Safari

Come to Africa! Bask in the warmth and excitement of the bush. Enjoy the slights and sounds of an Africa you’ve only imagined! Visit the infamous Skeleton Coast or spend a day at the Cape Cross Seal Colony, breeding grounds for literately thousands of Cape Fur Seals. They won’t miss one or two more! See the graceful Gemsbok, the beautiful Hartman Mountain Zebra, and the powerful Greater Kudu!

Sure, some of them are on the endangered species list, but that’s no reason we can take a shot or two at them, and if by chance one happened to get hurt and die while we are there, we could skin it for you! No sense in letting it go to waste, when that lovely pelt could be hanging on your wall, looking handsome and regal. In addition you can take a photo with the poor beast and do it one last indignity as your lord over it with your gun while in authentic African safari attire! Come to Africa on safari and shoot stuff for fun! It’ll be a blast.

Doesn’t that sound like a hoot? I have to say I never understood the whole 'shooting animals for fun' bit. I guess it just isn’t my thing. I have no problem with hunting as a sport, honestly. If you are going to feed people with the animal, the animal doesn’t experience extended suffering, and it is on a legal hunting grounds within the correct season. I suppose in many ways the animals life is much more satisfying in the wild than one bred for livestock. At least they have some degree of enjoyment in their life. That is up to the point of being shot, by some guy in camouflage pants and a bright orange hat, who hasn’t showered in three days and is then is going to tie you to the top of his wifes station wagon and drag you home to hang on his wall. Then their quality of life dips a bit.

Clearly I am not a hunter. I have done a bit of shooting in my life though. All of if was at some inanimate object like a paper target or large metal fence. I now recall I once fired several rounds off at a pigeon colony that was on my roof. This was from a neighbors authentic Dasiy rifle BB gun. The pigeons didn’t seem to mind as I was such a bad shot I would have had more luck reasoning them off the roof, than hitting them with the gun. I told my neighbor that there was something wrong with the gun, and he said he knew exactly what was wrong with the gun and returned it to his garage.

I once did some work for an office that looked like an outpost on the Kenya gaming frontier. There were more lifeless bodies than a bingo parlor! I mean stuffed pheasants on the desks, lions heads and elephant tusks on the walls, and dozens of photos of men in khaki! I couldn’t help myself I had to ask. The owner told me his family had gone out on many safaris and even showed me a picture of his father with one foot triumphantly atop and toppled elephant. I didn’t know what to say, as he was my customer.

“Wow. Uh...That’s cool...”

“Nah. Not really. I mean, who do you think going to win? Hello, Dad’s got a freaking gun! I mean it was like, BAM! or maybe BAM, BAM! And then they took the picture. Big deal. Now if my father would have gone at him with a buck knife or something then that would have been cool, and worth a picture like this!”

He was right of course, and all I could think at the time was if that had happened I wonder if the elephant would have put up his fathers head in his study? I mean of course, after the triumphant picture!