The disposal is a little more complicated than when dealing with an impala …you are right , you would end up with a lot of waste , also added to that the fact that all the noise and people from the village swarming around , guts and the bones from the carcass stinks for weeks ..

We have a custom built elephant trailer with a HUGE hydraulic winch .. towed by a 4 wheel drive tractor and even then often needing one or even two landcruisers in a “train” to get through the thick sand with a whole elephant on the trailer …

Step one is to chop a large road and turning circle up to the back end of the elephant .



Step two is to lower the back “tailgate”


A large slit is cut under the tail of the bull .

The brakes are taken off the tractor and the winch begins to pull , it will pull the tractor back and the pointed tailgate is forced under the bull.


As the traction reaches critical mass a container of water is poured onto the steel slide to help with friction …


And hey presto you have an elephant on a trailer!!



Then it is driven right to the village and all the cutting , meat and trophy recovery takes place just two miles from the main villages …its got to be close enough to be convenient to the villagers but far enough that it doesn’t attract undue attention from predators …


As soon as the people have taken all the meat leaving just the ribcage , stomach pouch and bones , the vultures and hyaenas take over !


Then at the end of the season all the leftover bones are rounded up and burnt and the area (usually about two acres) rejuvenates with the rains !!!!

Thanks for sharing Ivan

nice...must say the Africans are very resourceful people.

Pretty cool Ivan. Thanks for sharing!

GOod stuff...

How is a village chosen to receive the elephant? What if there are multiple villages in an area?

Great photos! Thanks for posting them!

Now that was interesting.

Thanks Ivan very interesting.

Thanks, Ivan !
Very interesting !!

VERY GOOD POST!
THANKS

Great pictures. I've always wondered how you recovered such a large animal. That last picture is awesome.
Thanks for sharing.
Robert

Bunch of mother in law birds!

Interesting photos Ivan
Thanks

Now I know 100% Ivan didn't go to UT. Only an Aggie could come up with that setup.
Thanks for the engineering lesson.

Dean

very informative and well done. Vultures remind me of my ex-wife.

It appears that the tail is intact. Didn't anyone take possesion of the beast???

Very efficient. However, part of me thinks the farm tractor takes something away from the sense of wilderness and remoteness that is usually associated with elephant hunting.

What will the next innovation be - a bulldozer to clear the path to the recovery site? Perhaps a helicopter to whisk the hunter back to camp so he or she will not be late for dinner?

Hopefully none of that will happen but labor saving innovation seems to be a normal progression for hunters in general.

Witness the evolution of deer hunting equipment such as pre-manufactured elevated stands, feeders, trail cameras, elaborate lodges, 4 wheelers, trucks with elevated stands built on them etc. I bet most deer hunters do not even butcher their own deer these days and half wouldn't even know how to do it.

To me, Africa has been a place to get away from all that stuff and hunt with the simplicity that I used to when I could walk out the back door with a 22 and bring a rabbit back to the family for supper. Oh well, maybe there is still .... Alaska?

Palmer
I failed to understand your thinking on this.
Whether it is a steenbuck or an elephant, I'm not the one that is going to process it in Africa, the locals are.
When we kill lesser animals we haul them to the skinning shed in the hunting truck. Should we instead process everything at the kill site & backpack it out?
I for one think that the use of equipment is a good thing & it certainly would make it much easier on those that are accually doing the work.
Yes, in the past, I processed my own deer meat, now I find it easier to just pay someone to do it.

Thx Ivan, its what I expected from a professional ele hunting operation!

Who is the lightey on the 3rd pic standing on top of the el? I can just immagine how excited and important he was feeling at that moment!

Palmer, the recovery process that Ivan describes is a necessity for any operation that relies on selling 30+ high success ele hunts a season from one area. If you just let that amount of carcasses lie around in the bush, the eles would vacate the area pretty soon! They don't like the smell of fresh blood from their own........

The important thing to remember about this post is that for every elephant, picture 1 (sans the trailer) is its future, either by natural death or poaching or hunting. If by natural death or poaching, you can skip straight to the vultures. However, given an elephant death by hunting, you have the pictures in between showing what conservation and utilization is all about. There is also the economic factor that helps to keep herds healthy and poaching at bay.

Great post. Reminds me of a quote by Howard Hill when asked what happens to the elephant after you kill it and he said in effect "Ma'am, after the Africans are done with it, the only evidence there was ever an elephant is a greasy spot on the ground." Good stuff.

quote:

Originally posted by Palmer:
Very efficient. However, part of me thinks the farm tractor takes something away from the sense of wilderness and remoteness that is usually associated with elephant hunting.

What will the next innovation be - a bulldozer to clear the path to the recovery site? Perhaps a helicopter to whisk the hunter back to camp so he or she will not be late for dinner?

Hopefully none of that will happen but labor saving innovation seems to be a normal progression for hunters in general.

Witness the evolution of deer hunting equipment such as pre-manufactured elevated stands, feeders, trail cameras, elaborate lodges, 4 wheelers, trucks with elevated stands built on them etc. I bet most deer hunters do not even butcher their own deer these days and half wouldn't even know how to do it.

To me, Africa has been a place to get away from all that stuff and hunt with the simplicity that I used to when I could walk out the back door with a 22 and bring a rabbit back to the family for supper. Oh well, maybe there is still .... Alaska?

I agree here.I also get turned off by trail cams, pre-baiting and scopes.

quote:

Originally posted by shootaway:

quote:

Originally posted by Palmer:
Very efficient. However, part of me thinks the farm tractor takes something away from the sense of wilderness and remoteness that is usually associated with elephant hunting.

What will the next innovation be - a bulldozer to clear the path to the recovery site? Perhaps a helicopter to whisk the hunter back to camp so he or she will not be late for dinner?

Hopefully none of that will happen but labor saving innovation seems to be a normal progression for hunters in general.

Witness the evolution of deer hunting equipment such as pre-manufactured elevated stands, feeders, trail cameras, elaborate lodges, 4 wheelers, trucks with elevated stands built on them etc. I bet most deer hunters do not even butcher their own deer these days and half wouldn't even know how to do it.

To me, Africa has been a place to get away from all that stuff and hunt with the simplicity that I used to when I could walk out the back door with a 22 and bring a rabbit back to the family for supper. Oh well, maybe there is still .... Alaska?

I agree here.I also get turned off by trail cams, pre-baiting and scopes.

Me too. And using rifles and smokeless powder, what is hunting coming to? I have also noticed most hunters wearing shoes. Sheesh. I hear some hunters put their meat in coolers for goodness sakes instead of smoking it over a fire. For me, just give me a slingshot and loin cloth . . .

Mike,

You in a loin cloth and Buzz in his mankini?

The sensory overload on an elephant caused by that sight would explode its brain, that may work better than the 577.

Ivan,

As usual nice pictures and good concept.

At a minimum, any elephant would be stricken blind.

mike ...now we know your secret weapon and methodology to always coming home with such great elephant !!!! being that i only ever hunt for the camera (as we all know )... i cant expose my scrawny body but would like to try it sometime

quote:

Originally posted by ivan carter:
mike ...now we know your secret weapon and methodology to always coming home with such great elephant !!!! being that i only ever hunt for the camera (as we all know )... i cant expose my scrawny body but would like to try it sometime

The only thing with the "mankini" is that your voice changes to high falsetto. Not good for TV.