During my visit to Africa in July of last year, I spent a couple of days with Joeseph Ramakokovhu and Ruben Mhiangu of the Marula Lodge. The pair of native South Africans from the Venda and Sotho tribes, respectively, work as trackers for the big game lodge that caters to foreigners. The owner of the Marula Lodge, Gerard and his girlfriend and partner, Linda are experts in their field. Gerard knows just about every species of wildlife, flora and fauna in Africa and Linda, being the director over Africa for SCI, an organization devoted to hunters rights and conservation, is no slouch either. Collectively the couple is a powerhouse of knowledge on not only the region, but wildlife and hunting all over the globe.

Being from Texas, I was raised in a culture of hunting, I used to spend nearly every weekend with my father hunting geese and duck, but over the years I’ve grown a bit disgusted with the thought of killing an animal. I’m no PETA member, nor am I even vegetarian, but the only thing I shoot these days is my camera.

The few days I spent with Gerard and Linda made me appreciate the act of conservation and hunting as long as the hunters are actually honest and educated rather than just out for a cool-looking trophy for their wall. They helped us realize that sometimes we have to hunt elephant because uncontrolled, their species, as destructive as they are, can systematically wipe out hundreds of other, lower, species.

I still don’t intend on picking up a rifle and heading out to the bush, but I did learn, and had a great experience while doing it. This short photo essay entitled “Killing to Conserve” is the result of my time on the Marula Lodge. The first 18 images of the slideshow is how the essay appeared in my most recent portfolio book. The sequencing might change periodically. The rest of the images are outtakes.

Intro: Alldays, a remote village in the Limpopo province of South Africa, is known for its abundance of Mopane tree bush, arid climate and diamond mines. Situated near one of the largest active diamond mines in South Africa is the Marula Lodge, a private game reserve devoted to the preservation of the sport of big game hunting for conservation rather than poaching.

I have been doing a lot of video work, self-teaching and archiving lately, but today I actually did some still shooting so I felt it facilitated a blog posting. I was planning on heading out to check out some extreme ice sculpture when I found out that a few friends of mine were headed out to Pelican Island to do some target shooting. Now I know I live in the great state of Texas, but I am not a fan of guns. In my younger years my dad used to take me hunting so I am familiar with firearms, but I don’t have any, don’t like to shoot them and don’t care to really be around them, but when they start talking about blowing things up my photo gears began turning and I decided to ride along.

It has been a nice week, but today was cold, windy and rainy and being on the Island amplified the elements. It was the first time I had been back on the Island since my only post-Ike visit back in September. Things are still pretty hairy, but the recovery process is moving along in most areas. The guys stocked up on ammo and supplies on the Island before we piled into the car and headed out. Before the guys began shooting they spent a while setting up various targets…pieces of tile flooring, cans of spray paint, tanks of propane and other debris on the land as well as an old Southwestern Bell pay phone full of change.

After about 40 minutes of shooting we hear a pretty loud siren behind us. It startled us since we were in a pretty remote area. We see what looks like a cop get out of a truck and with an AR-15 pointed at us, he tells us to put our weapons down and get our hands up. We obliged and continued down the hill per his demands. The officer, which turned out to be a game warden, was really nice and really only wanted to make sure we were not up to any mischief. The land is private land, but given its remote and desolate nature, it is known to be used for various public use. In fact there were a group of ATV’s being ridden nearby as well. Although we had a slew of weaponry…3 AR-15′s, 3 shotguns, 5 or so pistols, and an assortment of other guns and ammo as well as my large Canon’s (<—lame camera reference) We were in full compliance as all weapons were clean and registered as well as the owners of the handguns all having CHL’s.

We had to cut our trip short, but it was definitely an interesting journey down. I really wish I could have seen a full propane canister being lit up by an armor piercing tracer round, but there’s always tomorrow.