Whiskey and Palaver at the Dying of the Sun

Whiskey and Palaver at the Dying of the Sun

“We had no lion tag and there was no game scout to give permission.” Moses threw another load of sticks upon the coals. The fire crackled, sparks flew and smoke rolled. Zambia, in the valley of the Great Zambezi. Out on the sandbars, hippos were grunting up...
The Big Sixth Should Be a Hippo

The Big Sixth Should Be a Hippo

Hippos will fool you. Fat, slow, benign and slightly cartoonish. Except they aren’t. This two-and-a-half-ton herbivore kills more humans every year than lions, leopards, elephant and buffalo combined. The Big Five should be the Big Six, and the biggest of the...
Death in the Wild African Dust

Death in the Wild African Dust

We were standing three abreast when a cow charged through the dust. It was Rick Stoeckel’s second African hunt, as with most he had cut his teeth on plains game and couldn’t wait to return for something big. By the time our plane bounced down hard on the old...
The Fury of A Lion

The Fury of A Lion

We were camped on the edge of Pom Pom Lagoon in the game-filled Matsebe concession, located deep in northern Botswana’s 4,000-square-mile Okavango Delta. Here, brush-covered islands, mopane sand and big herds of buffalo, primary prey of the area’s magnificent lions....
Legends of the Elephant Tail

Legends of the Elephant Tail

Aspiring elephant hunters dream of large tusks and an elephant hair bracelet on their right arm. Before the turn of the 20th century, natives living in remote regions of Africa begrudgingly shared their home ranges with elephants. They were often forced to defend...
The Other Side of the Dream

The Other Side of the Dream

Webster was adrift in time again. For 30 minutes, or it could have been hours, the leopard fed. The sun was setting behind the dangling bait, a shoulder from the zebra Webster had killed two days before. Forty yards away, Webster watched through a peephole in the...
Larry Norton and The Searching Spirit

Larry Norton and The Searching Spirit

Larry Norton’s subjects are not only anatomically proportionate but portrayed in body positions as they appear in the wild. One notes the malevolent cast of a lurking croc, the rubble of scattered bones, virtually hears the forlorn call of the turtle dove....
Taking On the Biggest Game

Taking On the Biggest Game

Young men unthinkingly take chances by driving fast cars and chasing fast women because they believe they are immortal, that they will never die. More mature men choose to openly embrace danger because they know they are not and most surely will. Hunting an animal...
Capturing Life On the Edge

Capturing Life On the Edge

Africa, the Dark Continent. Ask anyone what comes to mind when they think of Africa, and they will say its wild animals. And invariably its dangerous game. As a wildlife biologist turned wildlife photographer, megafauna and man-eaters are what first drew me to visit...
David Langmead and Dangerous Liaisons

David Langmead and Dangerous Liaisons

“If I have any legacy, I want it to be that of an artist who was passionately in love with Africa.” Ross Parker knows the color of truth in African wildlife art. As a native Zimbabwean raised in the dust of ruby red sunsets, he says no day in the bush is...