The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
BIG GAME HUNTER IN THE FIRING LINE
Guy Wallace, an unrepentant relic of the colonial era and big game hunter from the Highlands, tells Susan Welsh he’s ready to defend his actions after a controversial new film showing him hunting a Cape buffalo is released
Over the next few days, weeks and months, Caithness big gamehunter Guy Wallace expects to become a much-despised figure of hate, yet joked: “You’ll probably be reading my obituary next week.”
He is the subject of a controversial documentary film released this week, End of the Game, which had its world premiere at the Glasgow Film Festival.
It’s made by film-maker and committed vegan David Graham Scott, from Wick, who has also put himself in the firing line by befriending the big game hunter and accompanying him to Africa where he filmed his attempts to kill a Cape buffalo.
The film explores the ethical issues around hunting but also delves deeper into the unlikely bond that develops between the two men. Guy lives with a Swahili talking parrot and has just one-and-a-half teeth – the result of eating too much buffalo meat in his younger days, he tells me, while his broad moustache and the pipe often found clamped between his lips make him look like a figure that has stepped from the pages of a history book.
His attitude towards hunting will make some feel that the past is where he belongs, but Guy says he “doesn’t give a monkeys” about what other people think.
“I’ve never been ashamed of what I’ve done,” he said.
An unrepentant relic of the colonial era, Guy has been a soldier, serving both with a parachute regiment and the Gordon Highlanders; a mercenary and a tracker.
Until this month he lived in splendid isolation in a battered old caravan on the Caithness moors.
“I’ve lived in mud huts, stone huts in the desert and corrugated iron shacks in South Americaso I’m not fussy, plusyoucan only use one chair, one plate, one cup at a time so there’s no point in having lots of stuff,” said Guy.
He is now relocating to Spain, a move he assures me was planned years ago, and nothing to do with the controversial film being released.
“I’ve been hill farming in Caithness since 2002 but I’m 75 now and had enough of it,” said Guy, who has also been a professional gun dog trainer for 40 years.
He’s ledsomething ofa“Boy’sOwn” life, one full of adventure and drama, but as he approached the golden years of his life, he had one burning, remaining ambition – to hunt and kill a Cape buffalo.
“Hunting is one of the oldest things in the world and if it wasn’t for hunting the human race would have died out years ago. I know it was a necessity then but in some parts of rural Africa, it still is,” said Guy.
“David sees me as a Victorian hunter, but I was brought up with field sports from a very early age by my grandfather and uncles and inherited their ethics, something which has rather gone out of the window these days.
“There is a very strict code of conductwhich I always follow. The professional hunter on the safari we filmed in Africa was rather surprised when I told him that I would not shoot within 500 yards of the vehicle or within 500 yards as it is unethical.
“The hunter said it would completely reducemy chances of shooting aCape buffalo so I said, so be it, I’m not prepared to compromise.
“During the dry season, which is the hunting season, the animals need their water and, until the rains come, there are not many places to drink, so to ambush them at a waterhole absolutely stinks.
“I wanted to hunt a mature Cape buffalo, one that has been pushed out of the herd by the younger buffalo. They often end up being hunted by young lions so they run into thorn patches where the lions will spend days slowly attacking them which leads to a slow, lingering and painful death.
“In Britain there’s nothing that fights back – a salmon or fox is unlikely to kill you, but with a Cape buffalo it’s a case of you kill him or he kills you.
“If you turn your back and run, you are dead. You must stand your ground.
“You have to be ready for it and you have tobepracticed. I have fired rifles since 1965 and shot more than 1,000 British deer to control them. I’m not a trophy hunter but having a trophy is a great visual reminder of that hunting experience.”
Guy is ready to face his critics as he’s used to being in the firing line, as for years he was a professional huntsman on horseback, controlling a pack of 40foxhounds in England and Wales.
“When I was fox-hunting, wearing my scarlet coatandleading thepackofhounds I had all sorts of abuse directed at me. People would shout and scream at mebut they were just a bit of a nuisance.
“I’ve always known that some people won’t understandwhyI hunt but what you have to look at is why are they anti hunting? There are always two sides to everything. As Robert Quillan said: ‘Discussion is an exchange of knowledge, an argument an exchange of ignorance’.
“When people shout and start spouting stuff it shows they obviously haven’t studied the subject at all. David, at least, could see where I was coming from.
“If a complete stranger had phoned and
“I’ve lived in mud huts, stone huts in the desert and corrugated iron shacks in South America so I’m not fussy, plus you can only use one chair, one plate, one cup at a time so there’s no point in having lots of stuff”