Kudu tales from the trophy room
The kudu is undoubtedly one of the most sought after big-game animals in the world and likely to be on the wishlist of many an Aussie hunter aspiring to tread the earth of the ‘Dark Continent’. Despite not being particularly rare, the kudu’s size, beauty and natural wariness combine to make it a worthy and desirable target for hunters from all over the globe. Although pictured reasonably often in Australian hunting magazines, usually this is in advertisements, or in articles in which a half-dozen species are put on the deck in the minimal time available. These passing references provide limited background information for those considering their first adventure in pursuit of the so-called ‘grey ghost of the veld’.
In the context of my maiden hunt for the Eastern Cape greater kudu (the subspecies inhabiting the south-eastern corner of the Republic of South Africa), this article seeks to give a general introduction to , how to hunt it and a little background to its conservation status and biology. In this way,
