Rhino Revelation By Lincoln Hughes - rsa 1995

My first look at the hunting camp, set high in the foothills of Pilanesberg National Park, made me think I was about to enter a prison camp. It was entirely surrounded by a high, electrified fence.

As my PH, Ian Wilmot, returned to the safari car after opening the entrance gate, I asked him the reason for the fence. “It’s not to keep us in,” he replied, “but to keep the animals out—particularly the elephants, which can be quite cheeky.” We had booked the hunt to relieve the Park of one of its numerous white rhinos. Much of the Park’s elephant population comprised young bulls translocated from Kruger National Park, and they were quite aggressive with both people and rhinos. The accommodations were wall tents set upon concrete pads, decently furnished, with a centrally located lavatory building. A partially open, thatch-roofed building housed the kitchen and dining area. I had been in more deluxe camps as well as more Spartan ones, but found this camp perfectly adequate, and told Ian so. “I’m glad you think so,” he responded. “My last clients were from Saudi Arabia. They took one look at this camp, turned up their noses, and drove back to Sun City.”

“So the sons of the desert didn’t think your tents were up to their standards?” “Apparently not. For the rest of the hunt they stayed at Sun City, chartered a helicopter, and commuted to the hunting camp morning and evening. As the days wore on, they arrived later and left earlier. I think they found the hotel amenities, as well as the company of the young blonde ladies who accompanied them, more alluring than the call of the hunting fields.”

It was July and it got quite cold in the foothills at night, but quilts and a hot-water bottle kept me warm and snug, while the electrified fence kept the eles from tromping through the campgrounds. The next morning my son Karl and I set out with Ian, his head tracker Zack, and a game guard. It was my first rhino hunt, although I had encountered them before while hunting other animals. Thus I was aware that they are territorial, and that a cow with a calf is not to be trifled with. Indeed, several years earlier, while hunting Cape eland in Namibia, our hunting party had almost literally walked into the huge derrière of a rhino cow in thick bush before seeing her. She had a small calf with her and was not at all happy with our presence. Our two trackers climbed nearby trees and my PH and I hid behind termite mounds while the cow stomped around and snorted, looking for the interlopers. After a few minutes she trotted off with the calf in tow.

Answering my question before I even asked it, Ian said that there were a lot of rhino in the Park, but that they were quite spread out, as each bull would claim a territory of around 20 square miles. Other rhinos were put on notice not to trespass upon the claimant’s ground by dung and urine markers. Since a rhino bull would return to his dung midden, we often began our search there, looking for fresh tracks.

We quickly fell into a routine. Up early every morning, drive around looking for fresh tracks, dismount if we found some, and set off on the hike. On the third day we finally spotted our quarry at a distance of about 200 yards. Either he was aware of our presence or something else spooked him, as he took off running up a kopje just like an elk running up a mountainside. I was amazed at his speed and said to Ian, “That’s a revelation. I had no idea they could run that fast.” “For 100 yards or more they can keep up with one of your American quarter horses,” Ian replied. “People tend to think they are slow and clumsy animals, but nothing could be further from the truth. Their eyesight is poor, but their hearing and sense of smell are excellent, and if they are running at you instead of away, I assure you that their speed will seem even greater.” A couple of days later I would get the opportunity to find that out first-hand.

Ian decided we had been pushing this bull too hard and should take a day off. He and I drove around the tourist area of the Park taking photos, while Karl, armed with his .340 Weatherby Magnum, and Zack, armed with Ian’s .300 Winchester Magnum rifle, went looking for bushbuck. Ian had specifically cautioned his tracker to stay out of the tall grass, and I had promised my wife that her only son would be safe on this, his first dangerous-game hunt. When we rejoined later in the day, Karl confided that there had been some tense moments when he and Zack, in tall grass, of course, had encountered two lionesses and their cubs. They had backed away from the cats slowly and did not again venture into the tall grass, instead finding other ways to approach forested areas that might conceal the wily bushbuck.

The fifth day we found some really fresh tracks in mid-morning, and by midday had followed them to a wooded area that surrounded a waterhole. Rather than risk all of us going in, and possibly spooking the bull, Ian sent Zack in alone. He quickly returned and reported that the bull was snoozing alongside the waterhole. Matters were further complicated by the fact that this particular waterhole was in the tourist area of the Park, just outside the hunting area. Ian suggested we go back to camp for lunch while he radioed Park authorities to ask them to temporarily seal off the dirt road to the waterhole until we could bag the animal. They agreed to oblige us. Zack would stay behind with a portable radio to alert us if the bull awoke and left the area before we could return, or before the authorities sealed off the road from tourist traffic.

In the early afternoon, fortified with a good lunch but not exactly with nerves of steel, I cautiously approached the waterhole with Ian a few steps behind me and to my left, and in due course spotted the animal. He was still lying down, but his head was up and he was looking around. By now out of cover, and with my heart beating so loudly I thought I could hear it, I had crept to within about 30 yards of the bull when he lurched to his feet, tick birds exploding from his back, and swung his head to his right, presenting me with a brief opportunity for a broadside shot. Placing the cross hairs of my 1-4X Swarovski scope on his shoulder, about a third of the way up from the bottom of his chest as I had been coached by Ian to do, I squeezed off a shot. The 400-grain Barnes naval bronze solid, launched from my handloaded wildcat .411 KDF custom Sako bolt-action rifle, deposited about 5,000 foot pounds of energy into his chest cavity.

He turned to his left, saw us, and came for us. Working the bolt action as fast as I could, I dropped to my right knee and put a second shot into the chest of the oncoming beast just as Ian unleashed both barrels of his .475 Nitro Express No. 2, also loaded with Barnes solids. The bull stopped in his tracks, scarcely 20 feet in front of us. Now carrying more than a quarter of a pound of bronze bullets in him, the bull was breathing heavily and clearly mortally wounded. He then fell on his side, but began kicking in a vain attempt to regain his feet. Not wishing to see the animal suffer, I circled to my right and put a finisher into his chest from a range of 10 feet.

In retrospect, there wasn’t time to be frightened by the charge; there was only time to react. I received the congratulations of my son, Ian, and the tracker Zack. We took the obligatory photos and made a rough measurement of the bull’s horns. He wouldn’t make gold, but would be a high silver-medal trophy. Then I turned to Ian and said, “Now that we’ve got him, what are we going to do with him?” Obviously a three-ton-plus rhino bull would not fit into the back of the safari car. “Not to worry,” he responded. Once again Ian got on the radio to the Park authorities, and in a few minutes a giant four-wheel-drive Moog truck showed up towing a flatbed trailer. It was the first I’d seen of this German-made, go-anywhere, do-anything truck.

A canvas cloth was placed around the animal’s neck, followed by a heavy wire rope. At the press of a button a powerful electric motorized winch dragged the huge bull up a ramp and onto the trailer, whereupon he was entirely covered by a tarpaulin for the trip to the Park’s abattoir. I got the head, horns and cape, while the local citizenry got a lot of meat. That night we dined upon roast rhino hump. Frankly, I don’t recommend it; rhinos are heavily muscled and the meat was tough and chewy. But the bull deserved our respect, and he got it.

Lincoln Hughes has hunted for 20 years in Southern and Eastern Africa, taking the Big Five and some 40 other species. He is the author of the hunting novel Zimbabwe, published by BooksByBookends, that Brooke has promised to review.