Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
So, at my core, I have been a hunter. Not a rifle hunter and not an African hunter. But,
hunters are hunters. As Sitting Bull saw the decline of the buffalo, he mused “We are
hunters. When the buffalo are gone, we will hunt mice.” As for me, if the Great Spirit did
not want me to hunt, He would have made me different.
The second rivulet of this journey was my first trip to Africa many years ago-a non-
hunting trip. That trip occurred for professional reasons; some people in South Africa
believed they were interested in what I thought about heart disease. As part of that trip my
wife and I went with friends to one of the game reserves around the giant Kruger Reserve in
South Africa. That was a life-changing event. The richness of the African fauna can be
viewed in a zoo, but the maelstrom of life in semi-wild Africa cannot be imagined without
being there. The sensory experience of the African environment is deep, profound, and
lasting, particularly at night. The sights, sounds and smells are rich and can be detected by
even our human senses. We bipeds don't smell or hear particularly well but the lack of
wind and rain in many areas of Africa allows the roaring of lions, coughing of leopards,
cries of jackals, and the smells of elephants, buffalo, hippos, and blood to carry over long
distances. Our closeness to the animals and their behavior was stunning, and there is
violence and danger in the African ecology that rarely exists in the Americas and that gets
our attention. These are experiences to be savored, and I have made four subsequent trips
to Africa, that did not involve hunting. But, after all, I am a hunter.
Another rivulet that contributed to forming this journey was the appearance of rifle
hunting in my life. As I progressed through middle age, I continued bird hunting on the
prairie. My son and our good friends, a boyhood hunting companion of mine and his son,
made a constant of our trips to the prairie, now not just in search of ducks but also geese,
partridge, pheasants, sharp-tail grouse and Sandhill cranes. The day came when I began to
realize that as the sociology of hunting continued to change, I needed to have some land of
my own so, if worst came to worst, I could stand there with a gun in my hand and not be
arrested. So, I bought some land, bought a farmhouse that had been abandoned for a
couple of years, renovated that old denizen, and this home became the center of our
hunting. It was a better place for the dog to sleep than in a motel room. I am not a farmer
and my neighbors stepped into that role, farming my land, and it is my farm neighbors who
brought rifle hunting into my life. For them, the two weeks of the rifle deer hunting season
are charmed. And, primarily for social reasons, I began to participate in those charmed
days. I borrowed a rifle from one of them and the year that I shot my first deer, a modestly
sized 6 point buck that was running out of a sunflower field, my neighbors were far more
excited than I. I was sort of like a mascot. I didn't quite know what to make of deer hunting
but the back strap steaks on the grill that evening were a positive force in that direction. So
was the venison sausage we made.
As fate would have it, that same year a very experienced, accomplished, and committed
big game hunter became my patient. In the aftermath of successful treatment he sent me a
present, the wonderful gift of a Winchester Model 70 in 270 caliber. So now I owned a
rifle. Shortly after that, another friend called me up about the possibility of hunting
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