envisioning frontal brain shots on the elephants and rhinos. Even visualizing shots on the hippos, bongo, lesser kudus, scimitar-horned oryx, etc.

Went to the Denver zoo this weekend and caught myself making shots on every dang African animal I came across.

Graybird! You're now in Falcon? Send me an email. And yes, when I'm up at the zoo, I too take aim sometimes.

About 15 years ago, I was at the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History with my wife. In the rotunda, there is a HUGE elephant that was shot in Angola back in about the 1930's. At any rate, I had just red Ron Thomson's book on elephant hunting/shooting, and was explaining to my wife where to shoot said elephant from various angles. A couple of the other patrons did give me rather odd looks.

I have done this too. That elephant in the Rotunda is great and is about the only thing worth seeing in Washington D.C. !

I often go to the zoos to get close up reference photos of African animals. I get some strange looks too when I start taking pictures of a Kudu nose or something.

I have done that on several occasions. My favorite thing to do at the zoo is to estimate the "shot" distance and imagine the animal in its natural habitat without the confines of bars and chains.

An elephant looks HUGE from 10 yards.

The trick is to talk under your breath, all the while with hordes of zoo goers surrounding you. Be especially careful not to show your utter excitement. And, be very discrete when making gestures that look like shooting. . . . People will think you a little strange, but what the hell.

so you think taking a scope would be wrong?

I do it all the time when I go to game parks.
Which one is the better trophy ? Shot placement while he is standing in the herd ?
That one is so old he needs some help !

And so on and then all I do in the end is "CLICK" with my camera I wonder maybe it would be a great idea to have a crosshair in the lens.

I worked at a zoo for 24+ years, and while I had to maintain a low profile as a hunter over most of that tyime, I never noticed any of those folks having any trouble eating game meat that my wife and I would fix and bring to parties. In fact those dishes were usually the first eaten.

Sure! A zoo is a great place to check out game animals and in a hunters mind only natural to visualize the proper shooting solution

For those of us not DG vets it is also a time to see the REAL size of the animals, eg elephants. You can sit behind a monitor and say piece of cake, I would do so and so...look at a 5+ ton ele at 10 yards and reality sets in.

As an aside, one of my favorite exhibits is the gorilla habitat at the Seattle zoo. Watch the adult males for a while and forget about the "800lb gorilla jokes." The 400lb gorilla will do the job quite nicely I think. Enormous power.

Ya should have herd the folks on our "tram" at the San Diego Wild Life Park as I was pointing out all the great trophis to my wife, and where to shoot them.

My buddy and I were at the Toronto zoo and discussing the same thing at the elephant enclosure.

We got some odd looks. People can be really strange.

In fact it is a good method of training and teaching oneself the right angles.

No one ever complained on me while dry firing my double at Elephants in the zoo.

Yes, at the Safari Hotel, orlando, Disney World...nice kudu and zebra - pop them from the balcony..

Are you kidding??????????

Thats why I go to the zoo in the first place!

Doesn't everyone?

I always practice or visualize shot placement at the zoo.

My daughters have always been reared to be hunters and are proud of the fact that we are predators. When the were tykes they had no concept of discretion and during our frequent trips to the zoo would loudly state "Daddy you killed one of those" or "Daddy are you going to kill one of those" or yell "Bang...did you see me shoot that impala Daddy.". During a zoo trip behind the bars for Girls Scouts the vet was treating a hippo and the girls were ever so proud to tell the keeper their daddy had killed one much larger than that and that the skin makes pretty leather and a great whip. I thought the lady was going to faint. She was looking at these cute little girls like they had just stomped a basket of puppies.

A zoo trip provided proof parental eduction can defeat animal rights nonsense. My eldest daughter was watching another kid reading one of the plaques placed in front of the cages at an exhibit proclaiming elephants were an endangered species because of hunting. When the kid finished, she turned to him and said "That isn't true. There too many elephants and hunters are the only ones working to save them." This came from a 9 year old.

Perry

quote:

Originally posted by HAMMER'em:
Are you kidding??????????

Thats why I go to the zoo in the first place!

Doesn't everyone?

Me too!

I tutored my wife on shot placement at the San Diego Wild Animal Park. It is very useful for training because the animals are in large enclosures, and show more typical behaviors.

The other patrons don't have a clue anyway.

jim