I've seen a few of his videos and yes there is some definite testosterone induced showboating but still it takes a pair of cahoneys to do what he does.

If clients are cool with that and the kill is clean I guess who am I to judge. However the tape I saw I must admit it did look like a gut shot.

I would assume he does these stunts for the videos only and not with regular clients??



Still some of the other posts on this thread raise valid points about his ethics.

"...All of this is academic. If Mr. Sullivan does deliberately provoke charges, eventually he or a client will get hurt, and then it won't seem like such a good idea..."

This won't happen the way MS apparently does it.

This is the way I have heard it.

They wound a buffalo, in an open area, and wait for him to stop or ly down in the open. They then walk up to it, making sure MS himself is ready to dispatch it when it gets up.

If the buffalo goes into thick bush, they leave it to die a slow and miserable death.

On one occasion, I understand they managed to wound over 20 buffalo, just to get one charge on video. And MS and the owner of that block had a fist fight over it.

How true the above is I have no idea. But seeing how MS shoots all the buffalo that charge, he should be footing the bill, not the client.

But, again this is a rumor, he apparently charges $50,000 for a guaranteed buffalo charge. And anyone who agrees to that bloody deal deserves to hunt with the likes of MS.

Saeed,
If the rumors are true that is a horrible way to make a living.
JCN

I have never seen a Sullivan video, nor been to Africa. I do know there are as many different reasons and ways to kill animals as there are creatures willing to do so. Bull fighting, ending with the death of the animal, is a complete provocation to attack. I think you could go on and on about the different ways and styles, and purposes.

If you want to get honest, hunting with a modern DG rifle is totally unfair, if you want fair, use a sharp stick and a rock. Bakes, you might want to chime in here .

Making a movie has a different agenda than just hunting. Very few people have the exact same agenda while hunting, some agree, some don't.

Personally speaking, hunting with Sullivan sounds OK to me. Don't know about the movie part.

Hey Chuck,
John Francis Xavier Noak is my real name. Charlie is what everyone has called me for thirty years because of look and character similarities to my uncle Charles Diemer.
I'm the only doctor in Owyhee County, Idaho, and easy to find.
I'm not married, and my girlfriend would bail on me in a second if I ever thought of raising a hand to her.
If I rip my fellow man off I must not be very good at it, because I am driving a 14 year old Nissan pick-up truck that I will be doing my own valve job on next week. I do own some pretty nice rifles in the Sako genre. I'm actually wrestling with the personal ethics of whether it is right for me to take a job in the city with a real paycheck or to continue here where the money is awfully tight, but the need is also great.
My strongest feeling on this issue is wonderment. Why so many charges? Once is an event, twice is a pattern, thrice or more is a habit.
I won't point a finger until I feel comfortable that I have enough evidence in hand to form a definative judgement.
If my response to Saeed's post was rumor mongering, well, that is wrong, and I'll gladly take my hits.
Public discussions of ethics are not usually pleasant. I do find them personally helpful though. They get me thinking about what I do when I hunt, and how I hunt. I will stand firm on what I believe will be the ultimate tragedy of all this. No matter how skilled the hunter, when there is a whole lotta charges going on some one is going to get hurt.
I am guilty of some bad habits that could have a similar outcome. Example: A friend has a Grulla mare that hadn't been ridden for a while, so I took her out yesterday evening. She was feeling pretty froggy and tried to blow up on me just for fun a couple times. Nothing unusual, BUT, I was wearing tennis shoes. That is a bad habit that I need to stop before I get a leg hung up in a stirrup some day and get drug to death. The point is that it was the discussion of the Videos on this forum that sharpened my thinking about what I was doing wrong. When others depend on us in life I believe we have a duty to exercise a modicum of care for their sake, if not ours.
JCN

I don't doubt Sullivan's bravery�-but I do question his ethics. And the more I learn about his methods, the more I question them.

I'm pretty sure from what he publishes that I would not like him personally. I can't stand his overbearing and blatantly self-promotional style.

Have you read some of the nonsense on his website--the purple prose and self justifications, the disclaimers and other bullshit? Here are some quotes:

"I am driven by my passion and self-belief for what I know is right. Rather than deciding the fate of a wounded Cape buffalo by simply blasting him into oblivion on the follow-up, I would confront the grand warrior with my double rifle, and beckon him to choose his own destiny."

"My manner and method of hunting dangerous game is unique and I dismiss the notion of dispatching wounded Cape buffalo from a safe distance or from the back of a vehicle, when, with a bit more care, my client and I can walk up and give the bull the choice of how he is to die."

"[My] hunting methods are certainly controversial and not for everyone, but I know that deep down in the heart of every hunter who goes to Africa, that he secretly wants to test his mettle against wounded Cape buffalo and the deadliest of them all, rogue bull hippo on dry land."

Like many who post here, I have hunted cape buffalo. Do I "secretly want to test my mettle" against a wounded one? No, I want to kill any that I shoot at with one shot.

Do I "secretly want to test my mettle" against a deadly "rogue bull hippo on dry land?" Like many who post here, I have killed a hippo on dry land. Was he a "deadly rogue." I don't know. What makes a hippo a "deadly rogue?" Being on dry land?

How can anyone, other than a shameless huckster and self-promoter, write crap like that and expect to be taken seriously by anyone with any African dangerous game hunting experience, or by any ethical hunter anywhere?

I think it must be because he puts self-promotion and commercialism ahead of the suffering of the animals he "hunts." That bothers me.

Like anyone who's done very much hunting, I've wounded animals. But it's always been unintentional and it always makes me sick at heart. So far, I've been lucky, in that I've never lost one, but in some cases, it's taken many hours and even a day or two to track them down and kill them.

We owe any animal we hunt a swift death, not a "choice" as Sullivan so lamely puts it, and certainly not a lingering and tortured death while waiting to be given such a non-existent "choice."

Even if Sullivan doesn't intentionally wound or permit the wounding of an animal, he's still wrong when he passes up a finishing shot, just so that he can later provoke it into charging for the sake of filming a dramatic video.

If he does intentionally wound animals for his videos, then he's unpardonably wrong in my book. Any hunter worth the salt in the skinning shed should be willing to stand up anywhere and condemn anyone for doing such things.

It has long been my personal view that hunting ethics and hunting laws are different things. Hunting ethics are the limits and rules you establish for your self and no one else. Hunting laws are rules established by public entities for purposes that many times have little to do with hunting. If you abide by the law, and abide by your ethics code, and allow others to do the same, your doing OK. It is also best to hunt with someone that has a similar ethics code. This is all JMHO.

Well, the good news is, those individuals who cry ethics are in hiding. They spout off from behind a phony name or know good and well that their personal and professional lives are private. They can rip off their fellow man, or point fingers with the same hand they beat their wives with. All in apparent seclusion.

Spreading rumour, in my book, is the most unethical reprehensible activity the "normal" citizen participates in. So keep pointing those fingers.

Chuck

Chuck,

I agree completely. I have all of Sullivan's videos and if he makes another, I'll probably buy it too. I consider them no more than entertainment and sensationalism. Yes, you can see things in them that you can learn from...maybe what not to do if nothing else. I have been on three buffalo safaris so far and none are quite like I have seen in any of the videos.

I have always considered personal ethics as what you do when no one else is there to see what happens. I do know that "hunters" and "sportsmen" can be some of the most righteous, critical, judgemental, egotistical and downright jealous people of any group I have ever been associated with. We are very quick to judge everyone else by our own "ethical" standards.

Whether you kill with a rock, knife, bow or gun, killing is killing. We all kill for our own reasons/justifications and some of those are very selfish reasons at best. Not in the least is because we enjoy it! If I didn't, I wouldn't bother to leave town. Sure, enjoy the excitement of planning a hunting trip, watching the African sunset while sipping a cold Tusker, or just living the part of our favorite authors/heroes even if it's just for a short seven days at a time. But, if you just want to enjoy a trip...take your wife and kids to the beach and watch the sun set while while you're holding a cold Budweiser. It would be a hell of a lot cheaper. I dare say that Mark Sullivan enjoys what he does as well as the money he makes from it. As long as he does not violate the established/published laws...so be it. And if he does...that doesn't mean I have to also.

Bull1

Speaking of Chickenshit and wind-bag, I agree with Winston Churchill that Ghandi qualifies on both counts. So if I have to choose between someone who hated guns,drank his own piss, gave up sex, not to mention beer and pork rinds, I'll take Sullivan every time. jorge

Controversy is Mr. Sullivan's schtick. It's the polarization surrounding him which sets him apart. The result is fertile ground for greater earnings, as the former financial consultant is well aware. Surely, we don't require another go-around to grasp the concept. I think he's a cool guy and I'd jump at the chance to hunt with him, while keeping the philosophy away from the campfire.

M.S.? ONCE AGAIN? HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELPPPPP

I've talked with 2 people that have hunted with MS. One had a blast, said at one point Mark jumped out of the truck and started running next to it. Said he was definetly fun to be around.

The other was supposedly the PH for Mark's first trip to Africa. Didn't care for the man at all.

Personally, I'd have no problem hunting with him as long as he didn't pull any of his stunts around me. I respect everyone, even if I don't agree with them.