http://www.africanhuntinggazette.com 127
A Hunter speaks out
WhatTheyReallyMean...ByDaveSvinarich
A
hunting acquaintance of mine called
me recently because he is looking to
book his first African safari. It seems
that he was in a quandary trying to pick a
safari company to hunt with. He knew that
I had hunted Africa on several occasions and
although I recognize that my prior experience
does not make me an expert by any means,
I nonetheless offered to give him some
assistance in deciphering all the information
he was receiving. The problem, he said, is
that, “all the professional hunters I speak
to tell me that they have every animal I am
interested in, so I have no way of choosing
from among them.”
“Your problem,” I told him, “is that you
do not understand what the PHs are actually
saying.” Let me start by telling you that most
PHs - and safari operators too, for that matter
- are decent, honest, hard-working chaps who
would give you the shirts off of their back and
then ask if you needed some shorts too!
Furthermore, the vast majority of them
would work themselves to utter exhaustion in
an effort to get you the trophies you desire.
But what my friend did not understand was
that all safari operators and PHs are masters
of understatement, and eternally optimistic.
How else could they preserve their sanity in
the face of vehicles that continually break
down, game laws and quotas that can change
overnight (and sometimes in the middle of
the actual hunting season), increasing food
and petrol costs, bad roads, poaching, staff
issues, months away from home, dangerous
or surly clients, and the like.
Anyone with anything less than a perpetual
an unshakably sunny disposition would
have left the business a long time ago, or at
least be under medical treatment for clinical
depression.
“What you need help with,” I told my
friend, “is the ability to distinguish between
simple basic optimism and wildly outrageous
optimism!” With that thought in mind, to
help my friend decipher the comments he was
receiving, I produced a list of common safari
expressions and what they actually mean.
When a PH says: This area is absolutely
stiff with elephant.
He means: If you hunt hard for the next 15
days, can shoot reasonably straight and walk at
least 20 miles a day, you stand a good chance of
connecting with a bull.
PH: We have a good concentration of nyala
in this concession.
Meaning: We commonly come across tracks
and sometimes someone actually manages to
shoot one.
PH: We occasionally have buffalo wander
Safari operators and
PHs are masters of
understatement, and
eternally optimistic.
in on this concession.
Meaning: On rare occasions a buffalo will
wander in from Mozambique but he knows the
boundary better than we do and is generally
smart enough to wander right back before we
can shoot him.
PH: We seldom see kudu here.
Meaning: The last recorded sighting of this
animal was in a petroglyph on the wall of a
nearby cave and the stick figure in that scene
even looked surprised at having found one to
hunt!
PH: We rarely have hippo here.
Meaning: We never have hippo here and,
in fact, to discover one in the middle of the
Kalahari Desert would be a major scientific
discovery!
PH: We occasionally run across the odd
track or two.
Meaning: The tracks we run across were
apparently made during the Cretaceous period
and are preserved in stone.
PH: There has been a bit of poaching in
this area.
Meaning: Every waterhole within a 50km
radius will have snares placed around them in
quantities sufficient to completely wire a small
city.
PH: We do not have any sitatunga in this
area.
Meaning: We do not have any sitatunga in
this area.
PH: We have seen some big tracks in this
area.
Meaning: We have no idea where the animal