Not just sad, Per. It was God damned embarrassing.
If it were up to me, every forest office would be equipped with a Winchester Model 70 Safari Express in .375 Holland & Holland Magnum.
As a matter of fact, in 1982 ( a year after I had successfully shot the first man eater), I had written a formal letter to the Ministry of Forests requesting each forest office of every forest department across the nation to be equipped with a BRNO ZKK-602 in .375 Holland & Holland Magnum (in order to properly contend with dangerous problem animals). The BRNO ZKK-602 was still being manufactured at that time and it would have been quite affordable to import a consignment of 20 of these rifles for supplying the forest offices. As well as consignments of RWS 300Gr KS soft point cartridges and Remington 300Gr round nosed steel jacketed solid cartridges.
But my request fell on deaf ears. The cheapskate bureaucratic bastards sitting at the air-conditioned Ministry of Forests offices in Dacca apparently knew far more about firearms and hunting dangerous game than actual hunters. They simply told me “There are already enough guns lying around in the local armories. Why would you possibly want us to spend more money and import more ? Any gun can be used for hunting dangerous animals if you can shoot properly”.
How can you possibly expect a guy to reason with people who display this level of ignorance ?
During the British colonial era, the forest guards of the British Imperial Forest Service were issued muzzle loading muskets until 1920 (in order to prevent them from rebelling against the British). From 1920 onwards, they started getting issued with 12 gauge single barrel and double barrel shotguns.
This practice continued well past the independence from the British in 1947 and into the East Pakistani era. Towards the end of the East Pakistani era (1969), the East Pakistan Department of Forests began to issue their forest guards with .303 British Lee Enfield rifles.
After the war in 1971, the various forest departments all across the new nation were still arming their forest guards with the old East Pakistani Lee Enfield rifles in .303 British. It must be remembered that when I first became the DFO of the Sundarban mangrove forests in 1981, the country was less than 10 years old at the time- A 3rd world country that was economically ravaged by the war of 1971 and countless bloody military coups all throughout the 1970s. The nation’s various forest departments were (in all likelihood) the most poorly funded government bodies at the time.
After I became the Chief Conservator of Forests in 1993, I had all the forest departments across the nation equip their forest guards with the Belgian FN FAL self loading rifle in 7.62x51mm NATO and 147Gr full metal jacket military ball ammunition.
