HUNTER GREEN – January/February 2022

Using Darts Instead of Bullets for Wild Game Management, GREEN HUNTING is Also a Win for Conservation and Hunter Recruitment

NATHAN CHIDRESS WAS NERVOUS. The huge ibex billy he was hunting had eluded him all afternoon, but now it seemed as if he might have an opportunity for a clean shot.

The big, beautiful goat was positioned behind a tree, which made a shoulder shot impossible, but the ibex had his head down and was eating. Perhaps he would continue feeding and move out just a few feet, and that’s exactly what happened.

With only a few yards of opening between the tree and a cedar thicket, fourteen-year-old Nathan raised the rifle, placed the crosshair behind the shoulder and squeezed the trigger.

“You missed,” said outfitter Thompson Temple, who was watching with binoculars.

“Oh man, I thought I had him,” Nathan replied.

“I’m just messing with you. It was a perfect hit. Job well done young man,” Temple said.

Nathan breathed a sigh of relief, and we all had a good laugh. Now it was time to wait a few minutes for the ibex to go down, but there would be no blood trail to follow.

Nathan shot it with a special dart that injects a tranquilizer.

Temple needed to inoculate it from disease and move it to another pasture. There, it could mate with a herd of female ibex as part of his ongoing breeding management program.

Ten minutes later, we found the ibex. After administering some inoculations, Nathan posed for photos with the animal he had very legitimately hunted. Then we moved it to another pasture.

Temple injected it with the antidote, and the billy shot straight up and started walking. He would not have passed any sobriety test with his wobbly strut, but it didn’t take long for him to find his bearings. Soon he was off with the nannies that were calling out in the distance.

That’s a radically different story than the first dart hunt I ever heard of back in the early 2000s.

One of my outdoor mentors, the late Tony Houseman shot a white rhino as part of a “green hunt” on a remote tract in southern Africa. Sperm was collected from the big male and then taken to another area to artificially inseminate a female. This practice has been ongoing and has contributed to the genetic diversity of white rhinos.

“After hitting the rhino with the antidote, they are supposed to take a few minutes to get moving,” Houseman recounted upon returning from his expedition. “But the one I shot jumped right up and gave us a good scare. We were all moving pretty fast.”

 

These are called green hunts because the animal isn’t killed, but all other parts of the hunting experience are intact. These green hunts are regularly done with rhinos. Similar hunts are now staged with jaguars in South America.

Hunters are paying to hunt the jaguar with hounds, tree the cat and dart it. The hunt pays for important conservation research. After darting the jaguar, the hunters take photographs, and the animal is fitted with a GPS tracking collar.

About an hour before sunset on the same day Nathan darted the ibex, I got to do the same thing with a massive exotic hybrid ram.

He wanted to inoculate the ram. However, unlike deer which can be injected easily by shooting them with a dart, these sheep have thick hair and wool which makes it necessary to do it by hand.

After all, you only know the animal is hit with the tranquilizer when it starts moving slowly. Antibiotics don’t have the same impact.

It was very much like bowhunting because I had to get within 30 yards for a shot. Also, since sheep are herd animals, it was a challenge to hit the ram and not the wrong animal.

I love wild and exotic sheep and getting my hands on this big one for a photo was exciting. Even more fulfilling was knowing we helped Temple’s management plan to move forward by giving this big, breeder ram some protection against sickness.

On the same trip, Nathan shot a beautiful Texas Dall ram, successfully taking his first-ever big game animal. He was understandably excited. “Getting to dart, give a medical treatment of sorts and move that big ibex was even cooler. I’ll never forget that opportunity,” he said.

Green hunting is already making an impact globally for wildlife. Here in Texas, animals are darted, examined, medicated and moved on a daily basis on ranches throughout the state.

I believe this could be a great way to get young people perhaps from hunting families who are not quite down with killing an animal to understand hunting, game management and conservation.

The real opportunity here is with exotics. If a rancher needs to dart and move a big blackbuck or red stag, why not involve a young person? It would be a golden opportunity to see the benefits of the hunting industry and how game management works. Adults on the outer edges of the hunting world might want to see what it’s about too.

I got to scan the horns of the ibex and ram with Trophy-Scan, an incredible technology that is already in use in a major way scoring deer for the Los Cazadores Whitetail Deer Contest. An app and scanner along with an ipad allows horns to be detail-scanned. This will create an image that can be sent to 3-D printers.

Theoretically you could scan a horn or skull mount of an animal you helped move for a rancher. The technology even allows the image to be scaled up or down to something like a pendant for a necklace.

Although what Nathan and I did wasn’t labeled as a green hunt, in essence, it was one. For Nathan in particular, it was a wonderful experience.

It’s amazing to me that nearly 20 years ago, I first heard of this concept with Tony Houseman’s incredible rhino adventure. Maybe one day I’ll get to travel across the Atlantic and go on a green hunt for rhinos.

My finances would have to radically change, but it’s okay to dream, right?

But if not, the memories of sharing such a special experience with Nathan and Thompson Temple will live with me forever.

For more information on exotic hunting go to www.thompsontemple.net

 

—story by CHESTER MOORE

 

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