top of the predator pile.
Same situation, different ‘location’. Long ago told my children –
When you go in the ocean, ANY ocean, whether from the beach or
a boat, you are NO LONGER AT THE TOP OF THE FOOD CHAIN, PERIOD !
I opened the picture in another frame and blew it up. I still couldn’t see the critter.
Don’t get out of the Land ROver, why did I hear Captain Williard’s voice from Apocalypse Now. “never get out of the boat.”
In the circle the Chetah is looking away from us. Ears in the top left edge, hind quarters bottom right. Crouched in the grass.
The late, great, and sorely missed Colonel Jeff Cooper once wrote of seeing a photograph of a pair of boots in the middle of a pinkish area of ground, where a cape buffalo literally stomped a hunter into the ground because he was wrathfully annoyed because the hunter shot at him and missed.
Not fair. He’s hiding in the shadows. Step out in the sun where we can see you, kitty.