People often say “what’s the coolest thing you’ve ever seen in the wild?” which triggers memories like Gorilla in the wild, or a 7 foot long rattle snake nail a rabbit mid-air (when I was about to shoot the rabbit). As hunters, we’re far more privilege to see magical moments than ‘birders’ or ‘photo-safari-goers’ -we’re not caravanning out ‘to the wild’… we’re walking amongst the beasts of this earth.
So, to answer the question, the coolest thing I’ve ever seen takes me back to Selous, Tanzania. My father and I were hunting for 21 days in pursuit of lion, leopard, buffalo, and countless plainsgame species. Dad & I split the license and I was fortunate to hunt buffalo and plainsgame.
It was finally my turn to hunt and we cut the tracks of a large buffalo herd. Slowly and methodically, with my .375 ready in-hand, we closed the distance. My professional hunter threw up his bino’s to assess the herd and simply ahhhhhh’d. Nervous and anxious I chambered a round only to have him whisper: “No! Look”…
I put down my .375 and saw the most magnificent thing –an albino Cape buffalo. Eager to shoot, my PH informed me that because she was a female and I could not kill her.
Knowing we were there, she simply watched us allowing us to appreciate her beauty for about 15 minutes having enough time to send a tracker to get the camera; unfortunately, he brought the video camera and the photo is extremely difficult to make out since it’s a frozen piece of the video.
In her life, because of her color, she had been targeted extensively by predators… and now, faced with a hunter, she once again was granted another day of life.
What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever seen in nature?
