Hunting for sport is a double-edged sword

My junior school buddy, Tim Addison, and I used to abandon our bikes by the side of the Mukuvisi River and clamber bare-footed over the slippery granite rocks to splash through the brown waters.

The most recent tests tell me I don’t have bilharzia, but I reckon that deep down the parasites lurk as a reminder of my youth.

One day, Tim introduced me to his BSA pellet gun and so began my inglorious and short-lived hunting career. Because it was a Number Two – referring to the calibre, .22 of an inch – you could not buy the ammunition without a licence, as all weapons above .22 had to be registered. No problem to mischievous boys – nothing that a little bit of pocket money and a hammer couldn’t sort out.

So we bought boxes of Number 1 pellets (calibre .177) and hammered gently on the back of each one to make them wider. The only problem was accuracy: you could often see the projectiles scribing helical arcs in the air, missing their targets by the proverbial country mile. Still, I did manage to shoot two living creatures with that BSA.

The first was me. I had popped a newly hammered-out No1 into the breech, cocked the rifle and then, with the barrel pointing down, somehow thought I could hold it by the trigger. When it went off, the end of the barrel was only a few centimetres from my foot.

Fortunately, even a bored-out Number Two fired from point-blank range was not lethal … and the pellet hit my instep and gouged a furrow down that. There was a huge red welt, plus a lot of bruising, but no actual blood.

Later, we took the BSA into the bush on the other side of George Road – where we often shot pellets at passing vans – and went hunting, proper. Tim’s suggestion was a dove – don’t ask me what type – because they are pretty dof and there are plenty of them.

I lined one up in the BSA’s sights. It was close (they are especially dof when it comes to responding to imminent danger) and Tim and I had been very careful with this batch of improvised Number Twos. I fired and hit it square in the chest. It launched upwards, fluttered pathetically and then hit the ground with a soft plop.

I will never forget its flopping head turning towards me as it lay there. Nor will I forget the accusation in those innocent eyes.

Tim grabbed it and put it out of its misery by snapping its neck. I have never hunted an animal since then.

I find the whole idea of killing a living creature for sport to be abhorrent and I do not understand the mentality which will get satisfaction or a thrill out of this type of murder.

Yet, I do understand that hunting for money has been one of the drivers of the explosion in game numbers in this country.

Back in the late 1980s, the government changed the law to give ownership of all game to the owner of the land. Up until then, the state owned the animals.

When farmers and ranchers realised the value of what they were sitting on, they started protecting that asset – and now the game industry is booming, and provides thousands of jobs.

That’s a reality which you can’t – and should not – wish away.

Brendan Seery.

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