As it is a year until my first African safari, just wondering why in all the many African hunting DVDs I have watched the animals are loaded, often at great effort into the hunting car with the guts still in? I guess it keeps the car a little cleaner and certainly there are enough scavengers that would clean up the gut pile but it just seems strange to me.

I only had one experience in Africa with field dressing. I shot my buff some miles from the truck. He was left as shot and I waited for the truck to come back to me.(Several hours) I stood "guard duty" along with a Park ranger (who had a dubious looking AK-47) The buff was field dressed on the spot when the truck and trackers came back. Intestines were cleaned out (in a small water hole nearby)and the buff was neatly divided into two halves and lifted into the truck. (I remember that the trackers threw the lungs into the water hole and the PH remarking that if there was a croc in the water hole that would bring him up! The trackers worked in field dressing very neatly and I watched the whole procedure very closely (I had field dressed white tails all my life)and was impressed by how neatly everything went.

For one thing the guts are saved and eaten by the safari crew so it is much easier to transport them in the abdominal cavity. Even when we shot a buffalo far from where the safari vehicle could go the trackers still packed out everything except the stomach contents.

Mark

quote:

Originally posted by MARK H. YOUNG:
For one thing the guts are saved and eaten by the safari crew so it is much easier to transport them in the abdominal cavity. Even when we shot a buffalo far from where the safari vehicle could go the trackers still packed out everything except the stomach contents.

Mark

Absolutely! Nothing is wasted in Africa, and the rumen is far easier to keep clean in its original container!

My Cape Buffalo was gutted where he fell, and the two halves and the gutpile were loaded in the Bakkie.
All of the Plains Game I shot in RSA in April were hauled in first though. I would guess it has to do with caping and care of the hide for a mount/rug.

Rich
DRSS

My experience is that anything bigger than an Impala was field dressed on the spot, and the smaller stuff was dressed immediately if it was to be eaten by us, unless we were within 15 mins or so of camp.

I don't think I have ever seen wanton waste of an animal in Africa- the camp staff all want the protein too badly. As mentioned before, all the innards were collected and brought back, usually with more care than they showed the rest of the carcass (after all, it was "theirs")

On the other hand, if it was a bait animal, they usually left it alone both because it was felt that the innards rotting a bit helped "season" things and also, to some extent, the trackers looked at it as (assuming we were going back to camp in the meantime) as someone else's job.

It really is something to see a hippo turned into a pile of stomach contents and a blood spot in maybe 30 minutes.

In most rural communities in Africa, India, East Asia, Greece etc. the intestine and other offal such as eye balls, testicles, tongue, spleen, pancreas, kidney, liver, heart, cartilage / sinew etc are cooked and eaten. Some people may not eat the lungs. I have shot deer in rural India and nothing is wasted.

In my experience in Botswana, everything that I shot was gutted in the field. The trackers took stomach, intestines etc, but the animal itself was field dressed.

quote:

Originally posted by Nakihunter:
In most rural communities in Africa, India, East Asia, Greece etc. the intestine and other offal such as eye balls, testicles, tongue, spleen, pancreas, kidney, liver, heart, cartilage / sinew etc are cooked and eaten. Some people may not eat the lungs. I have shot deer in rural India and nothing is wasted.

Personally I think that's a lot of tripe.

Taxidermy wise, it's far better to field dress the animal if at all possible.

SteveGI,

Thanks for giving me a good laugh!

We had shot an eland earlier in the day and my PH said let's go see if we can shoot one of the small antelopes. It was late in the afternoon.

So off we go with only one tracker, the other guys stayed behind to work on the eland.

So were came on some zebra and I shot one.

My PH went and got the land cruiser. Long story short, the ground was really broken up and the zebra died in the worse possible place, they had left all the gear (come alongs, rope and the like) back at the skinning shed and the three of us couldn't drag the zebra to the land cruiser over that ground.

After several rather exhaustive attempts to get the zebra to the land cruiser, the PH told the tracker to gut the animal. I don't necessarily know about other animals but zebras get a whole lot lighter without their entrails.

My Namibian PH (he was also the landowner) had a biltong side business. After I shot my gemsbok, he instructed the two trackers to carry it back to the skinning shed, a distance of a few miles at least, while he and I went off in search of a mountain zebra. They emptied the stomach contents only, split it into fore and aft halves, and carried it out...it took them 8 hours!

It amazed me that in Africa NOTHING was wasted. The plainsgame that we shot, were loaded into the truck and taken back to camp intact. I have heard that in the more remote places, a shot is like a dinner bell. People just start coming out of the brush. Others on this forum probably can verfiy if that is true.

on my hunt we had most if not all animals dressed skinned and salted within 2 hrs. to make sure we did not get hair slipping as well as keeping the meat fresh

FWIW, This http://www.shakariconnection.c...ng-trophies-dvd.html might be of interest to anyone who cares about their trophies.

throphy wive's demand constant infusions of large amounts of cash

My experience has been that only large animals like Cape Buffalo and in some cases Eland and Zebra will be partially dressed in the field due to size. As previously stated the entire animal will be consumed/used, in some manner, and if it can be taken back it is.

The exception to this rule is in South Africa on some of the largest ranches that have a butcher house and the meat is sold through a distribution chain all animals are gutted and the stomach comtents are left in the field due to a risk of bacterial contamination by a particular bacteria contained there in.

It was getting late when I shot my cape buff and the PH wanted to leave everything for the next day.

I persuaded him to get the cape off in case of hair slip but he wouldn't let the men do the gralloch because that would bring predators.

The skinner always caped out before gutting any animal, believing any contact with gastric juices was a risk to the skin.

All the meat was salvaged and we even ate the buffalo's cajones (salty and kinda gritty). The kitchen used some long, slow cooking method and I don't think it was a health hazard. At home I wouldn't take these chances, though.
- Paul

Only been on two safaris, but in SA and in Zim, the only animal that was field dressed was my hippo. In SA, all 16 PG from Kudu, Zebra to Steenbuck were loaded whole and dressed out back at camp. In Zim, my Cape Buffalo was loaded whole and like I said only the Hippo was field dressed. And as that was, it took two land cruisers to get him back to camp.

Jeff

My skinner and tracker climbed inside my big bull giraffe and rolled out the stomach. Opened it and dumped out a huge pile of browse and then proceeded to put all of the other rumen into it. They skinned and quartered the rest.

I’ll never forget the sight of 3 chanting and beaming blacks with a 7’ neck roast on their shoulders headed for a heaped up land cruiser.

Otherwise every other animal was loaded whole and on occasion carried rather than dragged when the truck could not be brought in close!


I think I learned what "Damn picky taxidermist!!!" sounds like in Zulu!

Best regards
Mike Ohlmann
Mike's Custom Taxidermy Inc.
4102 Cane Run Rd.
Louisville KY 40216
502-448-1309
Mike@mikescustomtaxidermy.com
www.mikescustomtaxidermy.com