LIBERIA: Liberia 2022 Hunt Report

[Hank2211]

This will not be one of my typical hunt reports, if only because this wasn’t one of my typical hunts. If you’re looking for excitement, I’m afraid you’ll ll have to look elsewhere. For those of you who choose to persist, you’ve been warned!

My booking agent (and Zim PH) Dean Stobbs of Touch Africa Safaris and I had been discussing a number of potential hunting ideas for 2022, but we always seemed to run into obstacles. I wanted to return to Ethiopia and get the two bushbuck (and giant forest hog) I failed to get on my previous visit, but the earliest we could get that booked (with guaranteed quota on both bushbuck) was 2024 (now booked!). I also wanted a hunt where I had a reasonable chance at both a suni and a Sharpe’s grysbok – to finish the tiny ten – but again, the earliest I could find such a hunt was 2023 in Mozambique (now also booked!). So that left me a bit at loose ends for 2022.

Sometimes, opportunity just comes knocking when you least expect it. Dean sent me a note in mid-October of 2021 with the subject line “Have a Look at This.” “This”, it turned out, was an opportunity to hunt Liberia, a country I had never thought of hunting. Dean had been talking to Tim Fallon, a Texas hunter (and a bunch of other things, all impressive, including incoming president of Dallas Safari Club) as well as owner of the FTW Ranch (which provides hunter training) and Tim had mentioned he was planning to hunt Liberia in May of 2022. I had met Tim a number of times over the years and had sent my youngest son to FTW to learn some shooting skills before joining me for his ‘graduation’ hunt in Africa a few years ago. But we’d never hunted together. Tim, Dean and I exchanged a few emails, I looked at what I could hunt in Liberia (basically just duikers), and I thought about how miserable I had been the last time I had hunted in the jungle and so, naturally, I said ‘sure.’

A quick wire transfer was sent, and we were on. In one respect Liberia makes hunting easy – you can’t bring your own firearm, so you use what they have. Makes travel (especially from Canada) a lot easier (though I do prefer to take my own firearms when I can).

Here, we would apparently be using only shotguns, although we were told there would be rifles in camp should we find anything that the poachers had missed (more on this later). I may have paraphrased that last part a little, but that seemed to be the reality.

Some quick summary details: the hunt was to run from May 16-25, 2022, which required that we arrive in Monrovia on May 15, and leave camp on May 26, with a COVID test for Tim in Monrovia on May 27 for a departure later that day. As things turned, we couldn’t get to camp until May 18, but that didn’t cut our hunt short since we had days we could add at the end (this later became irrelevant . . .). We were primarily looking for duikers, with a yellow back duiker being a top priority for Tim, and a zebra duiker being my top priority. But basically, we were hunting whatever duikers we would find.

We were hunting with a company owned by Morris Dougba, a Liberian who moved to the US in the early 2000’s, who lives most of the year there. He is in Liberia during hunting season but by his own admission isn’t a hunter, but rather a businessman. He uses Ken Wilson in the US as his agent to book these hunts.

Shortly before leaving for the hunt I had to deal with the COVID formalities:

• I was advised that Liberia had ended the rapid testing on arrival. That was great news, since I had very little interest in spending 10 days at a “government treatment facility” if I had tested positive (although I expect one could “talk” one’s way out of it, if you get my meaning). The arrival test still showed as required on the “COVID Protocols” page of the government website, but there was also a letter from the Minister saying it was no longer necessary. I printed a copy of the letter to take with me.
• I made the appointment for my PCR test, which I still needed prior to arrival. This leads to some trepidation – if you test positive 3 days before your hunt is supposed to start, you can’t travel, and that’s the end of that. I also downloaded the Liberia travel app and filled out the online forms.

On May 14, all COVID matters attended to, I left Calgary for Monrovia. That entailed a flight to Montreal, where I picked up a Brussels Airlines flight to Brussels, where I met up with Tim, and then a Brussels Airlines flight to Abidjan, Ivory Coast, and then to Monrovia.

For what it’s worth, Brussels Airlines has lie-flat seats in business class, but they aren’t pods. I was seated next to a Frenchman who lived in Abidjan. He was surprised I was going to Liberia, saying it was one of the worst places he had visited. And a fellow with the World Bank going there on business told me it was one of the most corrupt countries on earth. Liberia seriously needs to improve its public image!

This might be a good time to say a little about Liberia, since some of the more recent history has an impact on what we found once on the ground. Those who aren’t interested in a bit of history can easily skip to the next part, though you will have difficulty understanding the current situation in Liberia if you do.

Liberia was founded by free-born black Americans and emancipated slaves, who returned to Africa and settled in what is now Liberia between 1820 and 1843. These people became the population of what, in 1846, became Liberia, when the country declared its independence. The first president of Liberia was Joseph Jenkins Roberts, the free-born son of a Virginia planter and a slave woman who had been freed (before he was born) by her owner. The Monrovia airport is named for Mr. Roberts and the airport code is ROB.

The initial settlers seemed to harbor little if any animosity towards the US and in fact adopted a version of the US flag as their flag and named their capital, Monrovia, after US President James Monroe, a supporter of the settlement of these former slaves. The official seal of Liberia has the motto “The Love of Freedom Brought Us Here” on it.

It’s useful to note here that the local populations did not exactly welcome the new ‘settlers’ with open arms, and relations were somewhat difficult (and often violent; it is interesting (at least to me!) that the freed slaves often enslaved the local population) for a considerable period. However, eventually the former “Americans” won the day and became the economic and political elite of Liberia. This domination continued, with resistance accompanied by varying degrees of violence, until 1979, when the “Americo-Liberian” (as these people were called) president was overthrown in a military coup, ending the rule of the descendants of the original American settlers.

The coup did not settle matters though, and resistance and government repression followed, eventually resulting in what became known as the first Liberian civil war, from 1989 to 1996. This war was eventually settled, and Charles Taylor became the democratically elected president in 1997.

Unfortunately for Liberians, this election didn’t settle things for long, and war once again erupted. What became known as the ‘second Liberian civil war’ began in 1997, ending in 2003. Charles Taylor was deposed and was later convicted of war crimes by the International Criminal Court and is currently serving a life sentence in The Hague.

All this fighting and its aftermath had, as you might expect, a negative impact on the willingness of hunters to come to Liberia, as well as on the game in the country which found itself on the menu of many, if not all, of the fighters in the jungles (and most of Liberia, apart from land cleared for farming, is jungle).

Then, in 2014, Liberia reported a significant outbreak of Ebola. That outbreak continued more or less until about June of 2016, when Liberia was declared Ebola free (that had also happened in January of 2016, but further cases arose). So again, very few, if any, hunters visited Liberia during those years, and likely for some time after the outbreaks ended. And then, of course, COVID hit, and hunters again stayed away, and only recently began returning.

The impact of all of this is that there have been very few hunters in Liberia for much of the late 20th and the 21st centuries. Hunting is not a big industry, and the hunting areas, such as they are, have not benefitted from rigorous and sustained (or frankly any) anti-poaching operations. Add to that the fact that Liberia is one of the poorest countries on earth (in the “top 20” for poverty according to the World Bank) with an average annual income of less than US$1500. I have very little doubt that this poverty contributes to an active bushmeat trade which, of course, is based on poaching.

I’m not sure how many hunting concessions there are in Liberia, but there are not many. The hunting season is January to June 30 and in our concession, we were, I believe, the third and fourth hunters to visit this year, with two more following on our departure. That would be it for this year – about 8 hunters in total.

One last thing to be aware of before we get to the “facts on the ground.” Chinese companies have made large inroads into the Liberian economy and in particular the logging business. The camp we were to stay in had only been opened a month or two before our arrival. There had been an older camp, but a logging company had moved into the area and that location was no longer sustainable.

Stay tuned . . .

 

[mdwest]

Wish I had known you were headed to Monrovia @Hank2211 … I’ve got a guy that works out of the US Embassy there that I could have linked you up with…

Liberia is a tough place with some tough history… but I actually have enjoyed the time I’ve spent there…. I made multiple trips when I worked at the World Bank…

Gotta love it when the “nicest” hotel in Monrovia provides you with a 5 gallon bucket and a bottle of Lysol in the shower.. and tells you to make sure you fill the bucket and then mix in 2 caps of Lysol.. and then bathe with the mixture.. because the water is unsafe even to bathe in there lol… (this is the same hotel we put the President of the World Bank up at.. and where we had dinner with the President of Liberia (Helen Johnson Sirlief) at…

That was around 2006… hopefully they have fixed the pipes and the well since then lol…

 

[Wishfulthinker580]

This will not be one of my typical hunt reports, if only because this wasn’t one of my typical hunts. If you’re looking for excitement, I’m afraid you’ll ll have to look elsewhere. For those of you who choose to persist, you’ve been warned!

My booking agent (and Zim PH) Dean Stobbs of Touch Africa Safaris and I had been discussing a number of potential hunting ideas for 2022, but we always seemed to run into obstacles. I wanted to return to Ethiopia and get the two bushbuck (and giant forest hog) I failed to get on my previous visit, but the earliest we could get that booked (with guaranteed quota on both bushbuck) was 2024 (now booked!). I also wanted a hunt where I had a reasonable chance at both a suni and a Sharpe’s grysbok – to finish the tiny ten – but again, the earliest I could find such a hunt was 2023 in Mozambique (now also booked!). So that left me a bit at loose ends for 2022.

Sometimes, opportunity just comes knocking when you least expect it. Dean sent me a note in mid-October of 2021 with the subject line “Have a Look at This.” “This”, it turned out, was an opportunity to hunt Liberia, a country I had never thought of hunting. Dean had been talking to Tim Fallon, a Texas hunter (and a bunch of other things, all impressive, including incoming president of Dallas Safari Club) as well as owner of the FTW Ranch (which provides hunter training) and Tim had mentioned he was planning to hunt Liberia in May of 2022. I had met Tim a number of times over the years and had sent my youngest son to FTW to learn some shooting skills before joining me for his ‘graduation’ hunt in Africa a few years ago. But we’d never hunted together. Tim, Dean and I exchanged a few emails, I looked at what I could hunt in Liberia (basically just duikers), and I thought about how miserable I had been the last time I had hunted in the jungle and so, naturally, I said ‘sure.’

A quick wire transfer was sent, and we were on. In one respect Liberia makes hunting easy – you can’t bring your own firearm, so you use what they have. Makes travel (especially from Canada) a lot easier (though I do prefer to take my own firearms when I can).

Here, we would apparently be using only shotguns, although we were told there would be rifles in camp should we find anything that the poachers had missed (more on this later). I may have paraphrased that last part a little, but that seemed to be the reality.

Some quick summary details: the hunt was to run from May 16-25, 2022, which required that we arrive in Monrovia on May 15, and leave camp on May 26, with a COVID test for Tim in Monrovia on May 27 for a departure later that day. As things turned, we couldn’t get to camp until May 18, but that didn’t cut our hunt short since we had days we could add at the end (this later became irrelevant . . .). We were primarily looking for duikers, with a yellow back duiker being a top priority for Tim, and a zebra duiker being my top priority. But basically, we were hunting whatever duikers we would find.

We were hunting with a company owned by Morris Dougba, a Liberian who moved to the US in the early 2000’s, who lives most of the year there. He is in Liberia during hunting season but by his own admission isn’t a hunter, but rather a businessman. He uses Ken Wilson in the US as his agent to book these hunts.

Shortly before leaving for the hunt I had to deal with the COVID formalities:

• I was advised that Liberia had ended the rapid testing on arrival. That was great news, since I had very little interest in spending 10 days at a “government treatment facility” if I had tested positive (although I expect one could “talk” one’s way out of it, if you get my meaning). The arrival test still showed as required on the “COVID Protocols” page of the government website, but there was also a letter from the Minister saying it was no longer necessary. I printed a copy of the letter to take with me.
• I made the appointment for my PCR test, which I still needed prior to arrival. This leads to some trepidation – if you test positive 3 days before your hunt is supposed to start, you can’t travel, and that’s the end of that. I also downloaded the Liberia travel app and filled out the online forms.

On May 14, all COVID matters attended to, I left Calgary for Monrovia. That entailed a flight to Montreal, where I picked up a Brussels Airlines flight to Brussels, where I met up with Tim, and then a Brussels Airlines flight to Abidjan, Ivory Coast, and then to Monrovia.

For what it’s worth, Brussels Airlines has lie-flat seats in business class, but they aren’t pods. I was seated next to a Frenchman who lived in Abidjan. He was surprised I was going to Liberia, saying it was one of the worst places he had visited. And a fellow with the World Bank going there on business told me it was one of the most corrupt countries on earth. Liberia seriously needs to improve its public image!

This might be a good time to say a little about Liberia, since some of the more recent history has an impact on what we found once on the ground. Those who aren’t interested in a bit of history can easily skip to the next part, though you will have difficulty understanding the current situation in Liberia if you do.

Liberia was founded by free-born black Americans and emancipated slaves, who returned to Africa and settled in what is now Liberia between 1820 and 1843. These people became the population of what, in 1846, became Liberia, when the country declared its independence. The first president of Liberia was Joseph Jenkins Roberts, the free-born son of a Virginia planter and a slave woman who had been freed (before he was born) by her owner. The Monrovia airport is named for Mr. Roberts and the airport code is ROB.

The initial settlers seemed to harbor little if any animosity towards the US and in fact adopted a version of the US flag as their flag and named their capital, Monrovia, after US President James Monroe, a supporter of the settlement of these former slaves. The official seal of Liberia has the motto “The Love of Freedom Brought Us Here” on it.

It’s useful to note here that the local populations did not exactly welcome the new ‘settlers’ with open arms, and relations were somewhat difficult (and often violent; it is interesting (at least to me!) that the freed slaves often enslaved the local population) for a considerable period. However, eventually the former “Americans” won the day and became the economic and political elite of Liberia. This domination continued, with resistance accompanied by varying degrees of violence, until 1979, when the “Americo-Liberian” (as these people were called) president was overthrown in a military coup, ending the rule of the descendants of the original American settlers.

The coup did not settle matters though, and resistance and government repression followed, eventually resulting in what became known as the first Liberian civil war, from 1989 to 1996. This war was eventually settled, and Charles Taylor became the democratically elected president in 1997.

Unfortunately for Liberians, this election didn’t settle things for long, and war once again erupted. What became known as the ‘second Liberian civil war’ began in 1997, ending in 2003. Charles Taylor was deposed and was later convicted of war crimes by the International Criminal Court and is currently serving a life sentence in The Hague.

All this fighting and its aftermath had, as you might expect, a negative impact on the willingness of hunters to come to Liberia, as well as on the game in the country which found itself on the menu of many, if not all, of the fighters in the jungles (and most of Liberia, apart from land cleared for farming, is jungle).

Then, in 2014, Liberia reported a significant outbreak of Ebola. That outbreak continued more or less until about June of 2016, when Liberia was declared Ebola free (that had also happened in January of 2016, but further cases arose). So again, very few, if any, hunters visited Liberia during those years, and likely for some time after the outbreaks ended. And then, of course, COVID hit, and hunters again stayed away, and only recently began returning.

The impact of all of this is that there have been very few hunters in Liberia for much of the late 20th and the 21st centuries. Hunting is not a big industry, and the hunting areas, such as they are, have not benefitted from rigorous and sustained (or frankly any) anti-poaching operations. Add to that the fact that Liberia is one of the poorest countries on earth (in the “top 20” for poverty according to the World Bank) with an average annual income of less than US$1500. I have very little doubt that this poverty contributes to an active bushmeat trade which, of course, is based on poaching.

I’m not sure how many hunting concessions there are in Liberia, but there are not many. The hunting season is January to June 30 and in our concession, we were, I believe, the third and fourth hunters to visit this year, with two more following on our departure. That would be it for this year – about 8 hunters in total.

One last thing to be aware of before we get to the “facts on the ground.” Chinese companies have made large inroads into the Liberian economy and in particular the logging business. The camp we were to stay in had only been opened a month or two before our arrival. There had been an older camp, but a logging company had moved into the area and that location was no longer sustainable.

Stay tuned . . .

I’ve been looking forward to this report. Keep it coming

 

[DieJager]

Following with interest.

 

[ChasingHemingway]

Following

 

[Mort Hill]

Thank you for the background history on Liberia. It is awesome that we as hunters quite often love to discover the history and culture of the places we visit, and then share with our peers. Regardless of the good or bad, this is unique history. Hunting is so much more than just the act of pursuing game. Can’t wait for the rest!

 

[mrpoindexter]

Sounds like a horrible place and a miserable trip. Can't wait to hear more and maybe go myself!

 

[Hank2211]

Wish I had known you were headed to Monrovia @Hank2211 … I’ve got a guy that works out of the US Embassy there that I could have linked you up with…

Liberia is a tough place with some tough history… but I actually have enjoyed the time I’ve spent there…. I made multiple trips when I worked at the World Bank…

Gotta love it when the “nicest” hotel in Monrovia provides you with a 5 gallon bucket and a bottle of Lysol in the shower.. and tells you to make sure you fill the bucket and then mix in 2 caps of Lysol.. and then bathe with the mixture.. because the water is unsafe even to bathe in there lol… (this is the same hotel we put the President of the World Bank up at.. and where we had dinner with the President of Liberia (Helen Johnson Sirlief) at…

That was around 2006… hopefully they have fixed the pipes and the well since then lol…

@mdwest that would have been interesting. As you will see shortly, we had a little "contre temps" at the US Embassy!

I don't know if our hotel - Mamba Point - should have provided us with bleach . . . but they didn't. Camp did though!

 

[CoElkHunter]

Thanks for the history lesson. Very interesting. Following with interest for your hunt report.

 

[Hank2211]

Part 2

After a long flight from Brussels, we landed in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, at around 6 pm. Likely some 80% of the passengers disembarked, and very few if any (none in business class) embarked. An hour and a half later (allowing for a detour over the Atlantic to avoid some weather), we landed at Roberts International Airport. I would say “in Monrovia”, but the airport is some 50 miles outside the city, so it’s a bit misleading to call it Monrovia. There is an airport which is closer to the city, but for reasons which, I think, are related to the length of the runway, it’s not used, at least not for inter-continental flights. One interesting fact - for those who like such things - is that the airport was originally built by the US during WW2 as a staging area between Africa and Europe. Fortunately, the airport has been updated (a bit) since then – a new terminal opened in 2017, financed by . . . China. But like many buildings in Africa (and elsewhere!), it looks better on the outside than the inside.

We disembarked down drive-up stairs, and those of us in business class were driven by bus to the jetway, some 200 yards from the plane. I could have walked to the jetway faster, but it was hot and humid, and the bus was air conditioned, and I was ordered (loudly!) to take it, so I went. Once at the jetway, we walked up the stairs to where we would have been had the plane stopped at the jetway, and then entered the terminal. I assume the jetway wasn’t functioning, or otherwise I can’t explain why we wouldn’t have just taxied up to it, rather than 200 yards from it.

Once in the terminal, we were told in no uncertain terms to put on masks, or there would be ‘no service”. The service, such as it was, was pleasant and relatively quick - at least regarding the formal details. Our vaccination and COVID test papers were quickly examined, and we were waved through. A quick stop at immigration - pleasant enough as far as such things go - and we were released into the baggage area.

This is where things got interesting. There was a barricade in the baggage area, separating us from the luggage carousels. A number of people were lounging behind the roped off area. Once the luggage began to arrive, it became clear. Their job was to take the luggage from the carrousel and stand it up just on their side of the barrier. Some people were reaching over and taking their luggage as it was placed there, but this quickly became impossible since the luggage was stacked so deep that you couldn’t reach to get your bag. I waited to see what would happen next.

Once the last bags were taken off the carousel (signaled by one of the workers, which was nice – in Calgary, no one tells you that’s there are no more bags to come), the barricades were removed and it was a free-for-all rush to get the bags. Utter chaos. Once you had your bag, you then lined up (I say lined up, but that’s really dignifying what was going on) to have your luggage claim matched to your bag. Then you put all your bags on a belt through an X-ray machine, which seemed to pass as customs inspection. Once your bags were off the belt, you were free to leave the terminal and enter the hot, humid night of Liberia.

At least we would have been, but Tim’s bags failed to show. Filing out the forms took enough time that the chaos around baggage checks and “customs” had pretty much abated by the time we went through, which I suppose was some relief.

The drive from the airport to our hotel (Mamba Point) in the ‘diplomatic’ section of Monrovia (that may sound higher class than it actually is!) took about 2.5 hours – the airport is, as I said, about 50 miles from the center of Monrovia and with traffic (even at that time of night) and the road conditions, you get nowhere very quickly.

On the drive in, Morris told us that the US had stopped the importation of trophies from Liberia to the US, on the basis that Liberia didn’t have any, or any effective, anti-poaching programs. In fact, Morris told us that the penalty for poaching an elephant in Liberia was a fine of US$50! This was news to Tim, and while a potential workaround could likely be put together, it was unwelcome news to say the least.

We finally arrived at our hotel. A quick check-in, a wash up and Tim and I settled into the bar for a very good local beer. We were being joined late tomorrow by Dean Stobbs, and we were hoping we would have good news (or even any news) about Tim’s bags in the morning.

Over the next day, Dean arrived but Tim’s bags didn’t. The bags were located though – still in Brussels - and we were told we would have them Wednesday morning. Apparently getting to and from camp was difficult enough that our outfitter thought it best to wait for the bags. We used the time to shop for a curio or two and getting in trouble for taking Tim’s picture in front of the US Embassy. Apparently, “I’m a taxpayer” doesn’t get you any further in Liberia than it does here in North America!

Wednesday morning finally came, and we were off for camp. We stopped to get some beer for camp and snacks for the road at a local grocery store (cleanest place I’d seen in Liberia). We were to meet Morris on the road, and he would transfer Tim’s bags. And, as it turned out, our camp cook, Dee! The truck, which had been OK to that point, became more than a little crowded. The distance to camp from Monrovia is about 80 miles or so, but nothing in Liberia is measured in terms of distance. In terms of time, camp was a six-hour drive from our hotel! It doesn’t help that we were stopped at three ‘immigration’ checkpoints along the way, where our passports were demanded, and some information written down. Slowly. Someone somewhere must be trying to illegally emigrate to Liberia. Oddly, I take some comfort in this fact, since it means there must be a place worse than this somewhere!

The last 15-minute drive from the dirt road into camp was on a recently cleared road and three bridges, none of which filled us with confidence. In fact, at the first bridge, we elected to walk across and let the driver see if he could make it. With some guidance from camp staff, he managed to make it across, but it was not a slam dunk by any means. Throughout this last drive, the truck was threading its way between stumps of trees and still standing trees. I was just thinking how impressive a job our driver was doing when . . . a jagged stump tore the sidewall of a rear tire. Flat in less than a second. At that point we decided to walk the rest of the way and since the tire was beyond repair, and since it couldn’t be changed where it was, the truck limped in behind us on the flat.

Civil engineering at its finest!

I had no particular expectations for camp, but still, I was a little surprised with just how rustic our surroundings were. This camp had been quickly set up, and trees felled to create space for the huts were still lying on the ground with their stumps still standing. Staff quarters were not yet finished – roofing was underway – and there was no access to water other than from a river which ran in front of the camp.

The view from my balcony . . .!

My home, from a distance

And close up. Clothes were always wet, and rarely ever dried completely. So whenever you took anything off, if was hung out to dry.

I had my own “hut” which, as you can see from the picture, had sides made of 1” x 8” boards and a thatched roof. The inverted ‘v’ in the roof was covered by cardboard. When the door was closed, there was no air movement in the hut. Tim pointed out that there were also no mosquito nets. That was an unhappy surprise, but Tony, the camp manager, said he had some and if we wanted them, he would put them up. We asked him to take down the cardboard and put up the nets, thus giving us at least some semblance of air movement, while hopefully giving us protection from mosquitos and other insects attracted by either or both of light and humans. No problem, he said.

(A bit of an aside here. It turned out that they had had mosquito nets on the beds, but the two previous hunters had asked for them to be removed. Apparently, it was too hot under the nets. They would have done better to do what we did, and open up the huts, while retaining the nets. We were advised after we’d returned home that one of the previous hunters was in a coma in Denmark with malaria.)

Mosquito net . . . who thought they weren't a good idea?! There's no shortage of bugs in the jungle . . .

We met the other staff, all of whom were very polite and eager to please. Dee made us a light supper and, as it was getting dark, we quickly unpacked what we would need for an evening of hunting.

Mess hall! Not always easy to access in or after the rain . . .

This is a good time to describe how hunting was to be conducted. We were told that most hunting would be done at night. We would walk through the jungle, using a mixture of spotting and calling. The guide would have a headlamp, which he would use to spot the animals, and then he would use a laser pointer to point at them. Our job was to aim at the laser dot and shoot. This didn’t sound much like hunting, but if that was the local practice, we would give it a try.

As we were getting ready, Tony introduced us to our shotguns. There were three to choose from, and I picked up the first one, an old Winchester pump. Beyond a lot of wear and a bit of rust (and a de-cocking lever in the strangest place), it seemed fine. That left Tim with two to choose from . . . neither of which ejected spent shells! No problem. He found a lead weight which he would drop down the barrel after a shot, pushing the spent shell out enough to allow him to extract it! That’s called ‘making do’ in Africa! Of course, it also means no second shot.

We then discovered that contrary to what we had been told, the guides didn’t have any laser pointers! Tony said we were to have brought them . . . but no one had mentioned that. Fortunately, Tim was more prepared than I was – he had brought two new pointers along, just in case. As it turned out, without those pointers, we would have been virtually unable to hunt.

After taking a shot at a target, we were good to go, and Tim went out with his guide and I went in another direction with mine.

Don't worry. We will actually get to hunting soon . . .

 

[Firebird]

Ohhhhh boy this is the most sketchy report I can remember reading! Keep the details coming, I’ve loved every word so far-it falls heavily in the “you can’t make this stuff up” category

 

[mark-hunter]

Fantastic report so far, keep on! Thanks for sharing!
A side question.
You will be focused on duikers?
But what are other animals available? (at least in theory)
You mentioned elephants? Any chance to hunt non exportable elephant, or PAC or similar?

 

[ChasingHemingway]

Love the history and embracing the trials and tribulations…

 

[baxterb]

Very cool stuff - keep it coming.

My best friend moved to Liberia in 1982 and lived in Monrovia right next to the St. Paul river. Those early stories (I was 9) are the ones that really got me interested in Africa.

 

[Hank2211]

Wish I had known you were headed to Monrovia @Hank2211 … I’ve got a guy that works out of the US Embassy there that I could have linked you up with…

Liberia is a tough place with some tough history… but I actually have enjoyed the time I’ve spent there…. I made multiple trips when I worked at the World Bank…

Gotta love it when the “nicest” hotel in Monrovia provides you with a 5 gallon bucket and a bottle of Lysol in the shower.. and tells you to make sure you fill the bucket and then mix in 2 caps of Lysol.. and then bathe with the mixture.. because the water is unsafe even to bathe in there lol… (this is the same hotel we put the President of the World Bank up at.. and where we had dinner with the President of Liberia (Helen Johnson Sirlief) at…

That was around 2006… hopefully they have fixed the pipes and the well since then lol…

On the day when Tim and I were waiting for Tim's luggage and for Dean, we went for a walk in Monrovia. The US Embassy was nearby so we went for a look. The Embassy apparently commissions Liberian artists to paint murals, some of which adorn the walls of the embassy compound. There is also a very nice seal of the US on the wall. So I took a picture of Tim, with his phone, standing next to the seal. Within a minute two local guards showed up, and very politely told us that taking pictures of the wall was not allowed. OK, sorry, we weren't aware (neither of us had seen a sign saying no pictures or videos). Tim did tell them he was an American citizen and a taxpayer, but that had just about as much impact as if would if you told a policeman who stopped you for speeding. Which is to say, none at all!

The guards demanded to see the phone and look at the picture. They then told Tim to delete it. Which he did. And off we went.

I wonder if they were aware that deleted photos stay in a deleted file for 30 days on an iPhone, and can be recovered during that time?

And it would have been pretty easy to drive by the Embassy with a phone on video and capture the entire thing without them being aware of it . . .

Gotta love government.

 

[Hank2211]

Fantastic report so far, keep on! Thanks for sharing!
A side question.
You will be focused on duikers?
But what are other animals available? (at least in theory)
You mentioned elephants? Any chance to hunt non exportable elephant, or PAC or similar?

Other, larger, mammals are available on license, but we were told the odds of encountering anything, such as a bongo or a forest buffalo, were virtually nil. They have all been poached. And in fact we saw no droppings or tracks of anything larger than a duiker while we were there.

I understand that there are a small number of elephants in an area to the north of the country. None can be legally hunted - I think they are all in protected areas, but they can be poached (subject, we were told, to that $50 fine if you're caught).

 

[mark-hunter]

Thanks, noted.

 

[IdahoMo]

This is a great read so far! Keep it coming please. If any of y’all are interested in a good read “My Friend the Mercenary” talks a fair bit about Liberia and it’s second civil war. Wild read.

 

[Hank2211]

Part 3

Walking in the jungle at night is an interesting experience. Firstly, you see nothing except what your light illuminates, and given the difficulty of walking, you tend to look down virtually all the time. You could be walking down a narrow hallway. Secondly, having a light on your head attracts every insect from some considerable area (if the sheer volume of bugs is anything to go by) to your face, and the heat and humidity mean that you might just be breathing hard. If you do that with your mouth open, you may ingest enough unwelcome protein to ensure weight gain. On the other hand, breathing through your nose virtually ensures that small insects will end up in one nostril or both, where they will be hard to extract.

Now, you could suggest that a bug net be worn. So, here’s the problem with that. If you wear a net over your headlamp, the light diffuses, and you can’t see much of anything at all. So you wear your headlamp over the net. Now the net presses on your face, and the insects still can be annoying but more importantly, your ability to breath freely is impacted. And you need your ability to breathe freely in the jungle.

So you just suck it up. Or should I say, you just suck them up.

And then there are the ants. The small ones, the large ones, and the ones you can’t imagine are ants, they are so large. I think the small ones tend to bite more, but I won’t discriminate. I’ve come home with a mission to rid my little corner of the world, of ants. I know they serve a purpose. I just think they can serve it outside of my living area. Some of our guides were pretty good at seeing them before we stepped into ant territory, but others, well, you knew something was wrong when they began to run as if possessed and stamped their feet hard. But none of that helps. All you can do is lift up your pant legs and pick them off, one at a time. And when you think you have them all . . . you have to drop your pants to get the ones which managed to get all the way up before biting . . .

Again, you might suggest ankle gaiters. No use. The ants are under them before you know they’re there. Full length gaiters. Even worse. You can’t get them off quickly when you want to get at the ants crawling on your legs. I eventually landed on a simple (if partial) solution, one which Dean adopted, even though it isn’t exactly what you could call “hunter chic.” You tuck your pants into your socks. I think even our guides were impressed – especially when we watched them with smiles on our faces as they tried to get rid of the ants on their own legs.

On our first night we ‘hunted’ from about 10 pm to 5.30 am and saw nothing other than large snails and a bat I almost walked into as it was hanging out on a branch eating dinner. It did start to rain about 11 pm. Biblical amounts of rain. We had walked through a creek early in the night that was about high ankle height. On our way back it was mid-calf height. You cross a lot of streams and creeks in the rainforest. Some have natural fords, some have man-made fords, and some have neither. The guide doesn’t slow down, and neither do you. My feet were wet in the first hour and never dried for the entire night. I was soaked to the skin but really, it made no difference. It’s hot, humid and stuffy in the jungle. The air doesn’t move, so even if it doesn’t rain, you’re pretty much soaked within the first half hour, and stay that way for the duration (this doesn’t apply to your feet – that is self-inflicted).

Could give new life to snails in garlic butter . . .

Ah! Jungle hunting! I did ask for this!

We did see a pangolin during our walk. My guide asked me if I wanted to shoot it. While he was holding it. I assume he would have let it go if I had said yes (does he know how a shotgun shoots?), but I didn’t find out. I said no, I’m not shooting a pangolin. Apart from being endangered, I believe they’re protected pretty much everywhere (in Liberia? Who knows?). Anyway, he didn’t really want to take no for an answer – we saw the little fellow again later and he asked me the same question. Same answer.

When we got back to camp, we found that Tim had recently arrived back as well. He had had no more luck than we had. In fact, less. He hadn’t had the opportunity to shoot a pangolin.

While we were away, Tony had rigged up mosquito nets over our beds and had taken down the cardboard, thus allowing the air to move freely. This also allowed the insects and bats to move freely, but I much prefer bats flying through than bats stuck inside. And that was a real risk in my case, since the roof of my hut was also, it transpired, home to a large number of what I believe (hope?) were fruit bats. At dusk they would come out and fly around all night, going back to their corner before dawn. (Before leaving camp I re-packed my bags, which I had left on the unoccupied (and un-netted) bed in my hut. Bat guano everywhere.)

Tim, Dean and I both got a few hours of sleep, and then got up. Each of us had questions about this method of hunting, and peppered Tony with most of them. We were unable to find the logic in hunting all night, as we had (especially in the rain). Tony agreed that the duikers were less likely to be moving in the rain, and most likely to be moving at dusk and early morning. We decided to try hunting at different times to see if one time would be more successful than another.

One of the better ways to ford a creek . . . but log walking in the dark presents a few challenges of its own . . .

Crossing a creek during the day . . . this is one of the shallow ones. Your feet will be wet from shortly after you set out to the end of your hunt.

Over the next four or five days we hunted early morning – before first light to about 9 am. We hunted at dusk – 7 pm to about 11 pm. We hunted mid-day, and we hunted in the afternoon. Tim and I always went in different directions and covered as much territory as could be covered in the time we were in the jungle. We tried calling as well as walking. None of it was successful. Not only were we not seeing animals, but we weren’t seeing any trace of animals. We did see some very few tracks, but all seemed quite old, and we never say anything which could pass as duiker droppings.

What we did see was that this hunting concession was being actively farmed in several areas, and generally (we were told) by one guide or another. Clearly, when they weren’t hunting, they were farming. This meant a constant presence in the hunting concession of people who had an interest in both acquiring protein and in preventing protein from eating their crops. Neither is likely to aid in the increase of duiker populations. People were also living close enough (we were apparently surrounded by some 17 villages) that while hunting at night (or trying to sleep) we could hear music being played.

Then there was the challenge of the laser pointer. When my guide said he saw a porcupine and pointed the laser at it, I saw a red beam hitting plants and brush for yards. I had no idea where he was actually pointing it. So I shot blind (never a great idea) and hit nothing at all (other than some very large leaves). But I had no proof that there had in fact been anything there in the first place.

On the morning of about day 4, I joined Tim and Dean for breakfast. Tim told me he was concerned with the manner of hunting. We had questioned Tony the night before about shooting “trophy”, which is to say male, duiker, rather than females, and Tony said it was virtually impossible for the guides to tell them apart in the jungle and at night. So if we shot a female, that was fine – the meat would go to the village, and we could continue hunting until we got a male. Tim had told Tony that this was unacceptable – the females were the future of the species and of hunting in the area, and to kill them as “by-catch” while hunting for males was simply wrong as well as being unsustainable. But that was how things were done.

I mentioned to Tim that I was having similar feelings – it occurred to me in the night that the night hunting skills our guides demonstrated, unlike, for example, the tracking skills demonstrated by Zimbabwean trackers, could only have been acquired one way, and for one reason. And that was poaching. It certainly couldn’t be legal hunting, given how minimal legal hunting had been over the last many decades.

This isn’t to cast judgment on our guides. If – and I have no proof – they were in fact poaching, any of us would likely do the same thing in similar circumstances. Not only did they have families to feed, they had crops in their gardens to protect.

Tin told me that he was thinking about leaving early. We discussed it and agreed we’d give it another couple of days and if we saw no change, we’d call it and head for home. Fortunately, Tim had brought a satellite internet hub which we could use to both contact home (there was no phone or internet capability at camp) and make changes to travel arrangements, if it came to that.

 

[Red Leg]

God I am having fun imagining not being there.