Hwange (or Wankie)) National Park of western Zimbabwe is thelargest and most game-rich reserve of the country. Not farsouth of the splendid Victoria Falls of the Zambezi River

Hwange Park used to be the greatest tourist hot spot of Zimbabwe,featuring lots of magnificent sightseeing lodges before the tourismcollapsed. Hwange Park used to be world famous for its huge ele-phants, black-maned lion and high concentration of sable antelope..Also the local blood-line of buffalo is renowned for its huge body sizeand trophy potential. As well as the elephant they truly deserve the

honorable title Hwange Bulls. Although the area is rather dry the localSweetveld-grass offers quite a rich pasture, and in combination withsuperior genetic potential the wankie buffaloes probably producelarger trophies on average than the rest of the country.

To the East and Northeast the Bulawayo-Vic Falls railwaylineforms the boundary of the National Park. Some species, such as ele-phant and lion do not hesitate at all to cross over this artificially man-made thing. Buffalo do not like to walk across it but readily do if thewater and grass situation looks more promising on the other side.

Some entelope however, seems to have aninbred shyness against the railway line.Nevertheless, the areas adjacent to theHwange National Park are teeming withwildlife. Some of the so called railway farmsaccomodated such rich game populationsthat sightseeing lodges popped up likemushrooms after a warm summer rain afew years ago. These properties were lost tohunting, of course. We experienced a simi-lar movement towards sightseeing tourismin some of the best hunting areas of neigh-boring Botswana. Non-consumptivewildlife utilisation, such as sightseeingtourism and hunting are virtually impossi-ble on the same spot - so the huntersloose out in the most prolific game areas.

I have been to Zimbabwe many times,but always concentrated on hunting theZambezi Valley and escarpment as well as

Hwange Bulls by Harald Wolf

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private ranches/conservancies of the Lowveld. Ihad paid a brief visit to Hwange Park, but Inever had a closer look at the surroundinghunting areas as yet. Shortly before I left forZimbabwe I contacted Hwange Safaris, the newoperator of the government-owned safari con-cession of Deka, adjacent to the north ofHwange Park. The Deka concession is split inhalf and Hwange Safaris is operation in the socalled Deka-tail, bordering the park boundaryon 45 km. I had the idea to focus on sablehunting, thinking that the entire region acco-modates a good sable population. However,Allan Banks and Karel Strydom, the managingdirectors of Hwange Safaris, told me that I waswrong. Sable antelope are mainly concentratedbetween Gwayi River and the eastern park andin Matetsi, to the Northwest of Deka. Forunknown reasons the Deka-tail itself never hadany resident sable population. If clients want tohunt sable as well, Hwange Safaris cooperateswith one of the remaining railway farmstowards the Gwayi River. This property is notfenced and the game moves freely to and fromthe national park Unfortunately for me, a bushfire ran through this property lately and dis-troyed the grass, so all the sable moved backinto the park. Alternatively Karel tried his bestto secure a sable permit for me in Matetsi, butit did not work out at short notice.

The best option would have been tohunt elephant in Deka, since the area litterallyexperienced an invasion of elephant. Alas,Hwange Safaris had already two elephanthunters in camp and my scheduled time in thearea had been set with sable on my mind andnot for time-consuming elephant hunting -my pocket money was equally not set for ele-phant hunting either. However, my Africanjourneys are not really focused on my ownshooting any more but rather to gain fresh first-hand information forHatari Times, plus a few nice photos. So I decided to see as much ofDeka and try to hunt one of those Hwange buffalo bulls, if a goodchance would show up.

It seems that the buffalo populations in the hunting areasnorth of Hwange Park are slightly lower than in good areas of the

Zambezi drainage system. However, I had the impression that the aver-age buffalo trophy is a triffle larger than in the Zambezi Valley. Afterexamining quite a few trophies I also had the impression that the hornconfiguration of these Hwange Bulls has its peculiarities as well. Thehorn enlargement of the boss tends to extend further down, almostinto the curl, so that the tips appear to be more slender than they

actually are. If you compare typical ZambeziValley buffalo heads with those from theHwange Park area, you will notice the differ-ence at once. While specialized buffalo-onlyhunts in the valley are usually marketet asone-week hunts, I reckon one should ratherbook 10 days in the Hwange areas to bag agood trophy bull. Most of the hunting areasnorth of Wankie Park are conviniently access-able by road in a 1 to 1 1/2 h drive fromVictoria Falls International Airport. Those,who react allergically to insect bites willappreciate that there are no TseTse-flys in thearea.

The hunting area of Hwange Safaris con-sists of the Deka-tail, which is government-

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Two typical Hwange buffalo bulls at a waterpoint.

A typical Hwange Bull with a towering huge body and short, thick tusks. Those, who are notused to the gigantic size of these elephant, usually underestimate the ivory weight.

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owned land, and a communal area stretching northwards up to thelimit of the small mining town of Hwange. Theoretically, that makesfor 500.000 ha, but as with many hunting blocks, not the entireexpance provides an equally good hunting potential. The buffaloes aremore concentrated closer to the park boundary, while the vicinity ofthe Hwange coal mines receives a seasonal migration of elephants inquantities late in the dry season. Typically for most Zimbabwean biggame concessions, this is prodominantly a buffalo and elephant area,with only a limited amount of plainsgame, such as greater kudu,impala, warthog and duiker. Along the dry riverbeds there are goodbushbuck and klipspringer are found on the many rocky outcrops.Leopard hunting should be no problem, but eland and waterbuck arerare. Particularly the latter had been overhunted by the previous oper-ator. Sable, zebra and wildebeest elude the area. To cut a long storyshort, the Hwange Safari area is a typical concession to hunt the BigFour - if lion would be on quota.

The hunting blocks adjacent to the northern fringes ofHwange Park used to be the prime lion hunting areas of Zimbabwe,which were famous for their heavily maned lion. Alas, obviously bybribing high officials a South African safari booking agent recently hadhis clients shoot five times more than the allocated lion quota. Whenthe scandal surfaced all lion quotas were suspended in the entireregion for three years. A recent research in the northern park secitions

verified that the current population of adult male lion is far too low.Even if we neglect the illegal overshooting by a criminal operatorinsiders reckon that the official lion quota around Hwange Park hasbeen too high for years.

While the two elephant hunters Casper and André have toleave camp at 3:30 a.m. to reach a very remote corner of the huntingarea at first light, I can turn around and continue nroosing for anoth-er hour. However, I have to get out on the buffalo tracks also at firstlight, that Goodness closer to camp, since the temperatures willreach an unpleasent level around 10 a.m. This is the disadvantageof a late season hunt. I personally do not mind the heat, but inhot weather the bufffalo tend to ly down rather early, and it is fair-ly difficult to approach calmly ruminating buffaloes, which hearthe slightest sound of a hunter’s appoach.

My guide Craig Coid is an interesting fellow. He is afree-lancer, who does not guide hunters on back-to-back safaristhoughout the season. He also conducts personally guided rivertours on the Zambezi, and he is one of the few Zimbabwean PHswho has been abroad to other countries on several wildlife proj-ects. He has been to northern Cameroon and even the Pantanalof Basil on behalf of an ecotourism project connected tojaguars. So we do not run short on topics to talk about.

The first herd of buffalo we manage to stalk close-ly is surprisingly calm.Unfortunately, there are noshootable old bulls amongstthe 50 or 60 buffaloes. Almoston every drive when Casper andAndré leave or return to campthey bump into groups of old buf-falo bulls, close to the road.However, the same Dugga-Boys arecontinuously outwitting me. They obvi-ously know that I am not having an ele-phant tag in my pocket and that my gunis loaded with soft points to shoot buffa-lo.

Contrary to the ZambeziEscarpment, where prediminantlyso called sourveld grows - grasswhich is only pallatable when

Most of us are familiar with the size of African buffalo. If you consider that the bull elephant is walking behind the buffaloes you might have an idea of his enormous proportions.

PH Craig Coid with Casper’55-pounder.

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lush and green - the sweetveld of this area remains nourishable when dry.This is why you do not burn sweetveld areas. If late season bush fires runthrough sweetveld areas the game moves out or by necessaty travels overlong distances between water and remaining pasture. If you pick up freshspoor in the morning under these conditions you have to walk long dis-tances too to catch up with the buffalo. More often than not you will catchup with them too late. It is much easier to approach buffaloes on the movethan trying to stalk them when they are laying down. When they find a suit-able place to stay for the heat of the day, they usually walk in a semi circleback to their own tracks, particularly after they have been hunted for sometime. If you tecking your game, you expect to see it up front. All of a sud-den, you hear a warning snort and see the buffalo stampeding to your leftor right or even behind you. Clever bastards they are!

Late season buffalo hunts are usually difficult, particularly old bullsbecoming pretty cunning after beeing hassled and hunted previously.Additionally, the unstable late season wind makes things even worse. Aftermy first day of buffalo hunting I realised that four days would be insufficientto bag a good old Hwange Bull. Remember that my time frame was origi-nally set to hunt sable antelope. Only a stroke of very good luck would havesolved the problem. I should have made my homework well before headingto Hwange.

On one of my buffalo tracking excersises I had a very unusualencounter. Suddenly a huge animal crashed through the thick bush a fewpaces in front of us uttering a loud weird sound like a combination pig-likequeeling and snorting. When I saw the vanishing contours of a huge graysomething, I realised that I had flushed a sleeping black rhino. A few sec-onds later we found the characteristic black rhino toilet where these rarecreatures mark their territory.

Throughout the entire Hwange Park as well as in the adjacent hunt-ing blocks water is a rare and precious commodity. Due to the desolatefinancial situation of Nat. Parks the waterholes are not constantly refilled bypumping up groundweater any more. The elephant are forced to wander farinto neighboring Botswana, and some of the old bulls never make it backto the safety of Hwange Park. Buffaloes do not move that far and loose con-dition in prolonged times of drought. Many of the yougsters die. Fuel ispresently difficult to buy in Zimbabwe, no matter how much you are pre-

pared to pay, but yet Hwange Safaris feels the urge to pump waterwith a Diesel pump. The water troffs are a good starting point for

tracking buffalo and elephant. One water place close to the rail-way line showed fresh footprints of three enormous bull ele-phant, but these wise old tuskers only visited the water undercover of the night and always returned to the park well beforedawn. There were also a couple of small pools left in the dryriverbeds of the Lukozi and Pongoro rivers. Only along the so

called Paradise Road there was a chain of still running springs.However, the surrounds did not look like paradise at all. Countless ele-

phant had passed through recently, rendering all trees into mere skelettons.Since there was still water aplenty further north in the communal

land up to the Hwange coal mines, this part of the hunting area becameoverrun by elephant. There were elephant behind every bush. There were so

many that tracking a single animal became impossible due to too manycriss-crossing and overlapping spoors. I really regreted not havingenough funds on hand to go after elephant.

Our elephant hunters returnd to camp in a jolly good mood.Casper had shot a very nice bull with rather long tusks weighting 55pounds each. A very respectable trophy bull these days. Since trackingan individual bull was not possible they had just walked carefully

through the thick Jesse and luckily bumped into a group of old bulls.Casper’s son in law André shot his tusker the next day. It was a real giant,

one of those typical Hwange Bulls, with short and thick tusks tipping thescales at a triffle over 50 pounds.

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Where herds of hungry elephant went through the vegetationlooks like a heavily bombed battlefield..

right:Three Hwange Bulls, two buffalo + Karel Strydom, M.D. of Hwange Safaris.

left: The moisture of a short shower made a python leave its hiding place.

We flushed a black rhino and found its typical territory markings.

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André with his enormous Hwange Bull. The shortand thick tusks went 50 pounds each.

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If you have watched 300 or 400 nativescutting up the carcass of an elephant before, youthink you have experienced the wildest and blood-iest frenzi possible. Far from that! Casper’s andAndré’s elephant each attracted crowds of at least1,500 meat hungry people from the nearby coalmines. Even Game Scouts firing waring shots in theair and a couple of policemen were utterly helplessand could not keep the mob under control. Wordsare not strong enough to describe the scene. Ah,too much nyama!

On our way back to camp a first thun-derstorm built up, precusor of the rainy season.The accompanying shower was a short one,though. Nevertheless, one could feel the greatrelief throughout the vaste bush. A undiscribablesweet and pacifying odor arose from the burntdusty ground. The moisture lured out a lovely pat-terned python from its hiding place. My attemptsto take some close-up photos horrified my track-ers. Like all Africans they were terribly frightened byany snake, even a harmless python.