Monday, August 04, 2008

Hunting adventures in the 70's

I've started yet another miniblog for links to my fathers current project of pictures, film and book of his hunting adventures. Hunting in Zambia early 1970's is my link for it. If you are at all interested, place comments, ratings, etc. especially with the clips.

Brief background: Zambia in the early 1970's was a typically African country in which independence was quite recent, and the result was fairly chaotic. Trophy hunting and the ivory trade were already globally frowned upon, even while at the same time, some elephant reserves had over-populations which had denuded them of virtually all trees. The attitude, therefore of the casual well off resident (predominantly white) "adventure" hunter, was as follows:

1) Follow the letter of the law and hunt only under the "license" system.

2) Report poachers to relevant authorities.

3) Most game reserves were very near villages - Therefore enlist local villages to use every scrap of hide, bone, meat (dried as biltong) etc. as they were generally subsistence with little regular protein in their diet and few sources of income.

The illegal (or even legal) hunting for just the trophy with the abandonment of the carcass was anathema. Also, the "canned" hunt popular with mega-rich visitors who just wanted to tick another box in the "things to do before I die list".

Like whales, elephants live wild and free until the moment they are killed - chickens tend to live a short and miserable existence - and provide one thousandth of the meat that each elephant does.

This following clip has me in it! I'm the little kid that looks like a girl holding hands with my mum with the black long hair. I was probably one.

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