Just finished reading "The Hunting Imperitive" by Richard Harland. This is the same book mentioned by Saeed regarding a passage where a man had killed several buffalo and a lion or two with a spear. It is a fascinating book.

Just as interesting as the spear hunting passage, there is a section where Harland refers to being the subject of a "malicious form of attack" by elephants. He notes that on several occassions he was actually hunted by a herd of elephants he was hunting.

On pages 170 and 171 of my copy, Harland describes one particular instance where he discovered that a herd was tracking his party down like a bunch of bloodhounds.

The elephants apparently waited silently just out of sight until his party had passed. He speaks of a stopping to discuss the location of the herd when he instinctively looks back and sees a herd tracking his party down by scent.

Harland's party waited silently until the herd reached a spot where Harland's party had stopped and milled around. As soon as the matriarch spotted him, she led an all out charge.

These were unwounded elephant. Tuskless cows, to which Harland attributes extreme aggressiveness compared to tusked cows and bulls.

I had not heard of this "hunting" behavior before.

It was also interesting that he notes several times that aggressiveness varies not only by tusked cows versus cows with no tusks, but also with geographic region.

Having read a book by a Namabian PH, Kai-Uwe Denker (Along the Hunter's Path), one gets an impression of elephant as less dangerous and not as smart as others give them credit. Denker's book surprised me in that his impression of elephant seems quite low.

Has anyone heard of this tracking and hunting behavior before? It is pretty interesting.

Though I can't give you citations, I have read of that in a few books. It is not the first time. Harland was hunting mostly down by the Gonarezhou where Thomson and others have told of the aggressiveness of elephants there.

Then again these elephants were being constantly harrassed in the big f**kup eradication plan, so they could have been justifiably ticked-off. I would have been cheering for the elephants.

This behavior might make one re-think the use of a 450/400.

I have had the privilege of meeting Ron Thomson.

If my memory serves me right he killed +- 7000 elephant. He told us several hunting and culling stories.

He was also "hunted several" times by elephant. It was also by default cows in heavily hunted areas.

A few years back, we were walking to a leoprad bait we had late in the afternoon. We ran into a herd of buffalo, amongst which was one tuskless cow.

She chased us around quite a bit.

We had a tuskless cow on license, but, I was carrying a 7mm rifle. The truck was less than a mile from where we were.

Alan Vincent volunteered to run back to the truck and get my 375/404, so we left the elephants alone until he came back.

When he did, we thought we might have a problem locating this cow, as the bush was very think, and many of them were around.

Well, nothing of the sort, the cow actually came looking for us, and a 300 grain solid into her forhead put an end to that idea.

I was called in to investigate a case where a party of elephant hunters in a tribal (communal) concession had shot 17 elephant instead of one- and the PH was claiming self defence. I took a metal detector and some good game scout trackers, and, with the PH in tow, followed the engagement.

They had snuck into a herd and shot a tuskless cow. In getting clear the PH had shot another cow. Then the party (consisting of a PH, an Appy, two clients, four trackers, water carriers and one council game scout) had run for it. Several times the PH had stopped to fire warning shots overhead of the persuing elephants. About 1km from the initial shooting, they were neatly ambushed by a large group of cows. All five men with rifles had fired and seven elephant had gone down- 6 of them within 10m of where the party stood, and the other had been hit closer and been finished off as she was running away. How many others had .303 bullets in them from the council scout I don't know. The hunters? had then run on. Over the next 5km they had been repeadedly attacked. The next couple of dead cows had clearly been within 10 of either the PH or a client when shot, but gradually the distrance opened out as the PH's nerves frayed. We recovered over80 fired cases from the five rifles and although towards the end the PH was shooting any charging cow within 20m I found it hard to blame him considering what had preceeded that.

There are two other incidents on the files that I know of where 6 elephant were shot in self defense. And one group were not even hunting Elephants!

This sure makes the use of a twenty round ammo belt a good practice..
ozhunter

quote:

Originally posted by ozhunter:
This sure makes the use of a twenty round ammo belt a good practice..
ozhunter

The time I hunted with Buzz he only had about 5 rounds in his belt. Does this mean:

1) Buzz needs more ammo?
2) I will have to save myself when hunting with Buzz?
3) I need to carry two 20-round belts?
4) Buzz would leave me in the dust?
5) I need to practice more at reloading?
6) I need more magazine capacity?
7) I need a bigger gun?

or,

6) I should give Buzz a copy of my book before it's too late?

quote:

Originally posted by Will:

quote:

Originally posted by ozhunter:
This sure makes the use of a twenty round ammo belt a good practice..
ozhunter

The time I hunted with Buzz he only had about 5 rounds in his belt. Does this mean:

1) Buzz needs more ammo?
2) I will have to save myself when hunting with Buzz?
3) I need to carry two 20-round belts?
4) Buzz would leave me in the dust?
5) I need to practice more at reloading?
6) I need more magazine capacity?
7) I need a bigger gun?

or,

6) I should give Buzz a copy of my book before it's too late?

In my case there would be a very real risk of No. 4 playing out!

Jim,
what is your opinion about Kai-Uwe Denkers book?
IMO it's the best "african" book that came out during the last 50 years.

quote:

Originally posted by Will:

quote:

Originally posted by ozhunter:
This sure makes the use of a twenty round ammo belt a good practice..
ozhunter

The time I hunted with Buzz he only had about 5 rounds in his belt. Does this mean:

1) Buzz needs more ammo?
2) I will have to save myself when hunting with Buzz?
3) I need to carry two 20-round belts?
4) Buzz would leave me in the dust?
5) I need to practice more at reloading?
6) I need more magazine capacity?
7) I need a bigger gun?

or,

6) I should give Buzz a copy of my book before it's too late?

Will

You might just try reading to the Elephants from your book. When they are all asleep you can simply tip toe away.

Thanks for always being blatantly honest.

Since a cow elephant will go at least a few tons, I figure there must be at least a couple of gallons of evil hormones to blame for this type of behavior.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Will:


The time I hunted with Buzz he only had about 5 rounds in his belt. Does this mean:

1) Buzz needs more ammo?

Last year while hunting with Ian Gibson, he also only had a hand full of rounds with him. He did say that this late in the season he was running very low.. I suspect this may have been the case with Buzz.
Possibly if more of their clients had doubles that they could shoot well with, the guys might have been carrying more..
Will,
Do you have a distributor in Australia for your Book ?
ozhunter

quote:

Originally posted by ozhunter:
Will,
Do you have a distributor in Australia for your Book ?
ozhunter

NitroX bought a few copies to re-sell down your way. If he doesn't have any left, let me know and I'll send you one.

This October we were tracked by a lone bull that charged after tracking us two or three hundred yards in thick riverine bush in the Save Conservancy. He stopped at 15 yards at a shot over his head. There was a face off and he finally walked away after another shot over his head.

We were also tracked by a herd of cows, again in thick riverine bush in the Save. We had made several approaches to look for a tuskless. There wasn't much wind but it was erratic.We had to clear out a couple of times but after a couple of tries we determined that there wasn't a tuskless in the herd. Before we cleared the area we caught a glimpse of a couple of the cows snorkeling and then tracking our scent on the ground. They weren't moving fast and we walked away but they kept coming slowly down our back trail. We walked into a big open dry pan a couple of hundred yards away and made for the center. We watched as the herd came to the edge of the pan but they wouldn't leave the cover, thankfully.

Elephants from different areas definitely have different personalities. The cows in the Zambezi valley are not nearly as agressive as the cows in the Save, same for the bulls. The cows in the Chete Safari Area seem to be somewhere between the cows in the Zambezi valley and the cows in the Save, but I haven't spent enough time there to be sure.

In the Zambezi, some cows are agressive. A larger proportion of the tuskless are agressive. In the Save, most cows seem agressive with the tuskless the most agressive.

JPK