On my two recent blogs about the sinister forces that drive shooters to kill birds and animals for thrills you'll find shooters' comments that range from the lunatic to, rarely, an intelligent attempt to explain their barbarism. The reasons shooters favour for their taking the trouble to kill things usually include at least one and sometimes all of conservation, as in killing animals to protect the environment; to feed the family, that being a laudable urge; to provide truly organic meat; to satisfy a genetic urge; to commune with nature; for a love of animals. I was moved to seek an explanation of the killing urge by the The Shooters' Party's outlandish attempts to force the Rees Government to allow shooters to go blasting away in national parks, attempts that have a better chance of success as the Rees Government becomes more desperate for Upper House votes. In my column in The Herald today I give a more detailed explanation of this.
Today I want to give you an excerpt from an article about the killing of two elephants in Zimbabwe by the man who is the chairman of both The Shooters' Party in NSW and the NSW Game Council, Robert Borsak. Yes, interesting that Mr Borsak is on one hand the head of a political party that is trying to force the government to allow shooters into our national parks and on the other hand the head of a NSW Government statutory authority that would be charged with overseeing shooting in those national parks. How does that work!
A blogger alerted me to Mr Borsak's article, titled Bulls in the Rain, and you can find the full version by Googling Borsak and elephant. Mr Borsak was led to these elephants by a professional hunter/guide, and these excerpts may give you some insight:
"In a matter of five seconds he was there, not walking straight up but angling to my left, a great huge head with a small hazel eye stared down at me, clearing the jess [a type of undergrowth] as I swung the Heym
onto him. My reflexes took over as the rifle fired the right barrel at six paces from the brain of the giant, he went down, as if in slow motion. Deon [the guide] on my left whispered `fire again', I put the second barrel into the top of his head and it was all over. He flattened a vast area of jess as he hit the ground, as silently as his approach. It was awesome, he did not know what had hit him. I started to shake, this hunt was over.''
Now for the second elephant a few days later.
"The Heym barked again at a range of about 25 metres, placing the 500-grain FMJ Woodleigh through the hip into the spine. He crashed down immediately, skidding to a halt in some obstructing branches of surrounding jess. As he came down there was an unearthly scream as the full weight of the falling bull collapsed his heaving lungs, expelling through the trunk and sending an involuntary shiver through me. On the ground now, on bended knee, the ochre-coloured wet bull thrashed around with its trunk, paralysed, unable to move. I reloaded as the empties flicked over my shoulder and
the PH [guiding professional hunter] yelled to drill him again. As I approached I moved in quickly, not being sure at all exactly at that time what had happened. As I
approached with some caution he lunged as far forward as his trunk and position allowed, trying to grab me. At this I placed two frontal brain shots into the almost
defunct bull and it was over.''
Thrilling, eh?
Before Mr Borsak shot the second elephant through its spine, allowing him the thrill of putting two more shots into its head as it lay paralysed, he had shot the magnificent animal through the skull. "The bullet passed harmlessly through the skull, under the brain, exiting in front of and subsequently through the left ear." Had he not had a second barrel to his gun, Mr Borsak writes, the elephant would "still be running the hills of Omay today, relatively unscathed". That would be terrible.
Is it the crime of being an elephant that warrants such treatment by man? And what is it that provides the satisfaction for Mr Borsak and his fellows?
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