|
|
|
Sofala Newsletters>
Bushmen Skills vs. Trail Camera Technology
March 8, 2011
Modern Trail Cameras vs. the Skills of the Ancient Bushmen.
A recent activity that has almost become standard procedure at most deer camps in the United States is the use of the trail camera. I remember walking in the woods near Kosciusko MS last December with a friend and two time hunter with Sofala Safaris, hoping to see some great pictures of white tail deer. With great curiosity we checked each trail camera to see who and what had been making their rounds. In Africa the use of the trail camera is not a familiar practise and it is very difficult to find one in any hunting store.
Perhaps there are reasons why trail cameras are not used all that frequently. Here in South Africa the dry winters allow hunters and trackers to look at numerous tracks made in the sand or the famous African red dirt near water holes and game trails. Sometimes trackers would sweep the sandy trails near waterholes to clear out old tracks and create a smooth surface so that they can come back later and examine new tracks made by animals that came by the specific area. Trackers who live on game reserves have remarkable abilities to predict animal behaviour, but they do not come close to the little people of the Kalahari Desert. The Bushmen are known for being able to read animal tracks better than anyone else in the world. Literature about the Bushmen describes how they could determine with great accuracy the sex, age and the size of an animal simply by looking at the animal tracks, or “spoor,” in the sand. They are also known for tracking animals for up to 60 miles or more.
Now, for those of us who are not as skilled as the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert, the biggest problem with tracking the “spoor” of animals is to identify with certainty the time the animal made the print in the sand or dirt. Plains game such as kudu, gemsbok and eland like to move constantly and, for example, one can easily follow the spoor of an eland bull thinking it is a fresh spoor, but the bull may already be miles ahead of you. So how can a trail camera help?
Well, the trail camera cannot really assist you in the art of tracking the spoor. What the trail camera can do, however, is that it can provide you with the exact time and date of every picture taken, besides the obvious and amazing ability to show you a picture of the animal that passed by. Over time the hunter can begin to see the patterns of species in terms of when and where they move. This can certainly be of great help if you are hunting a large game reserve. Not to mention that one can see the size and shape of the horns on male animals – something I am sure not even the Bushmen could predict with much accuracy.
On the Sofala Safaris website we have a new page called the “Sofala Trail Camera.” This page will have a photo album of pictures taken every month with trail cameras – which were bought in the USA of course. The trail cameras can quickly wear out battery power for the simple reason that there are so many species of animals. Imagine a herd of wildebeest in the morning, a herd of impala in the early afternoon, and then a herd of eland in the late afternoon, all coming by to pose for the camera – a lot of pictures in a short time. Not to mention the baboons who are so fond to be photographed. I sometimes wonder if they consciously know they are posing for the camera.
Anyway, please check out the Sofala Trail Camera page each month and just imagine: what if you spot a big trophy animal that you actually successfully hunt on a future safari – would that not be neat?
The 2011 hunting season is just around the corner. Bow hunting has already been promising as we have invested in some really good blinds and have had some great opportunities to bow hunt. I can already hear the nervous breathing of a visiting bow hunter as he prepares to draw the bow right when a big gemsbok suddenly comes to a standstill just about 20 yards from the blind……
Kind Regards,
Louis Steenkamp
Sofala Safaris
|
|
