I was visiting some non hunting friends of mine this weekend in Alabama, and the question came up -

“Ivan you are so passionate about elephants, how can you hunt them?“ the answer is, I don’t know, but let me make an attempt, not to justify this, but simply to try and explain ..

Have you ever sat next to a campfire deep in the bush, your back cold, your legs and front hot, its day six, you have walked at least 6 hours a day for the last week? You have seen and been among wild elephants every day, some have mock charged, some have smelt you and you haven’t been able to catch them again. With others, conditions have been perfect but there has been a reason not to target them, maybe they have been too young, or broken tusked … the point is, most people who hunt Africa have had these experiences. It’s not uncommon to see the camp in daylight for the first time after day 7!! You are out at first light, back after dark and go to bed dog tired and satisfied.

It’s hard to find this anywhere else …and I can truly say, it’s not about the killing, it’s about the hunting, it’s about getting the many moving parts to come together perfectly …the wind, the footsteps, the trackers, the terrain, where the boundaries are, the herd size, the water points and spring lines.…it’s all there to be worked and pieced together. In the pursuit of an animal you get to know it so well, either as an individual or as a species.

One of my best buddies in the world, Keith Holcomb and I have spent countless hours in the bush together, both game viewing in areas like Mana Pools in Zimbabwe and the Serengeti in Tanzania, and hunting. We have hunted a lot together, be it turkeys with bow and arrow on his ranch in Florida, or Kudu in Zimbabwe, guinea fowl with pointers in South Africa or snipe in the Florida Everglades. We have had many hunting days when we didn’t see what we were after, or saw what we wanted and couldn’t get to it , or had the birds get up and simply missed !!!! Yet I can’t say we have had a single unsuccessful day!

My entire working life has been spent in the bush, either guiding game viewing or hunting. Without a great appreciation of the birds, trees and “non target” species some of the experience of the hunt is lost. Likewise hunting a particular animal, setting out with a specific goal, not just a general game drive or walk where it’s purely chance if you see what you are after adds a certain spice to the day.

Some of my most treasured memories are set in non hunting environments, sitting for hours amongst a herd of elephants in a park, watching them and trailing them, waiting while a cheetah makes up its mind which gazelle to target as we watch …all great and unique experiences.

It’s hard not to ramble on and on … I guess for me personally, one is nothing without the other …I need both hunting and simply looking.

I work hard in the field to locate highly reputable people who have high ethics and we make every effort to provide our clientele with the real hunting experience…the miles of walking, the uncertainties and the adventure .

I can’t justify a hunter and will not try, I can however, justify hunting.

In many parts of Africa gameviewing is marginal from the perspective of lack of species. Take Botswana for example, some of the hunting concessions there are 2 million acres, flat mopane scrub with hundreds of elephants. 12 bulls a year are taken in areas where at any time there can be over 2000 animals, potentially raising 600 000 dollars. With the Okavango nearby nobody would be gameviewing in these areas therefore without the economics of hunting , they would soon be home to villages and cattle.

The carcass is used in its entirety…an elephant bull will provide villagers with 4000 pounds of protein, that’s just in good meat …add to that the organs and bones boiled for soup and several hundred people can be fed!

Click here to download a .pdf document on Florida from 2006.

Let’s look at Ducks Unlimited …millions of dollars are spent each year preserving and reclaiming wetlands so that people can hunt ducks. In the end millions of acres of wetland that were formerly destroyed or were unusable are recreated …and the ducks thrive!

Getting back to Africa …40% of the wild populations of elephant are currently living outside of protected areas. Animals in conflict with humans always lose, therefore if there is no value to this population, they have no future …In marginal areas it’s the hunters that give these animals value.

In South Africa, thanks to hunters, hundreds of thousands of sheep farms and cropping areas have been “high fenced”. Game that was formerly naturally occurring in these areas has been reintroduced.

Thanks to hunting in South Africa, the country has the only viable white rhino population in the world In 2007 several hundred were shot by sport hunters, with each one generating up to 100 000 dollars. This makes them highly valuable and many ranchers have extensive breeding programs. The quality of these programs are greatly enhanced by the income from a mature rhino who is past his prime and past breeding. The examples are numerous.

In closing let me say that I am passionate about Africa, about all things wild and remote and I strive to maintain a high degree of ethics in all of the activities that I undertake on that unique continent …both hunting and photographic.