Pursuit With Cliff - Cliff Gray
Hunt. Fish. Spear. Get Better at It. Interviews with those that have done it.
Pursuit With Cliff - Cliff Gray
What POACHING in AFRICA Actually Looks Like - Craig Doria
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Craig Doria spent 30 years in Africa as a professional hunter in addition to running two anti-poaching operations in Zambia and Tanzania. He's also just written Bateleur, a suspense thriller built on all of it.
We cover what poaching actually looks like from the inside: the subsistence guy with a muzzleloader trying to feed his kids, the 150-snare line bisecting the wildebeest migration corridor, the zebra hide operation running skins through a cattle tannery and across borders, and the ivory networks.
From there we get into buffalo hunting (Craig's pick for the best hunting still available — hundreds of hunts, multiple close calls), elephant hunting and the weight it carries, two helicopter crashes during anti-poaching operations, and a closing conversation about what happiness really looks like when you've spent your life tracking wounded buffalo through thick bush — and what you give up to get it.
Craig Doria — Professional hunter (Zambia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe), anti-poaching operator, Author of Bateleur (Whistling Thorn Press).
Available on Amazon (hardcover and Kindle) https://amzn.to/3RMGGcY
Signed copies direct: craig.doria@gmail.com | craigdoriasafaris.com
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Two days on Wounded Buffalo Tracks, I have never felt as close and as personally attached to the natural world as that. It's just there's no feeling that comes anywhere near it, right?
SPEAKER_02Craig, great to have you on the podcast. I'm gonna just start off by saying it and we'll explain this to the listener as we get into it. But how much of Nicholas is you?
SPEAKER_01I knew that question was gonna come up right in the beginning. Cliff, um, I always start by saying it's fiction, right? It's a work of fiction. I also always start off by saying you have to, you really have to write about what you know. Sure. Right. So, I mean, you can do research. Famous authors have teams of researchers with them. But start especially starting out, I think you really need to write about what you know. So that partially answers your question. In the book, we talk about South Africa at some point. That's where I grew up, it's where I went to school, it's where I went to university. So that's kind of my experiences uh written in there, remembering it's fiction. Right. Also, probably eight years ago, I I was I it sort of dawned on me like you know, I was sitting on these little bodies of knowledge from my work that as a combination that not many people, and I this is not a vanity comment by any means, but but there just not many people that had worked in those specific areas and the intersection of them, right? Yeah, you know, I'd worked as a safari guide, a prof what we call a professional hunter, what you guys call a hunting guide, I guess.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, I'd worked, I'd run two different anti-poaching operations, which we should talk about later because there's a lot of two different anti-poaching operations in two different countries in Africa. Um, and I'd worked as a wildlife investigator for three different organizations off the continent of Africa. Yeah, and it suddenly, I just suddenly thought, man, there's there's three or four different things that could merge into a story here, you know. Sure. Um, which needs to be told. So, yes, it's based on my personal experiences, but of course, there's flights of flights of fancy as we go along where it becomes pure fiction.
SPEAKER_02What's really interesting about it, Craig, I almost called you Nicholas, man. That would have been that would have been a flub right after. So, so for the audience context here, uh, your publisher reached out to me. Uh, you've got a new book. It's called Botelure. I apologize if I'm mispronouncing that a little bit. I get emails uh from publishers. In this case, it was a little bit of a closer contact, but I get I get lots of these emails. Hey, I've got somebody who's written a book. Would you be interested in it? And um, some of them are in subject matters that uh, you know, just are not my forte, right? To some extent, it's like just a spam email. Uh other ones are closely related, uh, like this. You've got the hunting element to your book. And usually what I'll do is I'll get the book and I'll read four or five pages of it, you know, just to get a feel for you know who this individual is or whatever. And what's interesting about your book, one element of it, the pH element of it, it that element comes early in the book, and just reading the first 10 pages, five, ten pages, because that's been such a big part of my life reading about it, the little things that you talk about, it immediately click like this this guy lived that life. Like, that's not fake, you know, that that's not there's no, he didn't have to make any of that up. The the the way I would describe it is there's there's western artists, Craig, that uh, you know, a lot of my background is in packing, like packing horses and mules. Right. And lots of western artists draw paintings of that that image, right? Because it's iconic of the West. But the problem is, is I lived it, so I can go up to one and I can know if that guy who drew it has ever packed in his life. Like I know it, I know it within a second because I know the knots, the you know, how the horses are tied together, like all that. And when I see one where the knots are right and it's right, you're immediately like, oh, I I kind of trust this guy, right? It's so so it's it's a a little bit of a metaphor for my experience with your book. I'm like, oh, okay, I don't know about much about the anti-poaching world, these other elements of your book, which I'm sure some of them are for action and for fiction, and and you know, just to make it a little spicy. I'm sure that's the case, but big elements like the anti-poaching, the elephant poaching, the the guiding, all of that, because I could immediately trust your experience on the pH side. I'm like, oh, this is gonna be good. Because I want to know about all the anti-poaching stuff, and it I wouldn't I want to kind of hear about the story from a guy's perspective who's done it. Does that make sense? Totally.
SPEAKER_01And I'm so glad it worked. I mean, if that's the case, then then I know that it's worked, and then I feel, okay, this this was worth it. Because I mean, it has to be authentic. I have read books about by famous authors about hunting. Yeah, and and I just think, no, dude, you've you've maybe been on three safaris or two. This is something completely different here. So I I I understand, I really do. No, no, for sure.
SPEAKER_02So so uh um let's get into your background uh a a little bit more. And uh I um I I'm particularly interested in the anti-poaching stuff. Uh Craig, I think it's what you know, we we talked about a little bit on the phone. I don't think that uh the American hunter is in in general interested in it, I think, because you know it's related to wildlife and hunting. But I think maybe the American hunter has about the same context and background in it as really the American population. I think a lot of our exposure to African poaching uh comes from um, I don't know if it's uh marketing or fundraising or whatever, but that's what we see. You know what I mean? So um do you mind giving giving us a background and and we could for sure uh you know get back into the book too as it as it relates, but uh what you did and kind of what what poaching actually looks like in Africa.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So uh you you're totally right. And I think people the people what people know about Africa is what they read in the news, they go on a photographic safari or a hunting safari or a mission, you know. None of which really give an understanding of that side of Africa. You know, you go on safari, everybody's smiling and happy, and I and I'm not I don't want to make a negative I'm not I'm not making a negative uh anything negative about safaris, but it's just a different side of it, right? Um so the yeah, the anti-poaching work I worked on two two different anti-poaching uh programs. The first one in Zambia was really small, and we managed to um we got honorary range, two two of us got honorary ranger status, and which allowed us to work with the National Parks Service, and we would raise really not such big amounts of money, but we were seasonal in Zambia. So, you know, we did our safaris during the dry season that left six, seven months of wet season really with nothing to do. Sure. So we so we started working with the National Park Service and we started a unit to do anti-poaching, and it worked really well. And a lot of that was just taking patrol. You have to be really careful. Let me take a step back here. Um, you have to be really careful. You you do not want to be seen as a private army. Okay. Right. I mean, it's just critical, and it's totally understandable from the authorities' point of view, of course, right? Right. Um, so you have to work with national parks. And you know, once when you're working on these um anti-poaching programs or starting, you'll get tons of emails from not tons, you'll get emails from people who will say, you know, I was a you know special forces guy. Special forces and I want to come out there. You said, dude, wrong person. You know, you know, you'll last five minutes, right, in a foreign country in a private army. Yeah, yeah, that's not, yeah, yeah. It it doesn't work like that. So you have to work with the uh with the authorities. So in Zambia back then, um, as I said, two of us were doing it. We'd we'd arrange patrols, we'd pick up uh go and drop uh the patrol off, go around, pick them up at two days later at the other end, and there were all sorts of um all sorts of of methods we used to make sure patrols were going where we wanted them to go. Um or we'd set up ambushes based on intelligence gathered from local people in the village, we'd go with them, we'd do some patrols. Um either we'd go with on patrol, sorry, go ahead.
SPEAKER_02Craig, are the are these like this specific anti-poaching um structure that you're talking about that you did in Zombie, Zambia, are they always, and we can talk about this in the general sense, are they associated with uh generally with like a commercial operation, like a photo safari uh place or a hunting place? Is that is that generally the case or are they independent of that?
SPEAKER_01It's generally the case that they're associated with often hunting companies. Hunting companies um obviously there's a whole range of hunting companies, how they put their um their expertise to work. Some companies do it well, others don't, like any business, right? But there there's hunting companies are strongly encouraged to do an anti-poaching component.
SPEAKER_02And they have the incentive, I'm assuming, right? Because they want to do that.
SPEAKER_01Totally have their if if they're a legit company, right? They totally have the incentive. The way we did it in Zambia, we actually weren't attached to any one particular company, but we were attached to something called the Luangwa Safaris Association, which were um all the tour operators would help and provide a vehicle, etc. And in fact, um we we even got somebody to donate us helicopter time. Okay. Um we went through two helicopters as well.
SPEAKER_02Um what's this what's the we uh you we can't we can't postpone this the can you generate what's the story on that?
SPEAKER_01I mean they they were tragedies, so it was a it really serious. The one got shot at from the ground and it hit the tail rotor. Oh, geez, yeah, yeah. And they came down. The other one was ferrying poachers that we'd caught on one side of the river. It was the rainy season, had to get them across the river to to where they could be picked. The the apprehended poachers could be picked up by a vehicle and they hit a storm and crashed. Um, so both were really, really tragic, you know. And yeah, um, but yeah, a lot of money gone in two and lives. And lives. Yeah, yeah, of course. Way more important. Sorry.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, yeah, but yeah, but I I I get it. I always it's it's I mean, I have wildlife work and helicopters, they're like essential, you know, Craig, but they just seem to I I I'm sure it's because the low, low flying and that sort of thing. But I know many I I have a personal friend who's a biologist who's been in he's been lucky enough to survive two helicopter accidents.
SPEAKER_01It's just like it doesn't happen often, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but the nature of wildlife work in aircraft, it seems to be just not safe, you know.
SPEAKER_01It's one of the yeah, and a helicopter, you know, I always say it has the aerodynamics of a brick, right? It's just when it goes down, it goes down. Yeah, they're so scary, but so useful, as you say. Yeah, sure. So useful. I mean, the things that they could do, and the the the way those pilots can fly those helicopters between trees and it's just crazy, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so so when when you're putting these patrols together and actually doing the work, Craig, what does it look like? Is it is it is it all commercial like I just think in my mind I think about poaching as some guys that have a big pile of elephant tusks and they are selling them to a Chinese guy. That's that's that's how I view it. But what does it actually look like? I'm assuming there's small level stuff all the way up to that. You know what I mean? What does that look like?
SPEAKER_01You know, Cliff. You're you're absolutely right. 90% of the time it's such small level stuff, and you could separate poaching into two categories, let's say. One is one you could call subsistence poaching, right? And the other one commercial poaching. Now those two overlap, of course, right, like anything, but for purposes of our understanding, two things. So that subsistence poaching, I mean, people are poor, as you know, in Africa. I mean, and the further north you get, well, no, in South Africa there's poor people, but when you get to like Zambia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, you know, people are living hand to mouth in a mud hut, right? So they go out, and 90% of your anti-poaching, I'm making that figure up by the way. Right, right, sure. Of your anti-poaching work, you're catching, you know, some poor guy, skinny, he's got his family living in two mud huts and they in the rainy season, you know. And he's often seriously got a muzzle loader from 1860. You know, in in in in when I was still back in Zambia, I don't know why I keep going back to Zambia, it was so long ago, but they had these we there was a storeroom filled with muzzle loaders, tower muskets from the 1860s that these people were using, right? You know, they make their own gunpowder.
SPEAKER_02It's so interesting, Craig, because it maybe it's just because I can't fathom the level of the lack of resources. But one question that I was gonna ask you, or it it keeps triggering in my mind, is all this technology and hunting, right? The thermal stuff, the drones, you know, all of that. In my mind, I'm thinking, well, I gotta ask Craig what he thinks about that. Because like, do these guys have that, which would make them almost impossible to catch, right? Yeah, but I'm not, it's like a total I can't fathom that there's no way they're ever gonna be able to get that.
SPEAKER_01It's it's and the and the more away from the cities you get, which is where all the hunting blocks are, right? They're all in the most remote areas, the more the poverty is just a norm. You know, right. You know. Um, and you know, Glyph, you'll you'll catch a guy, he he he might be 60 years old, right? We're talking about this end of the poaching spectrum now, right? 70 years old, gnarly old guy, with his muzzle-loading rifle, a piece of cloth tied up in a little knot, and when you open it, there's little magic icons and sure herbs that he ties to his rifle for luck, and um a little tin, beaten tin pot in which he can cook some ground maize over a fire at night. Because he'll be gone in the bush for two, three weeks. Right. And hopefully, actually, there's usually two or three people, but hopefully come back with a zebra meat, right? Or something, wilder beast or to feed his family, you know. Uh so that's that extreme, and and their access to any of that stuff is less than zero. Right. I mean, there's just no way, right? Right. They make their gunpowder out of bat guano.
SPEAKER_03Huh.
SPEAKER_01And there's other stuff, it's all gone. That's gone from my head. I've forgotten that now. But seriously, they scrape bat guano. They have some process, some process to make their own their own gun.
SPEAKER_02I have to ask, like, because I like we'll continue this progression through all the different types of poachers you ran into into. But these guys at at this level, um, I mean, you you've hunted a big proportion of your life, Craig. Are they what's their skill set like? Like in terms of, you know, uh what I would call kind of like a you know, just like a like a bushcraft type of skill set, but also uh on the hunting front. Are are they have they been doing this forever, or is it like an act of desperation, or do they know what they're doing?
SPEAKER_01They it's so interesting you asked this question, Cliff. They know what they're doing, right? And they are gnarly old bush people that you know they can they can find something where there's hardly anything left, you know, and they've got time on their hands, you know. We tend to rush our hunting a bit. Well, no, I can't. In Africa, we sometimes do. Yeah, but they'll spend two weeks, you know, just slowly plotting. And something's gonna work for you at some point if you do that, right? If you push it. But they're good, they're good at it. However, the one thing that always struck me, and I always used to speak a lot about with my colleagues and friends, they have less incentive than a trophy hunter to follow a wounded animal for a long time. Oh, okay. That sounds a little strange, but I've I I we came across it quite a lot, you know, when you're following tracks or you poachers would wound an animal. There'd be a blood trail, I'm sure they're capable of following it because they're very skilled people. But they wouldn't. They'd leave it and go off and start to find something else, you know.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01And the and this and the same with those poaching snare lines. S-N-A-R-E, wire snares. Yep. You know, you'll find a line of those snares along a tree line, maybe a hundred snares, just set where they tie one end to a tree in the wire loop, yeah, and anything walks through it. So it's not in any way uh uh selective, right? Right. Whatever walks gets caught. So you've got a buffalo, you've got a giraffe, you've got a lion, you know. Yep. And they could set a hundred of those you'll find in a line, but then sometimes not come back to to clear them.
SPEAKER_02You know, so so you think are you well for yeah, for me, for me, I do I want to flesh this out. I want I want to hear your thoughts on why, because for me, and I'm sure the majority of my listeners, that this kind of is almost it almost disgusts us, right? Because it like it's it there's like an associated waste, an associated level of suffering. But there's a part of me, Craig, that goes, well, what is it like a risk? Is it like a is it like a risk time trade-off? Are they thinking, okay, hey, you know, I I'm I'm using a uh a weapon that is kind of is subpar relative to what you know we're used to in the in, I'm sure in the Safari business or an American Hunter or whatever. So they're just making an assessment, like, okay, I hit that zebra, I might have to track it for six miles, but the zebra was in a herd, I'm just gonna find another zebra and try to kill it. Is is that what's going on?
SPEAKER_01I I think so. And there's there's probably a couple things going on. And again, now this I have to say this very carefully, but if you're living on the edge of starvation, I'm almost a hundred percent sure you don't have the same feeling of empathy towards an animal that we have, right?
SPEAKER_02No, it's it in the in the waste thing is probably irrelevant.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, yeah. And you're not you're not gonna think that poor animal is starv is is suffering.
SPEAKER_02You're like, I'm starving.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, my kids my kids can't eat.
SPEAKER_02No, I mean I mean I don't I don't mean to laugh at it because it's like a heavy subject, but I it it's when you put it that way, yeah, clearly. I mean, yeah, I think we'd all be do the same thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's it's very much a part of it. And it's also very much a part of what a lot of Companies or people involved in anti-poaching work don't get, you know. And then it tends to drift over towards cruelty from our point of view. You know, we're dealing with people who can't feed their families, right? And they want to kill an impala for meat. It's a no-brainer. I would be doing it, right? Um, so you don't want to drift into cool cruelty. You've got to understand that side of it. But it's very easy to say these people don't care, which I do all the time, by the way. They don't care that the animal's suffering, it's terrible. Remember, we were talking about throwing poison into a water hole.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. We talked about that offline, Craig. Can you explain? Explain that again, how how how that how that's used?
SPEAKER_01I mean, it's the most terrific thing. But again, let's keep it in perspective, right? They wanted to pilot to feed their family. Some other and I believe we we call it Rogger, R-O-G-G-A. Now I've forgotten what it is that what the chemical is or whatever. Yeah. But you they throw it into a water hole. It doesn't really work in a flowing river, but you throw it into a water hole, and it poisons everything that drinks from that water hole. So which means lions, vultures, birds, other birds. Anything that comes to drink there gets poisoned, right? Um, but somehow you can still eat the meat of edible species. But obviously what goes to waste is all the uh Yeah, everything else. Like the by it's a bycatch almost. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's yeah, it's it's it's like when if I'm starting to digress a bit here. No, it's all good. You know, if somebody's cow gets eaten, say, and then they poison the carcass, and then you come to try and kill the predators that are eating their cow, right? Right. You know, because say say lions kill a cow that belongs to a villager, he the lions go away for water, he poisons the carcass, the lions come back the next night, eat it and die. But you'll come up either on foot or driving, tracking, and you'll come up on that dead cow, and there'll be 15 or 20 dead vultures around it. Yeah. You know, and in some countries, vultures are highly endangered. Yeah. Do you know South African will?
SPEAKER_02Uh I'm gonna even digress uh further. I it was noticeable in South Africa when I hunted there, Craig. I I I I knew I knew where they had they had put gut piles and stuff. And I'm in my mind, I was like, why are there's no vultures?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's no I look up in the sky because I'm so used to that here, right? If I I mean on a 30,000 acre place, it's you know, that's like that kind of topography. If there's a gut pile three days later in the US, you know where it is because there's vultures. They're they're not there. I I I I it what what's the short the short on that? Is it because of this this type of of poisoning?
SPEAKER_01No, I think I think there's a lot more. I think if there's a lot more than that. Now, also let's qualify that. South Africa has a huge problem with vulture deep population declines, right? Okay, okay. South Africa is bad. You go north, you know, the other countries have tons of vultures. Doesn't mean you want to see 20 dead around the carcass. Yeah. And also what I sorry, and I'm gonna digress and come back to that. It's all good, we'll we'll get back. In um like in northern Tanzania, for example, where the Maasai people live, you'll that's where you'll find 20 dead vultures around a poisoned carcass. And there is a shortage of vultures. Uh right? Yeah, you go into the Serengeti National Park, and there's many, plenty, no shortage, but you get into what say Maasai land, and there's a shortage of vultures. South Africa's problem is everything. Yeah, yeah. You know, lot habitat loss, farmlands, um, huge commercial farming, sure, etc. etc. has resulted in a decline along with everything else. I'm sure people kill vultures regularly.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, they might be poisoning them for other reasons and stuff too. Yeah. So so bringing it back to this uh um like subsistence type of poacher, the big this is the big this is the big issue though, right? Like the the unmanned snare lines, the poisoning, the wounding animals that aren't consumed, like that that's kind of where the the resource impact is, right? Because I because honestly, Craig, I am I thinking about it wrong. If I was there doing the anti-poaching, even if I was associated with the economics of a hunting business, I would I would see these individuals that were killing something just for one animal, and I almost would want to ignore them. Yeah. Uh right, but but you can't if there's this like extra impact on the resource.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and you know, if it's one guy with his muzzle loader going to kill one animal, as you've just said, you really want to just say, dude. Yeah, pack him in the car, take him to the border and say go away. But you can't. Yeah. And you don't. And those are the people that always suffer the most, right? Because they've got less contacts, less access to the to the halls of power. Yeah, sure. You know, and it's it's it's a hard life for them, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So what's the I mean what where does this go from that level on the poaching front?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So then, you know, there was there was a this is now I'm still back in Zambia. I don't know why, but we've spent a bit more.
SPEAKER_02We can talk about Zambia the whole time. I'll I'll I'll get you back, and we'll do Tanzania and South Africa and everything else. So don't worry about it.
SPEAKER_01Um, you know, and this happens everywhere, actually, but you spend a long time building up a profile of a of a commercial poacher. Hang on, let me go back one more step, Cliff. Yeah. You catch a the this we caught one guy who'd been at it for a long time, you know, and he was a subsistence poacher, you know, shooting for his family. Somebody approached him and said, We'll pay you this per pound for an for an ivory, right? For a tusk. You know, and it could be I mean, you know, they're 10 pounds often, you know, five pounds. They're not shooting trophy animals, right?
SPEAKER_02Uh if just for context, Craig, a 10-pound uh elephant, is that like how how old would that be?
SPEAKER_01Uh a teenager, but it varies so much as well, Cliff because some some never grow tusks, some grow teachers. Genetics, like Botswana, short, fat tusks, Tanzania, long skinny tusks. Those weights are all different. But teenagers, right? Yeah, or just it's opportunistic ivory if it's got a lot of. So if they find a little stump of ivory like that, they'll suit it. Yeah. I gotcha. But during long interviews with these poachers, pretty intense interviews, interrogations, they would almost always say, now I'm putting them all into one lump, of course, but um they would almost always say, you know, one ivory, 20 pounds, 15 pounds, two sides, I can build a new mud hut, I can buy a big bag of potatoes, I can pay my kids' school fees for a year. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's huge, yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's it's huge, it's kind of life-changing, you know, at that level, right? Yeah, for us, we'd probably be able to fill our tank of diesel up in our truck once. Sure. But for them, it's you know, it's it's absurd.
SPEAKER_02So now you now you got the subsistence guy, instead of going out there and snaring or or whatever, he can just go try to kill one elephant, and now he's got his food covered plus the additional.
SPEAKER_01Right. So now you're drifting over in into the other side, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but the problem is, Craig, is I still can't blame the guy. Like I'm not trying to be, I'm not trying to be like a def defender of poachers, but it's like yeah, it's still an issue, right?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. It's it's such a it's such a moral issue you're trying to deal with all the time, you know. Yeah. You know, and and again, Cliff, I've I've forgotten the the figures, which I should have done a little preparation, but the figures for the number of wildebeests that get snared. When I say snared, would does everybody understand what I mean?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think people understand basically wire snares, right? As it walks through it, it pulls tight, neck or foot or whatever they can, whatever they can, whatever they can catch. And I I I don't know, uh I'm sure you've seen it, Craig, so we we can touch on that a little bit. My actual my first job as like a 16-17-year-old was snaring, and snaring is dirty business. Yeah, like it like you catch the wrong thing, uh things generally do not walk away from it, and the littlest trap can can I mean like a we used to use aircraft cable. I I w I want to hear like what they use, but I mean you if you catch a uh where I was snare and I would periodically catch deer, I mean you could catch a 200-pound buck and you're gonna he's dead. Like he he ain't getting out of it, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but and even if they pull the tree out, they're dragging a tree around behind them and they're dead anyway. So yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. What what do they make them out uh out of? Like what does it actually look like there?
SPEAKER_01So I mean, because resources are hard to come by people who poor, they use any wire, right? But the very best and the things you have to look after and protect, seriously look after, are your winch cables on your car. Oh yeah. You can you could keep a buffalo with those things. Well, they and so I mean they and so a winch cable gives them huge opportun huge range of opportunities. So you can keep it thick for a buffalo, or they can unravel it, untwist it, and get thin, and that's like sprung steel. That stuff's really good. Sure. Um, or steel wire is great because it holds its shape. Yeah. But really any wire that they'll use.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Um, and is it bait, is it baited? Do they bait them? Do they put them passively on trails?
SPEAKER_01So what they do is you'll find like uh an embooger or a um a low grassy area, maybe uh with a tree line, and everything's coming through there to reach water, maybe in the low grassy area. So they're coming down various game trails within this wooded area. Yeah. And often on the edge of the wooded area there'll be a line, which is bisected by 20-30 game trails heading to water. And on each one they'll put a a wire snare attached one end to a tree. But I I I know I said it earlier, uh, but you could have 150 snares. You know, it could take you a whole day to clear one snare line, you know. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And you're always gonna miss you're gonna miss some.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's often things, animals in those snares. Yeah. Either rotten or half dead, you know. Yeah. And and I I started saying this earlier, Clearly.
SPEAKER_02You were talking about wilder bees. If I got you off track, yeah, you're talking about.
SPEAKER_01No, no, no, that's good. I just wish I could remember the figures because they're phenomenal about the amount of because you you know the wildebeest migrate in a giant circle, actually. Yeah, it's 2,000 kilometers or so. But when they pass out of the national park into either a hunting area or what we call an open area, people put snares along there and try and not the pre not the hunting company, yeah, but the poaching trees put snares along there to try and catch as many as they can. They dry the meat and they sell it. So now you again you've made that little hop from subsistence into commercial, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. And you're talking like I I it sounds like you don't you don't recall the exact numbers, but you're talking like it has a it's a significant impact on the wildebeest.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's the interesting part, Cliff, is that you know, there's 1.2 million wildebeests, right? Oh okay. Now they've described they're making this huge circle annually. Yeah. Things are starting to change because there's built-up areas which are blocking their migration routes, so they have to go around. So things are changing. But let's say 15, 20 years ago when we were working in this field, they would do the same route all the time, go through the same areas, get snared. We're talking thousands of animals. Yeah. Thousands. And then then you figure out well, I remember doing the calculations, and somehow I wrote it all down, where you you you then figure out what the dressed weight of the average wilderness uh wilder beast is, and what the what that dressed weight becomes when you've you know put uh taken all the meat off, yeah, and it's and it's dried. So it's way lighter. But it would feed it would feed a city, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you're you're fit yeah, you're figuring out the numbers of like the net weight that's coming off of the thing.
SPEAKER_01And it's huge, Cliff. It's huge. Um, and yet that wildebeest population stayed steady and climbed for many years. And and they were taking off, and so of course, then you said, you know, the population is steady, we don't really want any more wilder beasts, right? Yeah. And it's feeding people illegally.
SPEAKER_02But you you you almost wonder if there's like a if if there's an opportunity to structure some sort of like regulated program around that or something like that. Because you also got to figure that because it's illegal, and oh, just make sure, tell me if I'm off base here, Craig. But because it's illegal, thousands of them are getting caught, but you wonder how many of them are actually being utilized, right? Like because of the illegal component. So you have you're gonna have astronomically more waste just because the guys are trying to do it on the down low. Um exactly, you know, so it's like, well, would you would you be better off just like giving the guy like giving each one of the guys 10 snaring permits for Wilde Beast or something? Yeah, I understand.
SPEAKER_01And and and you know, and that gets talked about it requires a lot of management and yeah. Actually, so in in in in Tanzania, for example, I'm not aware it might have of any program that's try to do that. It would have to have government co cooperation, right? And government would have to own that project, yeah, really. Back to Zambia. In the Luangwa River, the the hippo hippo population would increase, increase, increase. Very little predators, life was great for hippos until they got too many, they ate all the available food. Sure. The population became stressed, and then they'd get um They get like a respiratory infection because they died in the immune system.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. They die. They just die like crazy. Now humans. No, no. Okay, well, what's the thing? It's a powder something. There was a period in which bad people were sending envelopes to politicians. Anthrax. Anthrax. Okay, yeah, yeah. So it's it's a form of anthrax, it's a different one to our anthrax humans get, but still dangerous to humans. So these hippo populations would grow, they'd all die off, right? Terrible, just disgusting carcasses everywhere. Sure. And humans, you have to be careful. You can't walk up to it on the downwind side, you have to go the other way, wear a mask, and you don't want to be eating that meat, right? Yeah, I got you. So they started, and the government started this to their credit. They, you know, they started a program where they hired a company to come in and shoot hippos. Okay. And then it started where the company would come cull hippos and and process the meat into cans.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Make it readily available very cheaply for local population. Of course, this had a whole, it just you can imagine the drama, all the tour operators, the photographic operators.
SPEAKER_02They're going to get up hip hippo gut piles and yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Or some gnarly old guy with no shirt on, just standing there shooting hippos in the river. People get really upset when they see that.
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SPEAKER_01It caused all sorts of drama. And then it somehow became elitist where the the meat was now getting sent to South Africa. Oh, it's going to the meat.
SPEAKER_02Somebody corrupted the system. Somehow.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. So and and and I think they stopped for a few years, then they do it, and I think they did it quite recently. I'd have to get confirmation of that. But it happened again. Just keep that population. Because generally we don't in Africa, there's not culling. There's, you know, in the big national parks, there's no culling. But that was a form of culling, right? To feed local people, exactly what you were talking about earlier.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And that was a little more formalized. I guess uh this brings me to the next question because I've heard people that I know that have uh you know been PA pHs in Mozambique and other places. It sounds like like a little bit of the system takes place at a almost like a localized uh in a localized way, right? Like the hunting operators are trying to mitigate some of it by giving the meat. Like, what is that like? Like can so because that's another way we could solve this problem, right, Craig? And and I'm of course coming from the naive spectator's point of view, but like, okay, if you got subsistence guys that are causing all this other extra damage, can you just can you just give them meat from the hunting operations? And does that help at all?
SPEAKER_01Cliff, I think it helps, but I don't think it's enough. I don't think your hunting operation genera a hunting operation generates enough meat to make a difference. Okay. When you're shooting hippo and elephant, probably. Yeah. You know, like hunting elephant, you you go and fetch the villagers, bring them in and let them take all the meat they can get out of it. But I guess that makes a difference. But you you know, nobody's killing that many elephants, right? Yeah. Um I'm losing myself. Ask your own.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, so so so the the idea of of just giving the meat to the villagers, like it has a it only has a certain, or not villagers, not the term, uh poachers, like this the subsistence poacher uh level, like making sure that they get the the meat through that, would does that mitigate any of the this level of poaching? And so it sounds like it's just it does, but yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I mean it must do, right? Um to a degree, but I don't think it's gonna change. I don't think there's ever gonna be enough to change people's lives. Yeah. Right?
SPEAKER_02Um the complicate matters, I have and I I I have to ask, Craig, it's like the way that you've described this individual. I understand that his top priority is just feeding himself and his family. Like it's his bare bones, like uh top of the Maslow hierarchy type of stuff, you know, he's just gotta like feed himself. But I wonder if he doesn't also like to hunt. Like if if they're fed, will they still poach?
SPEAKER_01Often the case. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't mean it in a bad way. I'm just like putting myself in the guy's it's a it's a good, it's yeah. So you know, there's another this thing that happens, which as sort of expatriates in Africa, everybody loves to talk about it. You know, I I arrested this poacher and then I took him on and he became my trusty tracker and we'd hunt together. But there's truth in it, right? Oh, okay. Okay. Um it's it's become a sort of a mythical thing which we love to talk about. But I mean, it happens, and you find the nicest, best people, right? You know. So I mean, and I've done it with no, I personally did it with one person. And he was just awesome. He was a great tracker, fun, liked to laugh, just the right amount of interaction with people. Just great, you know. And he and he liked hunting. And he loved it. Yeah, sure. Absolutely loved it. So, you know, and Track and I's right there. You know, he's like the most probably the most critical part of the hunt, really. Yeah, the trackers, sure. Um, and then we had we had another guy who I never discovered. He was long before I came along, but he was a famous, notorious elephant poacher. Okay. Um and quiet spoken, just incredible. And wonderful tracker, and just a wonderful bush presence, you know. He would he just he just knew what was going on, you know. Like, like one day, I remind me to come back to my story, but one day I was walking with him right behind him, and he was we were following Buffalo tracks, me, him, me, and the hunting client behind. And thick bush, and he stopped and he slowly turned around, and so he was facing me, and with his eyes, he went, he can you see my eyes? He went like this. And and I said, What what? And and then I turned my head. There was a gnarly old buffalo bull standing 10 yards away in the thicket, you know. And this guy, he was just so cool and so calm, you know, he's just he was the best. Of course, he he he then he he lost his hearing, he lost his eye. I used to carry a pocket of stones, little pebbles in my pocket. And then as we walk along, if I saw something, I'd throw one on his back to stop him and hit him. But even when he couldn't really see that well, he was still just fantastic to have around, you know. Yeah. No so and loved hunting. Sure. It was his thing. And the best thing about him, Cliff, was because he'd shot so many elephants, he was really good with a rifle. Oh, okay. Which is unusual with it with your with the trackers, you know, their skills are this tracking. They can't shoot generally. Yeah. But this guy, so if you had a wounded buffalo, say, you could give him a rifle and you and be confident he wasn't gonna shoot you in the head and that he could hit the buffalo in the right place. It was just a huge privilege to have someone like that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Well, imagine, and again, like I I I I'm very much anti-poaching, so I don't want this to sound like I'm like properly guy up, but um you imagine like I imagine the great white hunter from an elephant perspective, or the great white elephant hunting pH, right? Like a guy who has a very unique skill set because he's been focused on hunting elephants his whole life or whatever, right? Like that to me, to me, that's intriguing, that that idea. And and maybe we can we can talk more about that if that exists or what it really looks like or whatever. But then there's the idea of a guy who posted elephants his whole whole life. He's probably like he probably wasn't shooting a 416 rugby double rifle or whatever, you know what I mean? So he's had to do it with like subpar equipment under, I don't know, in the dark or whatever, trying to like avoid things.
SPEAKER_01Often in the dark, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, he's probably got a pretty unique skill set, right? Like just even like tracking wounded ones, dealing with wounded ones, all that.
SPEAKER_01It's kind of although you know I mean these things if they get complicated because there's a lot of elephant poaching that goes on. Well, A, and we've we've talked briefly about this before, they're not selective.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So your professional hunter ivory is very selective and very sure. Elephant poach now, there's a definite skill set, but you'll also find five or six elephant poachers will sneak up on a herd of elephants, shoot into the herd, gut shot. Oh, and then just get what they can get and leave. Get what they can get, shoot everything, and and as we know, often with an AK-47 at that level, right? I mean, you know, we you just and then in the stomachs, in the behind as they're running away, babies, mothers, cows, can't, and then whatever falls they take, whatever runs off wounded, they go, okay, we're done with that. Yeah. Now there's other people who by themselves, of course, who have tremendous skills, like this guy that I was telling you about who became one of our trackers, you know. Yeah. So I think there's the whole range of people out there, probably is what it is. Sure.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. No, I I I hear you. Let's stick to the we're kind of moving along the path a little bit. So we've got the subsistence guy, we've got the subsistence guy that moves into a little bit of a commercial side of things. I think this might be a good uh time for me to ask you about the zebra story that's in Botelier. Because that's kind of like that's like moving into the commercial side, but not the not the like big money elephant side. I think it's a really cool kind of to some extent in your book, it's a little bit of a it's a little bit of a subplot to some extent, you know? Yeah. Um But I was when we started talking about it and you said, Oh, that's a true story, I was like, oh, save it for the podcast. I want to hear about it. Are we are we at the right point in this progression?
SPEAKER_01Or if we I think we're right there. I think we're right there. It's also a it's also a tricky one to talk about because of the people involved and the connections they had. Yeah, yeah. So so let's leave it general. Yep. Yeah, sure. Um so what these guys were doing was and and we're talking at this point, so there was one organizer, or I'm starting to backtrack here.
SPEAKER_00Okay, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Or a or a company, let's say, and a and an individual. You were doing this, and they were getting people now. We're moving up to middle class because the the people shooting the zebra had vehicles and a rifle. Yeah. And they would drive out from the local town, and you could drive an hour, and you'd be among in the planes with zebra everywhere and shooting zebra.
SPEAKER_02Before we get it, we before uh we you explain the rest of it. Now, when you get to this level of poaching, are they an extension of the guys that kind of you know were subsistence and then move up the ranks, or are they outsiders typically? And I this I mean I mean this in a general sense, not necessarily just the zebras, but all this kind of higher level level poaching.
SPEAKER_01This instance, they were I mean, what's an outsider? They lived an hour and a half from the area where the animals were. But they were not local poor people living in mud huts. They lived, they had proper houses, a car and a rifle. Okay. So that's a whole different thing. But that's this instance. Um and I'm sure there's other instances of this commercial poaching where the organizers would employ the local, well, we know that it there is, would employ local people living in a mud hut to shoot an elephant, you know? Yeah. But so does that answer. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, absolutely. So so what these guys do, they'd go out, they'd shoot five, six, ten zebra just in a herd as they're running, drive along next to them by whatever means they could, right? Yeah uh skid them. Actually, just skin them. No, they left the skulls behind. Okay. So you're not sure if they were utilizing the meat or not? Meat. That's what I don't remember right now, is whether the meat was being utilized, but the skins were the big thing. The meat would have had to have been utilized because what we found was piles of skulls. Okay. Zebra skulls. Yeah. So the meat's gone somewhere, which is good.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, yeah. I so not the skeleton. You're cat, you're finding just the head. Like the head.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so they're taking the strange thing. It was like those old, you know, novels of the early west where they'd walk along the plains here and find buffalo heads. Um, and then take the skins into town to a processing plant that processed cattle skins. Yeah. Slip the zebra skins in through it along with the cattle skins, process them, tan them, and then pack them in with the cattle skins, one here, then ten cattle skins, another one, just slotted it all the way down, put them in the truck and take them through across the border to the to a port in another country where they could ship them out to market. Yeah. Quite a scheme they had going. Yeah, it's it's interesting.
SPEAKER_02And you know, uh and it's it's a cool part of the the book, too. So I I encourage people to to listen to it there because it goes through a little bit of the the structure, you know. But it's and the character, I think, is kind of an interesting character. Um the this I didn't ask you before, Craig, so I'm I'm I'm throwing this out there to you. One thing that I noticed, it this is just my perspective of South Africa. Uh so tell me if I'm wrong, but clearly in South Africa there's an enormous amount of game breeding going on. And in a in a in a sense, uh these a lot of the species are commercialized at what I would call like a livestock level, right? And I'm I'm assuming zebras are like that, but I'm also assuming that some of these other species are too. It what's your feeling about the I don't I don't know how to put it other than like the turning a wild animal, a native wild animal into a commercial livestock, livestock operation to feed the demand for say that, right? Like zebra hides. Or I mean, like I I remember it's been a while, I'm not, and I'm not up to speed on it currently, but I remember watching a documentary on the rhino horn deal. You know, guys are are domestically raising rhinos in the hopes that there could be some sort of legalized trade to fill the to fill the demand that is driving the poaching. Do you do you have a perspective on that?
SPEAKER_01So I think I mean what I've before before I try and talk about that question, but related to it, Cliff, is what I've noticed with not you by any means, but with a lot of people I talk to here in the US is that the people tend to lump all the countries in certainly sub-Saharan Africa into one, right? Yeah. It's really important for everybody to know that they're so vastly different. You know, all those countries are so different. And so, and so you're talking about South Africa with the with the breeding in sort of open range breeding at the moment of animals, kind of, right? It's not in cages, I don't think, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not in the weeds on it, so I have no idea. But but but but it's clear that they're producing a lot of certain species, right?
SPEAKER_01Certainly, certainly. And and a lot for hunting.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, I think that's the main driver, at least was my perspective.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's a lot of that going on, and it's and it's not necessarily maybe some lion breeding programs are like that in a small cage, but in order to breed wildlife for general public consumption, like zebraskins or meat, yeah, the management has to be. And and I think once you get across that border with South Africa, my feeling is that the governments are so worried that they won't have the ability to control what's then legal and what's not legal, who's doing it. You know, it's so vast and so big, and there's no game branches once you get across that border, really, right? You know.
SPEAKER_02Zambia, and and I and I guess I see this is this is why I want to see more of Africa, Craig, because I South Africa, I know in an Africa uh relative to the rest or big chunks of Africa, is stable. And it's like a place that has maybe the infrastructure and the the rule of law for that to exist, which which I'll admit is when I say it out loud, I'm kind of like, wow, what are the other countries like? Because I'll be honest, like South Africa even felt like a little wild west from my perspective. You know what I mean? But I think I'm I think I'm following you. It's like, okay, that that system, once you move into the other countries, it's gonna be very hard, just due to the structure there, to keep keep one like the legit business separate from the non-legit. Is that what we're getting at?
SPEAKER_01Yes. Plus. Okay. South Africa has such a history of fenced ranch type situations. Now, some of them are 30,000 acres, 50,000, you know, some are big, some are small. Once you cross over that border, those other countries, they just don't have yeah, there's there's way less privately owned land for a start, right? So you know, like in say Tanzania, for example, you lease your land from the government. It could be a 66-year lease, whatever, 99-33, but there's no privately owned land, and there's no game ranching. Yeah, nothing. So there's the government owns the animals, so you don't even have the option to breed animals. And I'm not saying that's good or bad. I'm not this is a criticism. Yeah. It's just not the way they operate, you know, and and so like a hunting block, you lease that from the government for three years, and I if I remember correctly, it's three-year lease and automatic renewal for two or something like that, then you have to renew it again, etc. So you've never got a strong hold on that land. Then there's the whole thing, if you were to start breeding animals, who controls it? How do you stop because the the intensity of law enforcement isn't there? How do you stop the illegal animals getting mixed in with that? Yeah. Yeah. I and yeah.
SPEAKER_02What about the from your perspective? Just the I mean to streamline it to the question of if somebody wants to raise rhino horn in South Africa and sell it in and legally sell it into what used to be an illicit market, do you have a strong feeling one way or the other if that's a good thing or a bad thing?
SPEAKER_01I think, Cliff, that if you you have to be sure of your market first, don't you? If I mean you have to be a hundred percent sure that poaching is stopped elsewhere.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Because you don't want to encourage, like, hey, now we've legitimized this market, so we've allowed like these scumbags kind of a way where it's easier for them. Okay, I'm getting rhino horn from South Africa, but I'm shoving in rhino horn from Mozambique or whatever.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and how do you control that? I don't know, maybe you can. And and again, you know, I'm in no expert to prescribe to people who might be breeding rhino you can't. Yeah, no, no, no, no, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's just a very humble opinion, you know. Yeah, and it's super, it's super difficult question for me to just throw out to you, Craig. I just feel like from you know, from your internal uh, you know, dealings with actual poachers, I was just kind of curious like what your perspective you know was on that. And and I and I I totally can appreciate your answer. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And and I don't really know the answer. Yeah, no, I don't think the firm answer. Yeah. If we and if we had a very if we knew poaching had stopped, but there was a high demand. I mean, we farm cows. Yeah. Why not farm rhino, you know?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, what's what's wild about it though, um, and I like it's kind of as we move up the tiers, I'd love to hear perspective on this. Like the subsistence farm, the subsistence uh poacher, the commercial slash subsistence guy, and then the guy who gets into like uh maybe like the low-level commercialized kind of organized crime version of this zebra deal. As we move up, up that we go from kind of utilization that is necessary. They're eating the meat, right? They're they're snaring it to eat the meat. Okay, and then and then as we get into like hides, it's like, okay, like my house has got a ton of hides. I understand why people would want it. Like I kind of get that. They're still using the meat, but then like the next steps of poaching, all of it is stuff that is is wildly, from my perspective, a poor use of the resource. Like, I don't give a shit about ivory. I don't really give a shit about like like the the powder from a rhino's horn. So it's like, but I care like, and I don't I'm not like I'm not saying I'm better than anybody else, but I have like I just care about the animal. You know what I mean? So uh it it it's it isn't it interesting that there's this correlation of kind of what I view as odd uses of the resource with like the big money poaching. Am I thinking about that right?
SPEAKER_01Like, yeah, I I I I think you are entirely, and all the people we speak to about poaching come from that perspective, right? Yeah, you know, here I say. And I'm with you because I have the same perspective, but we're not a young a young buck in a man coming of age who needs a curved dagger with a rhino horn handle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just and China, obviously, with with rhino, and I it's just a whole I mean the cultural differences must be so huge. Yeah, you know, yeah, so huge. I mean, they that guy in the mind, he doesn't think about rhino.
SPEAKER_02Like, what you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and I I guess the the reason I brought it up, uh Craig is like in my mind, it's like because dude, there's a part of me, Craig, that I I my answer to the question is is I'm pretty pro if privatizing and commercial commercializing uh rhinos, let's say, to just keep it a simple subject, if that solves the issue, I personally am pretty pro that, just from like a like the system perspective. But there is a part of me that is like, well, why don't maybe it's just better to for there to be some form of edge like education might not be the right, but some for sort of informational way of just shutting down the demand for for one percent of the animal, you know what I mean? Yeah, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I know, I know, but how do you yeah? Yeah, you can't, yeah, it's super complicated. How do you start? How do you go to China and try and uh No, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's it's it's totally theoretical, right? Yeah, but uh let's talk about it.
SPEAKER_01Interesting cliff, I sorry to interrupt you. Um just a quick one. At some point, I believe there was more rhino horn going to dagger handles in Oman than to to the Far East. Oh, really?
SPEAKER_02So that's a misperception, at least from my perspective.
SPEAKER_01Um I might be wrong about that, so don't quote it. But it's a huge market where where it goes to make handles to daggers, which was interesting.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay, because see, this I think comes from a Western perspective that gets distorted by the information you hear. I I thought it was all I'm just gonna sound crazy, Craig. I thought Rhino horn was all turned into powder and then like snorted or something. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And you know, things change, it might have changed. But there's other uses. That might be the main use now as well. But not that long ago, there was a big deal going on there. But people don't know about it, they didn't write about it. That China, the Far East, and the powder for various medicinal things became huge, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, it it's isn't it weird? And I'm sure you saw this like in your hunting career too, because I think I think it I can only talk about my my personal guiding, but uh once I got into guiding like high money hunts, it's undeniable that part of the reason that the hunt is twenty, thirty, forty thousand dollars, which is just like a you know, it is an insane number for a hunt. Part of the reason is because the animal's scarce. You know what I mean? Like the opportunity to do it is scarce. And that kind of it's like maybe maybe some of this interest in this these animals is because they're perceived as scarce. Yeah. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So and I mean, that's why the more scarce animals cost more to hunt. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Terrible thought. Um, yeah. But yeah. Um, and the way I always try and rationalize that to myself is to say, and this is probably just pure rationalization, right? Is to say they're not scarce, they're locally common. Yeah, there's some truth, there's some truth to that. So in this area, there's a lot of them, and we're hunting them in a sustainable way, and they'll always be there if we do it right. It's just that they're only in this area and not over there. Then I think, okay, that's all right.
SPEAKER_02No, it's totally how I rationalized it too. Yeah. Like it, like I I would never, I would never have a been, I would never be a part of say taking somebody on a bighorn sheep hunt for $30,000 if it was in an area where we were killing like one of the last four sheep. You know what I mean? Or something like that. Right. But uh, but you're right. It's because but there's not a lot of opportunity because there's not a huge population. That's why the cost of the hunt is what it is, you know.
SPEAKER_01That's that's that's a good way, to better way to put it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but no, it's the same, same exact logic. I've used the exact same logic, you know. So I I I get that. But the let's move into the more um the uh was there was I I guess in the different anti-poaching that you were involved in, and then this brings it back to your book too, because the book is really about elephant ivory uh poaching. Was there um was any of your anti-poaching specifically uh focused on elephant uh poaching?
SPEAKER_01Yes. Amongst everything else, uh uh yes, absolutely, and a lot of the wildlife crimes investigator work was ivory. Was all well, 90 80% of that was ivory poaching.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think.
SPEAKER_01And and and the on the ground stuff working with teams and working with the government game scouts and the government is just general anti-poaching, of which ivory was a big part of it, of course.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And the the ivory, I guess, as you do the other anti-poaching, do you just run into the ivory poachers? Or is it a separate thing?
SPEAKER_01Both. Okay. Both. Like like um Back to Zambia.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, and we built up a huge file on him from informers, famous elephant poacher. Um, and finally we got informers to tell us he's gonna be in one, he was gonna be in the area, he had three wives, and they each lived in a different village. He's gonna be at one of them on one night. And he was a big catch because he'd been at it for a long time, you know. Um, so we knew that on, well, we were told on one night he'd be at one of those villages with one of his wives. So we got three teams, we hit them all at the same time and got him. Okay. So that kind of that was is an example of what you were you're you're saying. Is it a targeted, this was a very targeted investigation.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, sure.
SPEAKER_01One program only. It's not just going on a patrol and seeing what you find. Yeah, yeah. And and it's not going on a patrol just to be a presence.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you're you're you're you're it's not just like you're protecting the resource, you're trying to like break down a certain system that's going on. You know, would would you describe that individual? I have to ask, uh, because he he was known. Do they you know how in the US, uh, and I'm sure this is everywhere in like the urban environment, people who are successful in crime, they actually almost have an elevated status.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they become a mythic, some mythical statement.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, even to some extent when they're free and they haven't been caught, they have, you know, they've gone up the economic chain a little bit. So they're kind of like they may have started out as low life, but do they've actually like they're kind of hanging out like with part of the like part of the political slash like you know, the entrepreneur class, you know? Is that is that the same, is that the is that what happened? Is that kind of like can you become like good enough at elephant poaching that all of a sudden like you're you're almost like you there's like an aura about you? Is that a thing?
SPEAKER_01I think first of all, I think that's that happens more in the US, and partly it's because of this sort of image, not quite a myth, but the image we created around the outlaw and the cowboy, right? There's this whole thing of like I'm an outlaw. I mean, yes, it certainly happens in in Africa where criminal people become more and more and more powerful until they're actually sitting right up there with the big guys. Sure. Yeah. I don't know. I don't think that the actual person pulling the trigger, shooting the elephant, yeah. There's there's a very striate, like he would have a guy. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And he's replaced, he's he's replaceable.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. And and and he would shoot, he'd give his ivories to a guy who owns a filling station on such and such a road. Yeah. He would give it to the and it goes up the ladder like that. I mean, we did catch one guy who was wheeling ivory across a through the bush for like five, six days on a bicycle wrapped in grass mats into the neighboring country and taking it to an embassy. Like he's just figured it, he's just like a one-man show. How he got that straight connection, I don't know.
SPEAKER_02But oh, he had no no middleman. He's he's like he's like the local poacher who's like, I'm cutting out the middleman, I'm going straight to the if I'm gonna if I'm gonna do this shit, I'm going to the guy. Yeah. That's that's wild. Yeah, because even in my in my image, I'm imagining like like hunt like a hundred layer type of process.
SPEAKER_01You know what I mean? Like it's which I think is closer is is kind of what it's like, you know. Yeah. And usually, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean that guy, unless no, that's what it's like. Unless you get a gang of urban people who come there with AKs and just shoot into a herd, maybe they're connected personally to the people at the top. Otherwise, it's a series of steps. Yeah. I'm sure I'm sure that varies a lot as well, though, Cliff. You know.
SPEAKER_02Now the the question I guess is uh harkens back to the original uh thing I brought up. At the higher level, are are they st do they do they have access to this technology? Like so not really, huh?
SPEAKER_01Not not in my experience. Now there's and you know, again, I'm not having seen every form of poaching everywhere. But in in my personal and somewhat probably limited experience, Cliff, it's very much boots on the ground, no high-tech stuff at all. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. No, I uh I I I gotcha. So um the the Craig, the last thing that I want to get into, because I feel like there's a sense of adventure in your book, and then also just offline, like us having a discussion about your life. Uh, there's a uh a sense of, I mean, you've done a lot, right? Like you've been a PH in all these different countries, you've done the anti-poaching thing. Um did I'm trying to figure out a way to present this where it's not, it doesn't demean that these are giant issues, but was it fun? Was it was anti-poaching fun? It like and was it like a was it a similar fun that like the adventure of hunting and that, or was it was it was it a different type of fun?
SPEAKER_01Can I just jump back one step before answering that question?
SPEAKER_02Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01When I was saying there's no technology, no big technology drones, night vision goggles, and all that, I'm talking about Zambia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, you know, those kinds. Sure. In South Africa, I've never worked in anti-poaching in South Africa. Okay, but I did read about a highly educated person using helicopters to do X, Y, and Z that got caught within the last two or three years. So there's some pretty big technology up there, right?
SPEAKER_02Um I heard I heard a story, I can't I can't repeat it because the person who told me it. Yeah, but same, it may be related to the same story, probably, but the person was also like involved in you know, was involved governmentally also, and it made me laugh when they told me it. But but yeah, they were using technology. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So I just sort of be clear about that. Yeah, yeah. Um okay, back to where we were.
SPEAKER_02Yep. Yeah, your personal, your personal perspective on, I mean, you obviously you you're I mean you're you're you're a high intellect guy, uh, you're you're a great author, all this stuff, but you chose to do this anti-poaching stuff, and you had a career in the in the hunting world and safari business. Was was the anti-poaching stuff fun?
SPEAKER_01Huge fun. Yeah. Um as much as we might, you know, we want to be serious about it. But yeah, there was so much fun involved, but more so earlier in life. Okay. So, you know, when when we started with with a dear good friend, we started the anti-poaching program in Zambia, which has now become huge, by the way. That it was taken over from us and turned into something really, really good and big. Okay. When we were doing it in Zambia, we were having so much fun. And we were at that age, I guess late 20s, when you just like this is what I want to do, you know. Um, and we got better as we went along, and and we learned a lot from the National Park Service. There was some good the the warden in charge of anti-poaching was an amazing guy. Um, and he taught us a lot, and he was way older than us, and he guided us through the process and said, Sure guys, really, you know, don't take a bottle of tequila with you when you're going on a on a on a night ambush at full moon. It doesn't work. Yeah. Um, and and so it got better and better as we went along. But and then when you get to a certain age, it starts to get scary, you know. Sure. Um, well, it's funny, I was talking about it last night with someone, Cliff. 90% of it is not really scary, but things can turn like that. Yeah. And and the other 10% can be hugely frightening when you've got kids and you your hips are hurting and your knees ache, and you're not you can't run fast and you're shaky. And um, and you and you're not immortal, you're not in your immortal twenties, you know?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, you start to realize that the the little things could eventually get you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And and it's the it's I mean, there's big gangs of elephant poachers, sure. But a guy running away with a with a 1960 375 who turns and shoots it over his shoulder as he's running, that can turn nasty. Yeah, he's gonna be unlucky. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, um, so at the beginning it was tremendous fun.
SPEAKER_02I mean, there's always a is the fun, is is the fun the fact that you're learning it I can only imagine this, Craig, and I'm projecting a little bit here. You're not you you're not, you're I mean, of course you're not hunting people in a in a hunting sense, but you are learning to track people down that are that are doing this activity. It's gotta be fun to just figure out like their movements, what they're doing on a daily basis, how they're trying to hunt the animals, how they're just logistically existing. Like that's gotta kind of be because they're so because they're I mean, they're they're they have the exact same, they might not have the technology and that sort of thing, or maybe the equipment, but they have the same intellect, they have the same, you know, uh um incentives that we do. You know what I mean? So that's gotta be interesting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. But you know what often what'll tend to happen if you're just doing a patrol, you're just plodding, right? And and it's opportunistic. Oh, sure, there's human tracks, oh, there's a wire snare, oh there's vultures, or there's smoke spiral up, and you go. But there's so many tremendous learning curves within that, yeah, as you say. Sure. What's what gets really exciting is the is the intelligence work or the investigative work and with informers who come and tell you stuff, and then you slowly can build a case, you know, until you've got a nice big file, and hopefully can act on it. Often not, you know. Sure. Um, but that doesn't happen enough, really. Most of the time you're plodding, you know. Yeah. Plod, plod, plod. Or or a lot of the most of the time you're dropping a patrol off here and picking them up over there, you know. Yeah, sure.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you just get lit logistics and just doing the day-to-day. Yeah. Was there any specific activity or specific thing that you ran into, Craig, over the years that uh, and maybe you accomplished it, that you ran into that your man that you thought, man, this has gotta stop? Like there is zero reason for this, and if I can accomplish one thing, I would view this as like um like I would be changing something. Was there any activity that that that you can key in on on in that regard? I mean, is there is there an activity that you experienced there on the poaching front that that you still know is occurring that you just wish that you wish could get figured out and stopped? Guys, biltong, okay? I've been obsessed with this stuff for three or four years. Ever since I got on a keto, carnivore, paleo-esque type of diet, I've had a hard time finding healthy snacks. Biltong is a great option, particularly the slabs that have this fat on the side. That's where your energy is if you're a fat burner like me. Super simple ingredients in this, guys. Literally, one, two, three, four, five ingredients. Pair that to your gas station jerky, a great snack in the backcountry or just day to day. Biltong Depot is a huge supporter of my content. Go to their website, biltongdepot.com. Use my code Cliff Gray, C-L-I-F-F-G-R-A-Y at checkout for 10% off. And to support this content. Thanks, guys.
SPEAKER_01Cliff, it's all still occurring. And you get, I mean, elephants, um, elephant poaching, or a wire snare line with a sable, antelope, a buffer, buffalo. You know, you just think, what a terrible waste, you know. And we've we had this conversation earlier, I haven't forgotten, but at some point you kind of say, really, I'm just all I'm doing is putting little band-aids. And I could think of lots of ruder ways to say it, but you're just putting little band-aids on, and really you're not achieving very much. Yeah. Um, you know, you you're stopping, well, you're not stopping, you're catching tons of people who are in the bush, in the hunting reserve, or what we call a game reserve, or in the in the national park. Illegally, yeah, you're stopping them, but that's that's not who you want, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You you're asking the that's that's the one thing like on my question of it being related to commercial activity, either either you know, photo safaris or hunting. My perception is because I just put myself in that situation, let's say I owned one of those concessions or something. I think that if there was a certain level of economics, I could probably protect the game to some extent that I wanted and needed for my business. Right? But could you really move beyond that? You know?
SPEAKER_01I mean, there's there's some great examples of an area, one area. Yeah. Defined, not fenced, and again, now I'm not talking about South Africa, Cliff.
SPEAKER_02I'm I'm now Yeah, you're talking about the Africa, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um not fenced, where and I think of one in particular where they've done such a great job. A national park with this river in it, and over here a uh a lake, a small lake, and they got a concession in the middle, which used to be a hunting concession, it became a photographic concession. Okay, and as this as the season, as the year dries up, the elephants move from the national park, it's getting drier and drier to drink at that lake. They also put some water points in there as well. Yeah, okay, like a little habitat development or whatever. Yeah, and it's I mean, it's probably, I don't know, maybe a thousand square kilometers, probably. So it's not huge by those standards. Yeah, but huge by our standards. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And so it was, I wouldn't say it was depleted. There was wildlife, but you'd see elephants every now and then. Now, excuse me, Cliff. Fifteen years later, 10 years later up till now, the elephants that you see in that place are unbelievable. Yeah, big ivory. I mean, there's some hundred pounds, eighty pounds, lots of sixties, fifty pounds, just stunning. And you'll see 15 or 20 elephant bulls just walking slowly past you, you know. They've done an amazing job. And that's what you're talking about. It's one area with enough resources and it takes money. And to I I'm starting to think that there's a whole model that might be developed with where philanthropists, very wealthy people, usually foreigners, not Africa, not from Africa, yeah, are willing to put substantial money into a place and make it work. And from there, you can still say, oh, it has to benefit the local communities, etc. But the idea that we used to all talk about and have 20 years ago, 15, and a lot of people still do, of local people must own the re resources and get the income from it. Again, this could get me into so much trouble, Cliff, but I I don't think it works. Yeah, well, you need serious money, you know.
SPEAKER_02Well, well, yeah. I mean, the question the dude, it's a deep question. We could do another two hours on it, Craig. It's like, well, we we there's there's inherently in this idea that, hey, uh, we're gonna have this free-ranging wildlife, and there's a local community that lives there, and we're gonna piece them off resources that'll keep them happy so they don't poach. I don't know much about the culture there, Craig, but there's a part of me that says that sounds great, but that assumes that those people don't have the same incentives that all the other humans that have I that I've interacted on earth have. And that's that once you get this, you want to improve in this way. And you want to improve this for your family, and you want to have opportunities, you want to have this. So, so it's like, okay, once I have food, now I want now I still might I still might want to poach that resource for my own gain, not necessarily because it's like a horrible and it's like you're a horrible human. It has to do the fact that you're like every other human. Yeah, you know what I mean. So the question is, is like, where where would that where would that stop? You know what I mean? I I it's tricky.
SPEAKER_01It's so tricky and and and as I would be. I have a local person living next to this area. Somebody wealthy from another country comes and starts managing it, and suddenly I'm not allowed in there anymore. Yeah, sure. And they dribble down some money to me. I people people get annoyed, you know. Yeah, yeah, no, totally. Totally. It's their c it's their country, you know. That's yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's to marry those two together so that local people can feel they're part of the system, but you need big money to come and somehow. Make it work, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean it's yeah, in the end it's like, hey, I mean you gotta figure out a way that this stuff is is more valuable alive than it is dead. If it's f if it's the philanthropy or hunters or safar, you know, photo safaris or a combination. Combinations, yeah. Yeah, yeah you know. Um Craig, do you got another like 15-20 minutes? Yeah, sure. I would I would love to um kind of tie in your experience hunting, uh your your hunting experience a little bit, and maybe we can we can talk a little bit about this, but uh how like how long were you at PH and and what what species did you focus on? Did did you did you do any elephant hunting? Did you do Cape Buffalo hunting? Did you like what was your focus?
SPEAKER_01So I start in in Zambia I started as a as a um uh walking safari guide. Yeah. Um and we had three little bush camps and we'd walk up and down between them. And at the same time, I apprenticed underneath a wonderful, I had the best professional hunting apprenticeship of anybody. I'm convinced that I had the two, the nicest guides who ran this very exclusive hunting block and treated me like an equal, not a not a kid, you know, they were just awesome. And and then started hunting there, and that would have that would have been mid-90s, maybe. Okay. Um you what happens there? You start off with a planes game license to hunt, and then you get planes game in Buffalo, then you get a full license in Zambia. It's different everywhere else. So I started there doing some hunting safaris there, but very much as a junior. Um actually there was one company I hunted properly with there. Okay, but with but with the company under which I apprenticed, I was always a junior hunter there, and it was great because you've got other people making the important decisions, and you're you're there and you're invincible, right? And you're you're younger and you feel yeah. And and then I moved to Tanzania, and then I worked as a professional hunter and as a and photographic safaris and ran the anti-poaching stuff. Okay. Um and then at some point I actually left the company and was uh a contractor, I think you'd call it. Yeah, uh, bringing my own people. Kind of an independent yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. And that's when I would so when I was working for the company is when I ran the anti-poaching operation as well as doing safaris. So I hunted there for I would say 20 years.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um in Tanzania.
SPEAKER_02Well what uh I'm sorry, go ahead.
SPEAKER_01No, and hunted everything. You you know, by by the for those 20 years, there were no restri well obviously government restrictions of what you can hunt. Yeah, of course. It was a full full hunting license. But also in Zambia, I would it was full bag hunting, but I was just the more junior guy doing sure and then in Tanzania, you know, um planes game, lion, and then planes game and lion leopard, buffalo. Elephant, we did not hunt elephant in Tanzania. I I did then work with a person in Zimbabwe, and we did some elephant hunts, but I was not a Zimbabwean licensed. I gotcha. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so you're taking you're taking your hunters there to hunt hunt a specific species.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and yeah, very personally, and I'm not dissing on anybody who does it by any means, but for me, elephant hunting, I I don't want to do it. And we yeah, we did a couple there, and I absolutely didn't enjoy it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you know, it's uh and we don't have to dwell on the topic too much too much, uh Craig, but I'd love to hear your perspective on this. I I've thought about doing it myself and I've been open and pub public about it. You know, I uh uh I think you know, all the other reasons we justify uh hunting other species, I think that can apply to elephants too, right? Yeah, yeah. What's interesting about it is I've had a few hunters in my life, uh, a few of them are clients, a few of them that were acquaintances, that spend an insane amount of money and time hunting in their life, right? And it probably, you know, some of my viewers probably don't realize this, but I'm sure you ran into them, Craig. I mean, there are guys that, due to life circumstances, maybe they made the money, maybe it was their great-grandpa's money, who knows, whatever. But there are guys that nobody knows about that all they do is hunt, they spend a million dollars a year hunting for more, yeah. Right? Like this is what they do, this is what they enjoy. I can't say that I blame them. Like, I might do that too, you know, and throw in some other adventures too. But disproportionately amongst that group, uh, they have said that hunting was like, or elephant hunting was one of the more influential hunts that they did. Some of them it became what they became obsessed with. Some of them did it once and said, Man, I killed one, I cried after it, but incredible experience. You know what I mean? Yeah. Um why why is that?
SPEAKER_01You know, it's Kiff, the the people that I apprenticed under and had the best experience in the world, and uh who are my two mentors and absolutely loved elephant hunting. If you speak to them, what was your best hunting? They'll say elephant hunting in the 70s. Okay. Maybe they'd say elephant hunting in the 70s in Sudan. Yes, specifically. It's their thing. At least one of them, I I'm not sure about the second, would not hunt an elephant now. I can be I can almost say that 100% uh because the time and the place matters. And again, I think it's combinations. The time and the place matters, your age matters. Um I I and and I just I just think the older I become, the softer I become, and the more I don't know. It's just a personal thing, Cliff. I just don't want to kill an elephant, you know. It's just like it's just yeah. Um and and things, I I I also think things have changed probably with you know the elephant populations. Now I get it. Botswana, they're ripping the place apart, so they have to they have to shoot elephants all for it from a conservation perspective. I totally get it. Yeah, personally, I just I just don't want to do it anymore.
SPEAKER_02And I don't even know if that's in yeah, I I I get it, Craig, and it's an impossible question to answer, man. And I I I think it's something this sounds weird, Craig. I wonder if it has to do with their lifespan and like how their family units are and all that. I mean, they're like there are there some of these elephants that hunter guys are hunting, they're my age, they're your age.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's and it's a similar lifespan to us. And and then and and I've actually seen it once, twice, where they a herd of elephants will walk up to a carcass and stand around a carcass and just stand absolutely still and touch it with their trunks for 15 minutes and then walk off. And that kind of freaks me out.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, that you know that they knew that elephant, and they kind of acknowledge not kind of, like they're acknowledging that it's dead.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. But I mean, having said all that, I totally understand elephant elephant hunting as a conservation tool, sure, and I totally understand somebody doing it as long as they do cry afterwards and go, man, that was that was a hell of an experience, what I've done here. Sure. And for for me, like when I kill something like that, I'll often say, That's it. I'm not gonna do it again. I'm done. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure enough, next time I'm back there.
SPEAKER_02But yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, but you have that, you had that, you have that kind of kind of moment. I uh very like I'm not trying to equate the two at all, but I had a little feeling in that regard when I shot a zebra. Um I I I I'm sure it's just because they're so the coloring is like so abnormal and they're yeah, yeah, just cool and just different and everything else. I was kind of kind of a part. And the the place I was hunting, South Africa place, they needed to kill some of them. Like, you know, was like uh I was I it was like they were very it it it was my choice to shoot one for sure. Like I chose to do it, all of that, but they were also like, hey, you want to shoot one? Like, do you want to shoot two? You know what I mean? Like they're kind of trying to like get them a bit under control, you know. So that's all good, but there's still that element of like, I don't know, I don't know if I want to do this one again. You know what I mean? Um, and that maybe that's the uniqueness of the species, or or maybe it's because to me it's like an iconic African animal, like there's who knows, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01But but it's I mean, you know, we all know at some level that every animal dies the same, right? Yeah, sure, yeah. But so I I have no problem shooting a white-tailed deer, yeah. Or or an impala. Yeah. But when it when it comes to a sable antelope or one of those huge East African eland, yeah. Um, you walk up to that and you go, Oh my goodness, what have I done here? You know, yeah, just a different, yeah. Next year you back at it again. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's an it's a it's an interesting dynamic. Um, what about buffalo hunting, Craig?
SPEAKER_01Did you that was you get that bug? Buffalo was the that for me is the best hunting still available with way less of a conscience that I have to worry about in my aging brain. Yeah, yeah, sure. Is is buffalo hunting. It's got to me, it's got everything that you want from a hunt, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean it was I shot one Craig, and like uh, I would have never thought this. But now I'm like, man, I gotta make some money because I'm gonna blow it all on buffalo hunting.
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh. Yeah, it's yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the it to me, it's way the best hunting. I don't know. Except it unless you now go after a sable or a something or a roan antelope, and you, you know, that's an that's another whole thing though. That's that sort of locally common but yeah, but buffalo hunting has just got it, yeah. I I yeah, I can understand you wanting to get involved in that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, do you have any idea how many buffalo hunts you've been on?
SPEAKER_01Oh no. Hundreds. I mean, and but at the and at the peak, like when you're doing, you know, so so the the hunts we have, and it varies a little bit country to country, but there's a 10-day buffalo hunt, uh buffalo and planes game, yeah, a 16-day hunt, and a 21-day hunt. 21-day hunt, you're often allowed three three buffalo on license. Okay. 10-day buffalo hunter is two buffalo on license. So you know, and so and when I was doing it at at its peak, and probably doing five, six safaris in a year in the season. Because remember, we're very seasonal in those other countries. You know, you've got five, six months to hunt, right? Yeah. Um I mean, you know, five, six safaris, three, six, maybe ten a year, or you know, ten a year for 20 years, or yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's why it's I'm so envious, Craig. And it's funny because people because I I mean I've elk hunted my whole life, right? Hundreds, and then guides under me, thousands of elk. It's just it's just work. Like, I don't, I mean, I still like elk hunting, but like it's just work, you know. So, but when I talk to you about buffalo hunting, I'm like, oh, I'm so envious of him having the opportunity. He's gone hundreds of buffalo hunts. Like, that's wild.
SPEAKER_01But that's how we look at something like elk. Yeah, yeah, it's all right. Yeah, we're we're weird creatures that way. Yeah, we're weird like that. But also the thing that's very different, which I've noticed since I've moved here, you know, we're part of this wildlife management program with Texas Parks and Wildlife, where you have to you do counts, you have to shoot so many dairy. Yeah. In Africa, we have you know two trackers. Once we get the they feel dress it for you when you have a nice cup of tea, right? And then you get back and you drop it at the skinning shed, and when you you say, now don't cut the skin.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Totally. For me, going to Africa, Craig, what you're talking about was I I want to call it a cultural culture shock, but that that's a that's like me. That I think that that implies that I'm like, oh, I didn't I didn't like it. It's awesome, right? Like the fact that the fact that you can you can shoot an animal and then guys help you with every aspect of it, they do everything, and then you go hunting. Yeah, it's like as an American, almost feel bad saying it. Because it's not it's not how the most expensive place in a in the US you hunt, once you kill an animal, the day's over. I mean for the most part. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? There, there it's it's that that aspect is so is so different and and interesting in its own right. But uh on the buffalo, I I have to ask, because we're we're on the buffalo subject. Any any close calls or any uh any anything on that front? Many I'm hating you even more, and I don't know why. Because it's like I don't I don't you feel like anybody who's hunted buffalo like they don't want it to happen, but they kind of do.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's a it's a weird thing. That's what humans that that that's what humans are like, it's just weird. Yes. Um several. And for some reason, people can hit a paper target that big at 50 yards, but they can't hit a buffalo's zone that big at 50 yards. And there's so often some sort of drama, you know. And but Cliff, I will say this. You you and it's a bit of an obvious statement because you you do the same thing, I'm sure. You get better at better at better and better at managing your risk to try and avoid situations like that, you know. Yeah, and then every now and then, and people may still mess up at that, or maybe not, that varies. Every now and then you'll that little uh devil sitting on your shoulder will say, take the shot, you know. Tell them to take the shot, and a buffalo quartering away from you, yeah, walking. So you know, for me, it must be standing side on, quartering towards you, dead still. Yeah. For something like that. And at some points when I was being really clever, we would only hunt buffalo in the mornings, okay. Not in the in the afternoon.
SPEAKER_02So you weren't you weren't on wounded ones in the dark.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Um you know, all those little things that if you add all those little things up together, it helps you, right? Obviously. I mean, everybody knows that. But often the people you're with don't understand that. Yeah. You know, or they're excited. They've spent, you know, all that money we're talking about, and they want to get their buffalo, right? They don't, you know, they don't want to mess around with you trying to be overly cautious, you know. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, I mean, as we all know, they're dangerous animals, and you always have some kind of drama, man.
SPEAKER_02Are are they are they their attitude and their perception of us as like a predator, are they unique from what you saw amongst African animals? I mean, do do do elephants have the same kind I let me let me give you some context on that, Craig, so you understand where I'm coming from. I thought it was unique that they would come out of the bush, like they knew you were there, they knew you were following them, they would come out of the brush to just like look at you. And in my view, it was like they were making a conscious decision. Is that is that one is that a figment of my imagination or is that something they do?
SPEAKER_01That's that's true. But also in hunting areas though they'll run. Yeah, they know. I don't know if it's maybe different in South Africa. I'm not sure of that. But so so so say in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania, they'll in a in a photographic area, they'll come out of the bush and look at you like you owe them money, the old saying. Yeah. In hunt in hunting areas, generally they run away. Yeah, every now and then you'll get a bull or a herd. And at dusk, I don't know if you notice this, but at dusk, just at sunset, they'll stand and look at you and walk towards you and do exactly what you're talking about. I don't know why. But only in the evenings, uh any other time of the day, you just see buffalo butts running over the mountains, you know. Yeah, so it was always it's always in my experience, I think, Cliff, it's better. It was always find the tracks, get on the tracks and find them without them seeing you.
SPEAKER_02Because yeah, and shoot one.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because otherwise they would run. Or you see them, see buffalo on a far hill and they haven't seen you, and then you start walking, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and just yeah, stock up to them. I I've seen a couple videos, Craig, without the the problem, is like you see a video online, it's got millions of views because the guy almost gets trampled by the buffalo, right? But there's no context of the situation. So, but there's a few of them I can think of where like guys are walking along and a buffalo just charges out of their periphery. Yes, is that a thing? Are those are those probably already wounded buffalo, or is that is that something they do?
SPEAKER_01That's a thing, and it's and it's it's always old males, well, usually old, but it's always males. Although I know people who've been hit by female buffalo, yeah. But and that happens, and I've had that on a walking safari where you're walking along, you've got these thickets, uh uh bushes, and come around a corner, and there's a buffalo standing under a tree, and behind him was a river bank going down. So he was on the top of the river. He couldn't go backwards, and he charged. But later, when we looked at his dead body, he was old, he was skinny, you could all his pelvic bones were sticking out, he was in bad shape, didn't have any obvious wounds, but hair was gone. You know, he he was an old mess, you know, probably no teeth left. Um so they do that, and and I think I know that video you're talking about. That was impressive. If it's the same.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean there's one like and the thing is, it's like I'm trying to add context to this video in my mind, and I'm like, oh, that buffalo had to be wounded, but I can tell how they're walking, it wasn't.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they it didn't look like they were looking for the buffalo, they were just walking.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they're just walking in the pH. Like the buffalo comes, the pH shuts his right his double like quick enough to shuts it and boom, drops it like right at their foot.
SPEAKER_01It was so impressive. It's yeah, it's like you know, but it's it's funny. The I I've had it before where a buffalo charge. Okay, here's a story. Are we allowed to do stories? Yeah, of course. I had this this old Wesley Richards 458, right? Okay, with a box magazine underneath, and the spring got soft, and it just it would load 70% of the time I would pick it up. And you buffalo hunting with it, and we're buffalo hunting, and and there was uh there's this wonderful man who came several times to hunt. What just a wonderful man. And I think, you know, Andrew, I've got a problem with this thing. This is this isn't good. So he was with a friend with another pH, and the other pH had a 450 Dakota. American Dakota. Yeah, I mean, what a rifle. Jesus. Um, and he said, borrow the just I'll lend you my 450 Dakota, the other pH. So me and this guy that I like, so we went off. Sure enough, tracks crossing the road of two Buffalo bulls. We get out the car, we follow, we follow, we follow. Finally, we see the buffalo, it turns side on. It you know that they do that with the its head and looking at us, and I said, perfect shooter. He he shot it, and it immediately it it humped like that and immediately turned and just came straight at us without even uh it it was well hit, but yeah, here it came. And with this. Nice new 450 Dakota. I loaded it, forgot to aim, just shot, missed missed the buffalo completely, right? And it just kept coming. And was lucky enough to have a rifle that loaded that picked the next and loaded it and hit it right in the head. Yeah, you know. So and so that wonderful man bought that rifle for me. Oh and said, you know, you saved my life today. Yeah, you could have you have this. Oh, that's awesome. Which was awesome. Yeah, what a nice guy. Yeah. Um, but the fact is, I forgot to aim on the first shot. Yeah. Just it just happened so quickly and was so lucky to get a second shot, right? I mean, he was right at your feet, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you wonder like what what happened what would have happened.
SPEAKER_01If I if I hadn't been able to feed with the old Wesley Richards, which was a lovely rifle, but still.
SPEAKER_02Anyway, sorry, that was a side uh No, dude, I I I I love stories, man. We could we could probably do a whole nother episode on stories on that on that subject. Um, one question I ask uh people who've spent a lifetime guiding, and maybe it's a little self-reflection. One thing that has been interesting for me, and it and it and it popped in my mind when you said you know, you you liked this individual that you were hunting with. Sounds like a a great guy. I've I've had a lot of people that I've guided over the years, you know, Craig, that became very close friends. Uh because they hunted with me four or five years, ten years maybe. But for me, for me, it was only it was chunks of time for like six or seven days. But you actually become very close to people that you hunt with for those periods of time. I'm assuming you had the same thing. It it it with even like these long, like long safaris, you end up becoming like very good friends with people in a fairly short time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. And and I think it it might although yours was seven, say seven, ten days, I think yours might be a little more intense. Because aren't you packing on a camping rough and yeah, probably the hardship, probably like there's a little bond around that, you know. It's got to be a huge part of it, you know. Yeah. So I think that would, even though it's shorter, that would get you closer. Yeah. Very close to somebody. With us, of course, we living in nice tents and we but sure you're still spending 21 days together from five in the morning till ten at night, you know. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And these these potential these potential um you know, situations like the buffalo you talk about, so there's a certain level of intensity.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um I laugh a little bit too because there's people are maybe more open with hunting guides than you'd you'd think, you know. Have you ever read the uh short story, the Hemingway short story, uh, the short and happy life of Francis Michael. Francis Michael Mah. Yeah, have you heard have you said it? Of course. It's funny. It's funny because like you read it and it's obviously like fiction to some extent, you know, and it's like, you know, it's you know, he obviously most Phs are not sleeping with their clients' wives or whatever, you know what I mean? So he's obviously adding some Hemingway to it. But there's elements of it that are a thing. Like you have these very rich, like wealthy, powerful people who have like vulnerabilities that they're willing to share with like some 25-year-old hunting guy.
SPEAKER_01Oh, safari, it's crazy. People, all the all the normal uh mores or social gone, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's it's but but it also gives the opportunity, as you say, to become such good friends with some people. And some people might hate you by the end of it. Oh, yeah. That's the other side of the equation, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, that's part of it. Yeah, I uh I asked my father about this dynamic because one thing I had noticed after years of doing it, Craig, is that some of my clients died. You know, they died in, you know, they they they they died in the real world. That's you know, you know, they passed away. And um you don't hear about it as a hunting guide. You don't get an invitation. I I'm obviously generalizing, but a lot of times their family doesn't even know who you are, yeah. And so you don't get an invitation to their funeral, you don't even hear about them dying. It's usually from like a third party. You uh you find out.
SPEAKER_01I always thought that because it's two lives, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. And my my dad, when I brought this up to him, he's like, Yeah, I dealt with that too. And he's like, you know what? I always thought about it, Cliff, is that you're kind of like a mistress in a way, right? Like, not only does their family not really know who you are, if their family knows that you exist, you sure as hell are not getting an invite because because they're tired about hearing about all the hunting stories and all it was.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01But yeah, you know, it's it's kind of a weird dynamic. Although it with us, I must say, it's probably a little different, and especially with the the the organ the outfit I hunted with was we do a lot of family hunting safari. Oh, okay, sure. Um, because it's not as hardship as what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's a little more compatible with you could have a wife and kids come back.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, we'd still put in the hours and do the walking and all that, but you could the kids could stay at home and um sure. So so it was probably a little different like that. And still, half the people you probably never see again, and half do become friends. And for some reason I always got the families as well with the kids and everything. And we did a lot of that kind of safaris, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And and I still do them, but no longer hunting. So it's most of mine are a family going on safari together.
SPEAKER_02Are you still doing are you still doing photo safari stuff? Yeah. You are okay. So you're going back over to Africa in the world.
SPEAKER_01All the time. All the time. But less and less because I'm not pushing it. I'm not, you know, in the in the past I would come once a year when I was living that side, come this side and do a tour around for six weeks doing PowerPoint presentations and to the hunting conventions. Yeah. Now I don't do any of that. So it's mostly people we know who've been some people who've been six times, you know. Sure. And become dear friends, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and you like spend time with them and their families and uh doing the adventure. Have you uh um have you lost I don't view this, it's not a negative and not in a negative way, but have you lost the spark for hunting, Craig? Is it it yeah?
SPEAKER_01I have, I have, I mean, there's a part of me that still loves to talk about it like we do now, right? But I've kind of lost the again, again, Cliff, getting old and soft, you know. I I I don't want to kill stuff anymore. And and I also noticed the other day when my son was here and we bought him a license and we shot white-tailed deer. Sure. And I used to kind of pride myself in being able to track blood to follow blood.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It was my thing. I was just felt good about it, you know. And we started out following this deer, and I I couldn't see the blood. I walk and he said, Dad, you've missed another spot here. And I go around, okay, there it is. You know, uh, that happened three or four times. I couldn't see at dusk, I couldn't see anymore. I got a cataract and one eye, you know, something. Yeah, I've kind of lost the I wouldn't be capable of it anymore. I don't think I hear you.
SPEAKER_02Well, you probably underestimate it. You know, it it could be worse, Craig.
SPEAKER_01You could be walking around with a musket and a bag full of bat shit and be 75, a bag of bat shit and be 75 years old and trying to get the bat shit down the front of the barrel. But but you know, and there's plenty of people who are way older than me who still hunting, you know, yeah, of course. And and you know, I've been with some of those guys. We I I guess we don't need to mention names who are wonderful, wonderful characters. Sure. I mean, uh, about eight years ago, I went with someone who we knock a name because I love him dearly, and we got out the car to go and follow a buffalo, and he opened his double like that, and he couldn't get the cartridges into the into the pipes. So he got his tracker, he said, can I put these in here for me? Put them okay, and off we went, you know. Yeah, but still loving loving it, and so much brains uh and and and the ability to make everything work out, he didn't need to be able to get his two cartridges into his double, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, no, no, for sure. Uh last question, and I'll let you go, Craig, because we're like going, we're going down the deep questions, and you're willing to answer them, so I I gotta ask you. So even in the context of like an individual like that who there's like a it's not a dark side of guiding and being a PH or whatever, but it's it's part of it that I don't think it's talked about that much, is that it leads it it there's things you give up in life, right? Like there's time away from my kids I give up, there's there's career trajectory, whatever. And and some people don't don't want to admit to this or they're in denial about it, or whatever. But once you get down the path far enough, regardless of your background, um, that's what you're doing. Like that's that's your life, right? Like this is the the choice that you've made. And uh um, so there's the context there of like the the hunt, you know, the pH or whatever who this is in existence, he does it for for 30 years or whatever, and then maybe we could throw in the context of you know, folks that you you saw on the anti-poaching side too that were that were in such to some extent living a very difficult life uh out there, you know, just trying to find meat and that sort of thing. Do you think do you think that people in that world are as happy as like the urban, is like the urban population or like a the average American? Do you do you have a thought on happiness?
SPEAKER_01Well, how much of my thoughts on happiness is me rationalizing it to myself? Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, you're still gonna give them to me. It's straight truth, right? I mean when you are yourself, Cliff, hunting eight days in the mountains, packing stuff, living rough, you will never get any closer to the natural world. Right. It's not possible, right? Right. And and for us as well, you know, I feel it. If you spent four days on buffalo tracks, or especially a wounded buffalo, if you two days on wounded buffalo tracks, I have never felt as close and as personally attached to the natural world as that. It's just there's no feeling that comes anywhere near it, right? Yeah, to me, and to you, I imagine. No, yeah, yeah, I can relate. Um so if that's happiness, then and that's important, that yeah, attachment to a natural world for me, which is why I can't work these things, right? And if that's happiness, then yes, that's it. Yeah. Now the other side of it is what it does to your family. It's you think, oh, my family's great, you know, and then you hear your kids 20 years later saying, Yeah, I didn't see that much of my dad, you know. Yeah, and you think, no, I was there. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. No, it's uh I agree with you, and I and I do think what you're talking about is happiness, maybe not all-encompassing, but is a big chunk of it. Um, because it's funny you you mention the you add in the nuance of tracking a wounded buffalo. Do you think, Craig, it's because that's the only thing you have to think about too? Is like you're connected to the natural world, but that's the only thing you're thinking about for two days.
SPEAKER_01I mean, that focus, there is no focus as intense as that, I don't believe. Or a leopard. But a leopard's usually quicker, right? You follow a wounded leopard, it's it it's quicker. But it's scary. And it's scary. That wounded buffalo thing, you're so right. That's all that's in your head. And sometimes you'll find yourself because I get tired quickly, then start thinking about other stuff, and then you play, uh-uh, bring yourself back. Yeah, yeah. Bring yourself back. And it you're so right. I mean, you're so focused on one thing, but again, this age thing. I mean, bring it up again. When you're in your 20s and you've got your mentors hunting with you, and you're following a wounded buffalo, you are invincible, right? Or a wounded lion. I mean, nothing, you just this this is what you wanted to be doing this for. Then, sort of, I don't know, 40s or whatever, you're by yourself, there's no senior person, and it's still great, but you start thinking a little better. And my thoughts during that phase of hunting was always somebody's gonna get injured here. Yeah, never me, right? Yeah, but you know, somebody's gonna get hurt. We got to be careful, and then later, following something wounded like that, I and I found myself thinking of all the friends, colleagues who'd been hit here by a buff, spleen erupted. This one's had his leg bitten off by a lion. And you start thinking about all of that, and then actually saying, Now, all the gods up there, if you get me through this one, I promise you I'm gonna stop. Of course, you don't. Um, but that fear factor starts with me, it slowly started to dominate, and it's not everybody I understand, but for me, I started being more and more afraid of the consequences, you know. Sure.
SPEAKER_02No, I I totally get it. Well, Craig, I have uh taken an enormous amount of your time. I uh I I don't know really if I care what you think about the conversation because I had a freaking blast.
SPEAKER_01No, it was awful, but it was it was so much more fun than I thought it was gonna be, Cliff. So I'm I'm very happy with this. Thank you. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_02Let people uh let people know where they can find your book. I'm a huge fan of it. I I literally uh I I read it in one day. So I thought it was super cool, super cool book. I look forward to your next one. But let people know where they can where they can find it, Craig, and then in and reiterate the name and all that.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so the name the name of the book, it's a novel. It's a suspense thriller novel set in Africa, dealing with all the stuff we've just talked about, obviously. It's available. Uh the the publisher is just the most wonderful guy. He's helped me, he's done so much. And the company's Whistling Thorn Press. Good job. And it's on Amazon, right? So you can order it direct from Whistling Thorn Press from the publisher. You can it's on Amazon in in book form and Kindle. Okay. And and I've always got uh uh he always sends me a box or two to sell. If you want them signed, they need to come from me.
SPEAKER_02I'll just say, but but otherwise do you have a website, Craig? Or is it just email they contact you? How do they buy one?
SPEAKER_01Email, email to contact. I mean, I have a website for Safaris. Uh it's Craig Doria Safaris.com.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Yeah. And your is your email on there? They can look you up, or do you might yeah it's it's info at.
SPEAKER_01But okay. The e the easiest one is craig.doria gmail.com. Okay, to get the book. Awesome. Yeah. Or get it from the publisher or get it off Amazon or which is hardcopy or Kindle. It's it's it's all there. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank thank you. Thank you, Craig. I appreciate it, man. Cliff, I really appreciate this. It was such good fun chatting to you. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02If you enjoy this content, do me a huge favor. Subscribe on whatever platform you consume it on. Spotify, Apple, YouTube, whatever works for you guys. Everything else is on my website, pursuitwithcliff.com. Go there, and it's going to be very apparent to you that I work my ass off just to not have a real job. All the hunts I guide, all the seminars I put on, all the unique experiences I offer in the membership site, all the details are there.
