ELEPHANT HUNTING KNOW-HOW – PART 1
Learn from an experienced PH
UUNLESS YOU HAVE hunted and shot an elephant, it is difficult to comprehend the feeling when spotting, approaching and getting ready to shoot one. It is the act of taking on a pachyderm in its own environment, even though it towers over you and can kill you with ease. For me, the actual death of the animal was always dispiriting and left me feeling sad. Yet the hunt is such a thrill that I kept coming back.
Today, unless you are a game ranger or qualified professional hunter, very few countries will allow you to hunt elephant without being accompanied by a PH. However, a few Central African countries remain where you can do an unguided hunt with a local tracker.
I was fortunate to do a great deal of elephant hunting from the late 1950s to the 1980s when I was a game ranger for National Parks in Rhodesia and a professional hunter in Rhodesia, Botswana and Caprivi. Then, people were allowed to hunt elephant without a guide or PH, as long as they
bought the required licence. I lived in elephant-populated areas, hence acquired good knowledge of their habits and behaviour. Other than when guiding clients, I preferred to hunt on my own with just one or two trackers. I also hunted for ivory – now almost unheard of – and I conducted elephant hunts with paying clients on safaris.
In the old days, hunters had to go in on foot. They employed porters to carry their camping equipment and spent months out in the bush. During my elephant hunting years we had four-wheel-drive vehicles, enabling me to get to the areas without walking for weeks. However, there were not many roads in the elephant habitat areas, and we had to walk long distances, searching for elephant and following spoor. To save time, we did use the few faint roads, looking for fresh tracks where elephant had crossed. Once found, we had to decide if the spoor was fresh enough and follow on
foot. It’s a good sign when the piles of elephant dung are not yet disturbed by dung beetles and slightly warm in the middle – it means the elephant are not too far ahead. If they keep walking, however, the pace is about as fast as a person can jog.
I DID MUCH of my elephant hunting in ‘Kalahari sand’ country. These areas are covered by teak and other brachystegia forest, have a few open vleis dotted with patches of mopane and combretum, and occasional waterholes (pans) left by the seasonal rains. Most of the Kalahari sand area spans Botswana, Caprivi, north-western Zimbabwe, south-western Zambia and south-eastern Angola. The Zambezi River runs along the northern border of Rhodesia and the eastern end of Caprivi. To the north-west is the Chobe/ Linyanti River on the border between Botswana and Eastern Caprivi, swinging south through Caprivi from Angola where it is known as the Kwando River. To the west, in Botswana, is the Savuti Swamp, the Kavango River and the Okavango delta. The Kalahari sand country continues into southern Angola and Zambia, but I never hunted elephant there.
Apart from a few small hills and ridges, most of the area is flat and, except for the flood plains and vleis, it is covered with deep, reddish or grey Kalahari sand. Walking long distances on this loose surface is extremely tiring. I learned from the Khoi San and copied their style of almost shuffling, taking smaller steps and keeping my feet level (not toeing in or out).
Elephant paths, particularly in the long, open vleis, traverse the area like arteries between the pans and near the rivers, then peter out far into the feeding areas in the forests.
After drinking, elephant head for these feeding areas, usually stopping at about 10 or 11am. They are particularly fond of the bark and leaves of hook-thorn bush, mopane and young teak and they like to dig for succulent roots in the sand. Their favourite fruit is that of the marula and mugongo trees.
IT CAN GET hot in the summer – up to 40° Celsius – and winter days are quite warm. When following elephants, it is not unusual to walk up to twenty miles (32km) or more a day. Pans are usually far apart and the water, if any, is almost undrinkable, except at the rivers, so water must be carried in a canvas water-bag (josack). I have followed big bulls a long way out into waterless areas. They can go three or four days without drinking and I have seen them putting their trunks into their mouths, regurgitating water and blowing it over their heads to cool down. Cow elephants and calves must drink almost every day, particularly in hot weather.
Often, we walked all day in the dry sand and heat without catching up to the animals, then had to walk wearily back to the vehicle. The country is mostly without any landmarks and it is amazing how a Khoi San tracker knows the exact direction back to the vehicle, even after walking in varying directions all day. I have to take the general direction, then cast around until I pick up the vehicle tracks or road and follow, noting which direction the vehicle travelled by checking the way grass and small bushes have been flattened by the wheels. There were no GPSS then, so we had to develop and use our instincts.
There are various methods of hunting elephant. Traditional ivory hunting was mainly for single bulls or small groups of old bulls. This, to me, is the most interesting and rewarding hunting. Hunting larger herds for control measures or to chase animals out of an area can be quite dangerous. Trophy hunting is much like ivory hunting, except that nowadays you are backed by a PH, sleep in a luxury camp and your success depends largely on your ability to walk long distances. In some areas like Eastern Caprivi, there are big, open flood plains along the Zambezi River where the hunting differs from that in the forested areas. You can see the animals at a distance and, as a rule, not much tracking or stalking is required. Then there is culling; I do not consider elephant culling to be real hunting.
IT IS ESSENTIAL to use round-nosed, steel-jacketed FMJ solids or monolithic brass solids on elephant. The bullet must have enough strength, weight and length-for-calibre to achieve the required penetration of heavy bone and the vital organs. Many hunters have been killed due to their use of badly constructed or soft-nose bullets. Most African countries set the legal minimum calibre for dangerous game at 9.3x62mm, .375 Magnum or larger. I usually used my trusty old .458 Win Mag with open sights to hunt elephant. Of course, no matter what calibre you use, accuracy and bullet placement are of primary importance.
When hunting elephant for trophy or ivory, no shots should be fired in the area before finding your elephant. Gunfire warns the clever, big old bulls and they will immediately move out. Avoid situations in which the wind blows from you towards the quarry. Elephants have extremely acute sense of smell and hearing. If they keep moving downwind you must repeatedly circle widely around, cutting back to the tracks only occasionally. Get downwind or across the wind direction as soon as possible and be extremely observant. Fleeing animals or warning cries from birds will alarm elephant, particularly old bulls. You will know when the elephants are close due to their faint, musty body smell. If there is more than one, you will often hear their occasional deep rumbles.
The approximate age of a big bull elephant can be judged by the clarity of the prints left by his feet. An old elephant has very worn treads, particularly at the back of the foot and is more likely to have big tusks. Hunting these old bulls is hard work, with a lot of disappointments. Many times I tracked a bull that left huge tracks, following all day in the heat through heavy sand, only to find that he had small or broken tusks and occasionally no tusks at all. When you finally spot a big tusker and first see the white gleam of big ivory, it is an indescribable, gut-wrenching feeling. You instantly forget about your exhaustion and go on full alert.
The return distance to the vehicle always seems twice as far. I have often had to stumble into camp or find the road and vehicle in the dark, exhausted, thirsty and hungry, and sometimes even had to camp out with no food, water or blankets. I always carried matches so that I could make a fire to keep me warm and keep the nasty animals away. Luka and I would huddle around the fire until it got light, then take off again, back to the vehicle or camp. Elephant hunting gets in your blood and it is worth all the pain and suffering.