The Value of a Trophy

A Mythical Unicorn?

I am in Torino in this gorgeous Sunday morning. The sky is blue and the air is warming quickly. Spring is in the air! And, for the last several days it has been difficult for me to put the time aside to write a new post, but here we go.

People hunt for several reasons. Some for food (subsistence), others for profit (poaching), and a few because they need to prove something to themselves, but most of us I believe hunt because as Ortega Y Gasset said “men are fugitive from nature” and therefore we hunt to have a “vacation from our human condition.”

To most hunters the act of hunting is the biggest prize that we could have, and Robert Ruark put it perfectly that “the best part of hunting and fishing was the thinking about going and the talking about it after you got back.”

If we consider the above, a trophy is not really required to make hunt unforgettable. However, a trophy is something tangible that allows us to revive the experience and talk about the hunt many years, sometimes decades, after it took place, but it took me sometime to understand that.

To illustrate that, I would like you to read two excerpts from my book “A Wild Beast at Heart.”

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From “Opening Day”

By first light the fusillade almost made me think I was in Iraq or some other part of the world not as nice as Michigan and I started seeing something white across the field, but it was nothing more than some paper taped to a pole. Around eight, I missed, just missed, a very nice buck running at 60 or 70 yards. But since I was quite comfortable in my blind, I endured.

Nature was forgiving to me. Around nine, a nice sized buck came walking about 40 yards, directly in front of me. I took my time, put the cross hairs to his shoulders, kept moving my shotgun like on a very slow “high house” clay pigeon, and could see fur coming out of him when he was hit, and before he took off.

After a quarter of an hour or so we started trailing him. Bob was the first to find the blood spoor and we located the buck about a hundred yards into the trees (but it felt like a mile after I had to drag him) and for one moment I felt as being robbed of something. The left antler was crooked, twisted downwards and just barely attached to the skull skin. At once I remembered Robert Ruark’s “The Horn of the Hunter”, when after trailing Kudu for several days or weeks, he shoots this prize bull only to find out that he was an immature animal with only one curl in his horns. But this feeling only lasted a moment.

I drove home and brought my family back, so my kids could see that beef (or venison for the matter) doesn’t come from “Meijer’s”, and took the rest of the day butchering and packing the meat. I could say that this story ends at Christmas Eve tasting the very well prepared venison ham, but no. Those unimpressive antlers will keep bringing me back nice memories, especially of friendship. Thank you, Bob.

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From “The Winterberg Journal”

As we continued trailing, uphill, Munguezi, our tracker, spotted a bushbuck, one of Africa’s most beautiful antelopes. We scouted this particular animal for almost two hours before I could take a shot. Up and down hill, closer and farther, the sun shining on my rifle barrel and turning my scope in a perverse flashlight. We lost him in the bush until a young kudu bull spooked by Frans made him move again.

I shot my bushbuck at about 170 meters (or yards, who cares?) and he went down, out of sight. As the light was starting to fade Frans asked me to go along with Munguezi while he covered the general area with his rifle in case the animal tried to escape while we approached him. Frans was kind enough to remind me that bushbucks are very dangerous animals that will often charge when wounded.

Again, the approach was very exciting but we had to climb down a hill and climb up another before we reached the area the animal was when shot. We found the animal, dead from a fatal, if somewhat misplaced, neck shot. And disaster struck me once more. This absolute huge bushbuck, 15 and 1/5 inches horn length, suitable to ingress in the prestigious Rowland Awards big game record book, had a single horn, the missing one broken at the base.

My heart and soul are twisting at this moment. What to do with this magnificent animal? I need to think.

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In Africa, our professional hunter, Frans Bussiahn (http://www.mankazana.co.za/) had said that if were told by one of the PH’s to shoot an animal that was not a trophy animal, then we could shoot an additional animal of the same species at no additional cost. True to his word, be immediately made the offer for another bushbuck, but he said that I could only keep one of the trophies.

I should have remembered the story of my own first whitetail deer, but after some thinking I decided to hunt another bushbuck to have a nice representative specimen with both horns.  While it was great to hunt a bit more, getting the second bush buck was not as challenging as the first and almost anticlimactic, and although it made a very nice mount, in my mind it lacks the majesty and mystery of the green-eyed unicorn that I shot on my first day on safari.

Becoming a Hunter...In Germany

Wild Boar at the entrance of the Deutsches Jagd- und Fischereimuseum

We all know how hard it is to become a new hunter around here (here being Southwest Michigan, USA). If you were born after January 1^st, 1960, you will need to get a hold of Greg Anderson or other Hunter Safety instructor and sign-up for a course that may consume two full Saturdays and cost you ten dollars. Greg will feed you very well on those two days, but most people will complain about the price. Then you will have to take a test that most children twelve and older will pass, but again, you may complain.

After that you will receive a Hunter’s Safety Card, and you can go to any of the thousands of retailers that sell Hunting & Fishing licenses and complain again for paying fifteen dollars for a “small game” or the same amount for a deer or turkey license. For waterfowl you also need to buy a Federal Duck Stamp for the princely sum of twenty dollars.

Finally, if you don’t have access to a private property, you may have to call the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to receive, free of charge, maps for thousands of acres of public land all over the state. But again you will complain that public land is too crowded and there is no good hunting there.

Well, in order to make us Michigan (or most American) hunters feel less miserable I had a long conversation with my friend Thomas Fritz, who lives in Southern Germany, and is currently in the process of becoming a hunter, which off course includes getting his first German hunting license.

The odyssey is more or less like this: first you decide that you want to become a hunter, and then you find a way of setting time aside for the four to six months required to complete the course.

A minimum of one hundred and thirty hours of theory are administered on Mondays and Thursdays (two hours each evening), and on Saturdays you will have field activities, shooting lessons and veterinary training in order to identify potential illnesses in the game animals or its meat.

After that you will take a written test on the following subjects: animal natural history & health, hunting practice, forestry & farming, hunting dogs, and hunting & firearm laws.

Then you will take a shooting test that includes:

·         Handguns (although German law prohibits hunting with handguns, they may be used for “coupe de grace” or dispatching wounded or trapped animals);

·         Shotguns: a minimum of 150 clay pigeons (but not shot on a single day), and 10 rabbit targets. The hunter must hit at least half of the targets;

·         Rifles: five shots from bench at 100 meters (must hit 9-ring or better) and five shots off-hand at “running game” (must hit 5-ring or better). In both cases, the three best shots count for score.

Finally there is an interview or oral test during which the “hunter-to-be” must be able to identify several animal “parts” and if approved in all tests the person can now apply for a hunting (and also trapping) license. The cost up to this point is about three thousand Euros or about four thousand dollars.

At some time during the process, it is necessary to become a member of a hunting club or society, and along the duration of the course, the “hunter-to-be” can be a beater on drives or even gut animals under the supervision of a licensed hunter, but he cannot handle firearms. Actually he cannot purchase firearms or ammunition without the hunting license.

The cost of the hunting license is ninety Euros (about one hundred and twenty dollars) and is valid for three years; however there is no public land available for hunting, and therefore it is pay to play. Either the hunting club has a leasing, or the hunter pays for each animal. A deer typical cost is three thousand Euros (four thousand dollars), while boars are much less due to overpopulation.

One of the alternatives to make hunting costs more manageable is to sell the game meet, which is legal in most of Europe, and this is one of reasons that animal health is one of the required subjects of the hunting course.

Similar to the United States, Germany is facing a declining on the number of hunters and the complexity and cost associated with new hunting licenses is probably one of the reasons. One of the consequences is that ungulate wildlife (deer and boars) is on the rise throughout Germany with associated damage to the environment (over browsing) and crop depredation, and foresters are requesting hunters to shoot as many deer and boars as possible.

If you are willing to volunteer to control the Germany wildlife population, foreign hunters can apply for a limited term (14 days) license, but Thomas was not aware of the specific rules. But even as volunteer you may have to pay your own way.

Different countries have diverse and very particular culture, and one is not inherently better than the other, but just different. The point is that many times it is difficult to appreciate what we have without parameters for comparison.

From what I could learn while traveling the world, talking with friends and researching the subject, the North American wildlife conservation model is the most inclusive and affordable in the world. Let’s cherish that.

Virtual Hunting II

Giant Irish Deer (Megalocerus giganteus)

A couple weeks ago I had a brief “tour” of central Europe on another business trip and was lucky enough not to have any travel disruptions due to the brutally cold weather.

I really believe that the atavist passion for hunting still pulses very strongly inside the human soul, even if the rather thin varnish of a contemporary and almost metrosexual civilization tries to deny it.

On the first night in Gdansk I ordered a great wild boar dish, a fantastic roast complemented by forest mushrooms and wild berry sauce. A good Argentinian Malbec enhanced the awesome dish.

My choice of a “wild game” dish brought up a discussion about hunting and my undisguised passion for it. And most people are at a minimum curious about hunting and after a bit or a lot of conversations I generally find out that many people are very supportive of hunting, both as a sport and as a wildlife management tool. And as more people got engaged in our conversation it became apparent that many of them had either hunted, knew someone or had a relative that did it, or have an interest to do so.

A couple days later I came to Munich for more business meetings. On the way to a meeting in Dachau while driving at an Autobahn and close to the Munich International Airport I saw a small deer herd appreciating the warm sun on the bitterly cold morning. They were at a tree line, exactly under an elevated shooting platform and just a couple days after the season closed. Apparently deer in Germany know the calendar as well as those in Michigan.

On the way back I saw several large European hares peacefully sunning on a stubble field.

Besides that I did two very nice things. First I had a very nice discussion with a colleague, Thomas, who is in the process of getting a German hunting license. This is a long and somewhat complex process and I will describe it in detail in the near future.

Second, I had the opportunity to once again visit the DEUTSCHES JAGD- UND FISCHEREIMUSEUM (www.jagd-fischerei-museum.de) in Neuhauser Strasse 2, downtown Munich.

The museum is very nice and as the name implies it is dedicated to the German hunting and fishing culture, mainly from the XVII to the late XIX centuries, and also to the natural history of the main animals that are pursued there.

On going up the first flight of stairs we are greeted by Diana, our goddess, peaceful and permanent in brown marble. As I was admiring her I called my wife and we had a brief discussion about real women and their curves, so well represented by the statue, and not like many of the “unreal” plastic surgery altered contraptions that the media tries to sell us nowadays. There is nothing wrong with small breasts, a nice tummy and good hips on the women we love.

The main hall on the second floor was mostly under renovation, but it has two features that are worthwhile mentioning. One is an interactive series of displays focused on children, as they can touch and feel the different mounted animals and allow them to develop a much deeper appreciation for the animals than by only looking through a glass window. Some of the mounts show signs of wear and tear, but that is what it is all about.

A couple steps from there, on the way to the floor’s main hall there was one of the nicest use of digital technology that I ever saw: a virtual trout stream.

Besides the calming sound of running water the stream and all its elements, from falling leaves to large brown trout, react to our presence, or better our intrusion. When we step on the “stream” ripples disturb its surface. As I tried to approach the large trout they would either hide under the banks or swim away. I felt like a child and could have played there for hours.

There was also a film on how hunters interact with the environment and are a critical factor on its sustainable use.

As a rule, we hunters tend to talk a lot among ourselves, but we do not spend enough time promoting the sport and recruiting new disciples of Saint Hubert.

The value of places like German Hunt and Fishing Museum add to our need to continue to educate non-hunters in order to maintain the social acceptability of hunting and fishing is absolutely great. In order to have a future we all need to promote hunting as a health, safe and relevant activity.