"If It Pays, It Stays"

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Sept. 8, 2003
SAL ISLAND, Africa — I saw her walk through the gate, so I know she's on this South African Airlines 747 jet somewhere. During a midnight refueling stop on Africa's Atlantic coast, I prowl the aisles, downstairs and up, first-class and economy, stalking a stranger I perceive to be a kindred spirit.

But to no avail. The Birkenstock-clad woman toting the Defenders of Wildlife backpack has vanished.

I slink back past my seatmates — both big game hunters — and buckle up. They've attracted a male crowd to our aisle with much bluster and boasting about trophy kills.

Having endured 10 hours of hard-core hunting talk — and facing 12 more before arriving in Johannesburg — I grit my canines and unpack the half-dozen conservation tomes weighing down my carry-on, the best of which are David Quammen's new Monster of God, about man-eating predators, and Riding the Tiger, co-edited by John Seidensticker, chairman of the Save the Tiger Fund.

I'm trying to get a handle on why the tiger, whose full-time job is hunting, killing and eating meat, is at the brink of extinction. But I keep getting distracted by my seatmates — whose hobby it is to hunt, kill, and eat meat.

Their day jobs must be pretty good ones. If they wanted to shoot rhinos in Africa, it would set them back $60,000 a pop (for guides, permits and licenses). But they're not after rhinos, says my seatmate who does not notice me flinch when he tells me he plunked down $6,000 for the privilege of shooting one cape buffalo.

He shows me a picture of the fearsome creature whose curly horns — so ridiculously and fussily flipped up, like an outdated hairdo — may soon adorn the wall of his South Florida hacienda.

"Africa is the ultimate for hunters," agree my other seatmates who, having shot everything from elk to pigs all the way from Saskatchewan to Florida, clearly know of what they speak. They're flying from Miami first to South Africa and then to Mozambique where they're on a hunting holiday for the next three weeks.

High on my seatmate's Africa wish list: two zebras, the skins to be used for rugs and pillows. And if he gets his cape buffalo early enough, he says, he just might have a go at killing the "man-eating" lion in Mozambique that his outfitter told him all about.

"It's best to get them mounted back in the United States," his buddy advises, chewing knowingly on a toothpick. The buddy hunted in Africa last year and learned the ropes. He's going to be picky this year, he insists. Last year he wasted time and money by shooting non-trophy game. Not this time, though.

My seatmate sees me reading and offers that he likes Hemingway. His tray table is strewn with hunting magazines. Wedged in the seat, separating him from me, is a thick text entitled The Perfect Shot. It shows and tells, in graphic detail, where to put the cross hairs for all manner of African game. I flip through anatomical drawings of the wildebeest, sable antelope, leopard, lion and elephant.

"ELEPHANTS?!" I can't help bursting out. "You hunt elephants?"

The world's largest land mammals cost $30,000 to shoot, says my seatmate who assures me he likes elephants. Considers them sacred, no less. They're not on his list.

Whew.

Back to the book. It is much more than pretty pictures illustrating the hugeness of elephant hearts. It is written: "If it pays, it stays," and this is heralded as the keynote statement for the survival of African wildlife. It says that the funds generated from sport hunting, fueled by foreign currency, support species conservation. It concludes "the ultimate survival of Africa's wildlife population depends on hunters."

Well. Whew again. It's good to know that African wildlife is in such voracious hands. But I'm still left with my concerns about tigers. They're not African, of course. They're Asian animals, the ultimate survival of which is a great big question mark. Three (perhaps four) of the eight subspecies of tiger have gone extinct in this century.

Hunting them is against the law.

So who will save the tigers? My bet is that no person or interest group, no matter how well intentioned, can reasonably hope to emerge as the sole savior — not ecotourism folks, not conservationists, not hunters. But perhaps if we all start working for the common good of the adaptable cat, we might begin to come to grips with an incredibly complex issue.

I think I'll keep it quiet, for the time being, that there are tigers in Africa, now, and that they're learning the lay of the land — sans pressure as trophy game. Hopefully, I'll run into the Birkenstock-shod Defender of Wildlife at the baggage claim and, after my seatmates have retrieved their rifles and cleared customs, ask if she has any thoughts about all of this. ...

Tomorrow: On to Londolozi Game Reserve, a former hunting farm and now a model of ecotourism where visitors can view and photograph (but not hunt) Africa's big five: elephants, lions, leopards, rhinoceros and cape buffalo.

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