A chance meeting around a safari campfire on the banks of the Mupamadazi River leads to The Last Ivory Hunter: The Saga of Wally Johnson, a grand tale of African adventure by renowned hunting author Peter Hathaway Capstick. Wally Johnson spent half a century in Mozambique hunting white gold—ivory. Most men died at this hazardous trade. He’s the last one able to tell his story. In hours of conversations by mopane fired in the African bush, Wally described his career—how he survived the massive bite of a Gaboon viper, buffalo gorings, floods, disease, and most dangerous of all, gold fever. He bluffed down 200 armed poachers almost single-handedly, and survived rocket attacks from communist revolutionaries during Mozambique’s plunge into chaos in 1975. In Botswana, at age 63, Wally continued his career. Though the great tuskers have largely gone and most of Wally’s colleagues are dead, Wally has survived. His words are rugged testimony to an Africa that is now a distant dream.
Rod Parker is an adventurous young man who finds himself bored with his tedious job at a Pennsylvania steel mill. Then one day in the summer of 1900 he quits his job, leaves his long time girlfriend Elizabeth Durham and strikes out on his own to seek his fortune in the hunting fields of Africa. In Africa he lives out his childhood dream of making a living in the wilderness where he soon discovers that learning this trade the hard way can be an extremely dangerous pursuit, but he is a fast learner and of adventurous heart and he soon comes to realize his dream of wealth and earning a living with a rifle. In time he discovers that money cannot bring happiness and contentment as he lives a life of heartbreak and tragedy. Despite the loss of his wife and his best friend, he trudges onward in his restless pursuit of money and adventure. Then after fourteen years of hard work and heartache he finally discovers that true happiness lies in his relationship with others and not in the tremendous wealth that he has acquired. Ivory Hunter is a fast paced action/adventure tale of courage and loyalty set during the golden age of the ivory trade. Be with Rod and his faithful tracker on the trail of big bull tuskers and feel the tension as he levels his big bore express rifle on the dangerous beast bearing down on him.
One of the greatest living writers of African hunting and safari experience, Peter Hathaway Capstick tells the story of Walter Walker Johnson's life. Gold prospector, elephant hunter, professional guide, Johnson's tale is one of unique excitement and danger. 16 pages of photos.
Read about the most dangerous animal, getting downwind of your elephant, how to track a man-eater, how hippos navigate, when poisonous snakes attack, where to aim when an animal is charging you, and why zebras are bad-mannered.
Ian Nyschens (pronounced "nations") shot as many elephants as Walter Bell did--well over 1,000--and under much more difficult circumstances. His book will rank or surpass the best elephant-ivory hunting books published in the twentieth century. Remarkably, his adventures took place much later than the likes of Bell, Sutherland, Neumann, and others. The stories of his hunts with his double rifle are sure to impress. Ian's career as an elephant hunter began in 1947 in Southern Rhodesia when he found a companion--Faanie Joosten--and the pair of them started hunting for ivory for a living. They roamed far and wide, often outside of the law, as far north as southern Tanzania and as far east as the coast of Mozambique. But Ian's stronghold was the thick jess bush of the Zambezi Valley, a place he loved more than any other. There, visibility was so poor that sometimes a hunter could be close enough to touch an elephant with the barrel of his rifle before he could see it. Ian's life was one fantastic epic adventure after another. He once faced a stampede of seventeen furious elephants in reeds over twelve feet tall and had to shoot a "wall" of elephants to prevent him and his companions from being overrun. On another occasion Ian and Faanie developed a method of hunting crocodiles for their skins that entailed walking chest-deep into the Zambezi River at night. They would stand next to an anchored hippo leg and "brain" the crocs. In the end that got a bit too much even for Ian, and he gave it up as being too hazardous. Ian was married for a time, but his lifestyle was not conducive to domestic bliss, and the marriage did not last. Once the Kariba Dam was completed in 1959, it flooded a great deal of his beloved Zambezi Valley, and Ian's world began to shrink. He continued to shoot elephant under the control scheme set by Rhodesian authorities, but his footloose days were at an end. He joined the wildlife department as a game ranger for a while, but his unsociable character made for a short career. He shot most of his elephants with a Rigby .450 31⁄4. He used the Rigby so much that the barrels separated from use (the solder disengaged), and he had to send it back to London to have it repaired. Not many people use a double rifle to that extent! Ian Nyschens was the most notorious elephant poacher in Rhodesia until the time he was finally appointed a warden to help protect the game. This is a highly entertaining story of an irascible loner whose violent adventures make Jesse James sound like a Sunday school teacher! Footnote: Sadly, Ian Nyschens died on 6 December 2006 in Harare, Zimbabwe. May he now tread in the eternal hunting grounds where all elephants carry tusks of a minimum of eighty pounds per side. Farewell old friend, you will be missed by many.
In The Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter, legendary hunter W.D.M. Bell takes readers on a thrilling journey through the African wilderness. With vivid descriptions and captivating anecdotes, Bell shares his encounters with majestic elephants, dangerous predators, and the challenges of survival in the untamed landscape. This compelling narrative offers a glimpse into a bygone era of exploration and the complex relationship between humans and the natural world.
“Exquisitely written, ferocious, and haunting. Don’t miss this one!” —Sarah J. Maas, New York Times bestselling author of the Throne of Glass series “Julie Eshbaugh is a unique new voice with talent enough for a whole team of writers. I’m still under the spell of her storytelling.”—Amie Kaufman, New York Times bestselling co-author of Illuminae and These Broken Stars Loosely inspired by Pride and Prejudice, Ivory and Bone is an enthralling tale of high-stakes survival, blinding betrayal, and star-crossed love. Hunting, gathering, and keeping his family safe—that’s the life seventeen-year-old Kol knows. Then bold, enigmatic Mya arrives from the south with her family, and Kol is captivated. He wants her to trust him, but any hopes of impressing her are ruined when he makes a careless—and nearly grave—mistake. What Kol doesn’t know is that underneath Mya’s cool disdain is a history wrought with loss that comes to light when another clan arrives. With them is Lo, an enemy from Mya’s past who Mya swears has ulterior motives. As Kol grows closer to Lo, tensions between Mya and Lo escalate until violence erupts. Faced with shattering losses, Kol is forced to question every person he’s trusted. One thing is for sure: this was a war that Mya or Lo—Kol doesn’t know which—had been planning all along. With riveting action and illustrative prose that leaps from the page, Julie Eshbaugh will have readers mesmerized and thirsty for more…So don’t miss the sequel, Obsidian and Stars.
Being an Account of Three Years' Ivory-Hunting Under Mount Kenia and Among the Ndorobo Savages of the Lorogi Mountains. Including a Trip to the North of Lake Rudolph
Seventeen hunter-scholars explore the hunting experience and question common negative stereotypes Despite the academy having a reputation for supporting broad and open inquiry in scholarship, some academics have not extended this open-minded support to colleagues' personal pursuits. A variety of scholars enjoy hunting, which has been stereotyped by some as an activity of the unsophisticated. In Hunting and the Ivory Tower, Douglas Higbee and David Bruzina present essays by seventeen hunter-scholars who explore the hunting experience and question negative assumptions about hunting made by intellectuals and academics who do not hunt. Higbee and Bruzina suspect most academics' understanding of hunting is based on brief television news reports of hunter-politicians and commercials for reality TV shows such as Duck Dynasty. The editors contend that few scholars appreciate the complexities of hunting or give much thought to its ethical, ecological, and cultural ramifications. Through this anthology they hope to start a conversation about both hunting and academia and how they relate. The contributors to this anthology are academics from a variety of disciplines, each with firsthand hunting experience. Their essays vary in style and tone from the scholarly to the personal and represent the different ways in which scholars engage with their avocation. The essays are grouped into three sections: the first focuses on the often-fraught relation between hunters and academic culture; the second section offers personal accounts of hunting by academics; and the third portrays hunting from an explicitly academic point of view, whether in terms of value theory, metaphysics, or history. Combined, these essays render hunting as a culturally rich, deeply personal, and intellectually satisfying experience worthy of further discussion. A foreword is provided by Robert DeMott, the Edwin and Ruth Kennedy Distinguished Professor at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. He is a teacher, writer, critic, and internationally respected expert on novelist John Steinbeck.
