MY DAD’S RIFLE FEEDS A VILLAGE

LIFE MEMBER Two very important men in my life were why I was riding in the suicide seat of the articulated, all-terrain vehicle known in shorthand as a Hägglunds BV, or even shorter hand, a BV. PH Julian Moller and Sena Trackers Dolish and Francisco were taking my wife, Frances, and me out for a second time in an attempt to harvest a Cape MEMBER

Buffalo. We were passing through the beautiful Acacia-Mahogany-Palm woodland of Coutada 11. Coutada is Portuguese, meaning, well, a lot of things – a civic region, a committee’s topic – but in this case, it stood for a hunting area in the Zambeze Delta of Mozambique. We were on a safari with Mark Haldane’s Zambeze Delta Safaris. More accurately,

I was on a safari. Frances, a confirmed non-hunter, was there to record with video and photography not only the various hunts but two TEDx presentations and material for several articles and an upcoming book.

The current hunt was actually not in pursuit of a ‘trophy’. Instead, I had purchased the right to hunt a so-called ‘community buffalo’. It was really a trophy hunt in reverse. And, before it was over, I would understand

BY M. ARNOLD

that it is just as difficult to collect a ‘non-trophy’ as it is a ‘trophy’ Cape Buffalo. I would also understand that non-trophy bulls are just as huge, tough, and likely to turn the tables if the hunter makes a poor shot. Why was I hunting a bull whose horns and cape would never grace my trophy room wall? The answer is complex, and involves the two men mentioned at the front of this article, who are my mentors, one teaching me how to be a hunter and the other teaching me how to conserve African wildlands. The first was my late dad, the second is my friend Mark Haldane. Each has modeled the passion for pursuing game animals. Mark has also modeled the passion for ecosystem restoration.

A NON-TROPHY HUNT WiTH A FAMiLY HEiRLOOM

The genesis of my community buffalo hunt came about as I discussed the upcoming Safari in Coutada 11 with Mark Haldane. I mentioned that I would like to film one of the regular ‘meat drops’ by Zambeze Delta Safaris. A key facet of the conservation of Coutada 11 is the provision of 10-pounds of red meat per week, to each Sena family, from animals taken by sport hunters. In combination with the cooperative fishing program – also begun by Zambeze Delta Safaris – the meat drops provide

Above: Tiny passenger, hylid Left: Trusty steed, BV, for the next several hours Below: Time to find out what happened to the bull.

the basis for alleviating the horrendous ecological cost from poaching. Mark’s response to my request to film a meat drop was, “Why don’t you hunt a community buffalo so that you can record, speak and write about the entire sequence, from hunt to meat drop?” This opportunity would give Frances and me an in-depth understanding of the connection between international sport hunting and the restoration and conservation of not only game animals but entire ecosystems consisting of myriad species of trees, birds, frogs, and insects, to name but a few. By providing the local Sena villagers with food, sport hunters like us were helping to make poaching unnecessary. Mark’s was a wonderful suggestion, and one I immediately agreed to.

But, there was a wrinkle I wanted to add to the planned hunt. About 35 years ago, my dad brought me into his gun room and handed me a beautiful, custom-built, pre-war Mauser action rifle in .35 Whelen Improved. He told me that he wanted me to be able to enjoy it as much as he had. To the best of my knowledge, daddy (as I knew him) had never used the rifle for hunting. His flat statement though indicated his knowledge of its capability: “This rifle and caliber are sufficient to take any big game animal on the North American Continent.” Needless to say, I wanted to fulfill my dad’s unachieved goal of using the .35 for big game. Since the gifting, I had taken the rifle on two successful hunts for trophy elk and even carried it to Africa on my first safari where I used it to take a beautiful common zebra. The wrinkle I presented Mark Haldane was that I wanted to use the .35 for the Cape Buffalo hunt.

The first thing Mark needed to know was whether the loads I would be using met the bullet-energy requirements for hunting dangerous game in Mozambique. Mark provided me with the legal minimums, and I reported back that my reloads exceeded those by some margin. Mark’s next requirement would take a bit more work. He stated flatly that if I wanted to use this rifle, I must use Swift A-Frame bullets. My reloads for the .35 normally wore 250-grain Nosler Partitions. I explained to Mark that they had always performed flawlessly on tough animals like big bull elk and zebra. Mark was unmoved. That led me to Bill Hober and his 250-grain, .35 caliber A-Frames. After working up the loads, the range workup showed that, as expected, the energy levels still exceeded the minimum for Mozambique. More importantly, the accuracy was equivalent to the original Nosler loads. I duly reported this to Mark and he gave me the green light to bring my dad’s rifle across.

Fast forward through the year that was COVID, and here I was finally bouncing through the Zambeze Delta woodlands and floodplains. Given that we were not trying to locate the biggest bull on the block, I expected the hunt to be fairly perfunctory. To say the least, pride goeth before a fall. On our first outing, we cut the tracks of a herd of 70+ Cape Buffalo in the open woodlands. Of course, Julian, Francisco, and Dolish saw the tracks, determined their age, worked out the zigzag path they took, and, after four hours of amazing tracking, brought me to within 50 yards of the herd and a perfect non-trophy bull. And, I blew it. The bull presented a perfectly acceptable quartering-to shot, but I could not for the life of me figure out what I was looking at. The best to say is that because I didn’t fire, I didn’t wound the animal. However, I am certain Julian was wondering what the heck was wrong with this neophyte Cape Buffalo hunter. After standing stationary for a minute or so, the bull ambled slowly into an Acacia-Palm thicket, and out of my life. Shortly thereafter, the wind swirled and we bumped the herd for the final time. We headed back to Mungari Camp; nimrod’s tail firmly clamped between his legs.

The next morning found us once again heading back through the open woodlands that border the extensive floodplains of Coutada 11. And, once again, we drove into the tracks of a herd of buffalo. This was a herd of only 20 or so, but still large enough to pursue. Climbing down quickly from the BV, Julian loaded his .470 Nitro Express and I chambered a round in the .35 Whelen Improved. Though the energy levels of my rifle were definitely legal in the eyes of the Mozambique government, I admit to having some concerns about my ability to place the 250-grain bullet into the lethal zone on a Cape Buffalo. I was glad Julian would be prepared to backstop me with his double.

The stalk was much shorter than the multi-hour tracking job of the previous day. Yet, still on display were the amazing

Left:

Looking over floodplain grass to spot herd containing author’s bull

Right:

Author’s rifle, culling belt, and cartridge slide.

Below:

Waiting to work out the sign.

tracking skills of Dolish, Francisco, and Julian. The manner in which they worked the swirling wind, taking us away from the unseen buffalo in front of us until getting the breeze back in our favor, while always relocating the herd’s tracks, was astounding. After only about 30 minutes, Julian pushed his hand back in the international sign to stop-and-crouch. He brought his binocular rangefinder up to his eyes and then lowered them slowly while motioning me to come forward. Dolish extended the shooting sticks and I slowly slid myself behind the sticks and my rifle across the support. What happened next spoke to the vagaries of hunting, in general, and pursuing a non-trophy Cape Buffalo bull, in particular. I rested over the sticks for longer than we tracked the herd – over 45 minutes – and while I watched the herd, Julian counted off multiple, mature, 40+ inch bulls that ambled in front of us, at times at no more than 20-yards. I promised Julian that Mark Haldane would not mind me shooting a trophy bull in place of a non-trophy animal. Julian assured me that because clients were sacrosanct, such an action would lead to Mark shooting the attending PH rather than the client. Our work with this herd ended when Julian was certain there were no shootable bulls. I really couldn’t bring myself to be too disappointed, given the magnificent experience of tracking the herd and then watching the animals go about their business at rock-throwing distance.

Once loaded back into the BV, we headed straight into the floodplains. The torrential rains accompanying the wet season, along with previous cyclones, assured a wet ride. Pushing our allterrain craft through 10-foot tall grass, and stream crossings six feet or more in-depth, brought on showers of water, frogs, and grasshoppers; the animal intrusions were always amusing, with the amphibian and insect hitchhikers looking as surprised as us humans. We had made it about half a mile into the floodplain

The quartering begins. habitat when Francisco called to Julian in Portuguese. From what happened next, I guess Francisco said, “Hey, boss, there are buffalo in the distance!” Julian stopped the behemoth and climbed up on the metal railing above the cab, giving himself another six feet or so elevation from which to glass. He didn’t stay up there long. Climbing back down, he informed us that there was a large herd just through the thick band of grass. Said grass was the 10-foot variety, and I wondered what it would be like to run into Cape Buffalo at bayonet range. I didn’t think it would make a difference to what we were about to do, so I didn’t bother asking my question out loud.

Again on the ground, with cartridges in our chambers, Francisco and Dolish, with Julian close behind, led us into the dense floodplain vegetation. As we made our way, Julian would occasionally point to the tracks and dung left behind by the herd. Looking at my watch when we caught up to the partially-bedded herd, I realized we’d only been tracking them for 15 minutes. It seemed much longer, probably owing to the fact that it was difficult walking through the deep water, thick mud, and dense grass, all combining to [successfully] trip the newbie buffalo hunter. Julian brought me to his side and the extended shooting sticks, past the crouching Dolish and Francisco. Unlike the previous herd, this group of 100+ buffaloes held a number of bulls qualifying as non-trophy. The first one chosen by Julian decided to bed down before I could get a proper sight picture. Again, it was more from my lack of experience causing slow reactions to Julian’s instructions. Julian moved quickly to point out a secondary target, a bull standing in the clear and quartering slightly with his right shoulder visible. The lighted reticle of the Vortex riflescope rested briefly on his shoulder while I finished the squeeze on the front set trigger of the .35. I rocked back, but remembered to chamber another cartridge as I came down from the recoil. Julian quickly laid his hand on my shoulder and said, “Looked like a good hit. He rocked back and dropped his head.” Julian’s pronouncement aside, I worried that the shot had not been good enough or the rifle sufficiently powerful enough. Julian raised his binocular rangefinder to follow the bull, who was unsteadily making his way back into the middle of the herd. I lost the bull in the crush, but Julian’s trained eyes saw him go down. Whether fatally injured or not was still unknown, but it was, according to my PH and trackers, a great sign that he had laid/fallen down. What followed was the second worse wait in my entire hunting career. The worse was the year before in Namibia as we searched for my leopard shot out of a Mopane bait tree. In that case, we found the cat dead 20 yards from the tree. I desperately hoped that when we moved forward, we would find the buffalo bull dead as well. But, my mind kept going back to all the hunting videos and written descriptions, providing so much evidence of the unlikely outcome – a one-shot kill. Julian gave the herd time to clear out, and of course, the bull time to die. After 20 minutes he broke open his .470, glanced at the bases of the two cartridges, slapped the double closed, and told me to turn my scope all the

way down. You read about cotton-mouth and that was my experience as we walked toward the depression where Julian had seen the bull drop. After 50 yards, Julian raised his optics again, studied the ground, turned grinning at me with the words, “There’s your bull.” I used my own binocular rangefinder to look where he was pointing. I could see the classic positioning of a dead Cape Buffalo, head turned with horns flat on the ground and muzzle in the air. We still approached very carefully, my first-ever Cape Buffalo bull. Rifles at the ready, we circled and came from behind, creeping forward until I could touch the bull’s open eye with the end of my barrel. No reaction and I took a deep breath.

The autopsy performed while Dolish and Francisco quartered the bull revealed the trajectory of the A-Frame. Centered on the front right shoulder, the slightly quartering shot had resulted in the 250grain bullet taking out the aorta, passing through the center of one lung, and fi- Meat drop! nally lodging in the densely-packed grass in the rumen. Perfect performance, and proof positive that my dad’s rifle is not only sufficient for any big game in North America but can take animals as large as a Cape Buffalo bull as effectively as much larger calibers.

MEAT FOR 60 FAMiLiES

As Ivan Carter spelled out to me in an interview: “Hungry stomachs have no ears.” He meant that when people are hungry, they do not have the capacity to see the need to restore and conserve ecosystems. Mark Haldane understands that as well. The Civil War in Mozambique had been over for a mere two years when Mark appeared in Coutada 11 in 1994. The Sena villagers, like almost all rural Mozambiquans, were protein-starved. Children were suffering from chronic malnutrition and severe protein deficiency, or Kwashiorkor – a visible sign of which was their terribly bloated bellies. Mark knew that if Coutada 11 was to become whole again, the people would first need a dependable supply of protein. His goal of 10 pounds of red meat per week, per family, probably sounded like a pipe dream to the hungry villagers, but Mark’s vision eventually came to pass. Though the National Institutes of Health still consider malnutrition in Mozambique of major concern, with nearly half of all children suffering from malnourishment, this is no longer true in Coutada 11. Gone are the bloated bellies in the children. Gone also are the concerns of the parents over when their next meal of protein might occur.

It is much too simplistic to claim that providing meat protein to the Sena villagers in Coutada 11 has on its own led to the restoration and continued conservation of this portion of the Marromeu Complex of the Zambeze Delta. The Zambeze Delta Safaris’ manifold programs include an emphasis on anti-poaching using, logically, former poachers. They have also developed a community agricultural field and orchestrated the voluntary resettlement of all villagers into a central core area containing a school, housing for teachers, and a clinic. Taken together, these programs and others have combined to suppress poaching and contain damage to natural areas through slash-and-burn agriculture. The results of these efforts have resulted in near-miraculous healing of the ecological web. For example, only 1200 Cape buffalo remained when Mark began working with the local people in Coutada 11 in 1994, now there are more than 25,000 of these animals roaming the landscape. Likewise, Sable antelopes have increased from 30 to 3000; waterbucks from a few hundred to approximately 25,000; zebras from eight to over 1200.

As important as the other infrastructural improvements are, Ivan Carter’s words still ring true. Without food, the ecosystem in Coutada 11 and throughout the Marromeu Complex would still be in disarray. As Dolish and Francisco completed the preparation of my Community Buffalo, I considered what the bull represented. In pragmatic terms, there would be approximately 600 pounds of boned meat from the animal. There were also all the organs, carefully removed, cleaned, and packaged by the two Trackers. From this wealth of meat and viscera, at least 60 families would be preparing a meal of fresh meat this evening and drying the remainder for use in future meals.

I kept pondering the chain I was seeing as we made our way in the BV, back to Julian’s Land Cruiser, and then on for another two hours to the village center. Palm branches collected by Dolish, Francisco, and some of the villagers acted as a bed for the fresh meat. Mothers and their children began congregating, large plastic bowls appearing on the ground adjacent to ‘my’ buffalo. While waiting for the distribution by the village elders to begin, the mothers chatted and laughed and the children played a game of dodgeball. I looked around and though bare feet and torn and dusty clothes was the rule among the children, no distended stomachs were in evidence. I think my dad would have been very pleased to know that his rifle, given to a grateful son, provided a wonderful hunting experience for his son, and even more significantly, food for an entire Sena village in the wilds of Mozambique. ★