OVER several decades, I have been fortunate to haveeither shot, or been in on the kill, of a three figure tally of these super-tough bovines. Being an enthusiastic student of terminal bullet performance and a dedicated ‘bullet digger’ I performed fairly detailed autopsies on as many of these buffalo as I could.
The early 1980s were exciting times for Zimbabwean cattlemen. The bush war was finally over, the economy was recovering, and by a trade agreement known as the Lome Convention, Zimbabwean beef was being exported to Europe in substantial quantities. This raised the price of beef considerably and for a time the cattle industry boomed. To retain export status, the strictest of veterinary regulations were imposed regarding the movement of cattle, and the containment of the buffalo herds, as an estimated 70-80% of Zimbabwean buffalo were carriers of the dreaded foot-and-mouth disease.
Being a local veterinarian, a cattle rancher and a representative of the all-powerful Cattle Producers Association in what was deemed a ‘beef export catchment area’, I was kept a busy man.
One afternoon, as I drove up to our ranch house, I was stopped by one of my herdsmen. He appeared to be extremely distressed, and explained with rolling eyes, much huffing and puffing, and with his arms curled up over his head so as to imitate (devil cow). As my ranch was only about 40 miles (as the crow flies) from the Zambezi Valley escarpment, it could only have been a buffalo, so I went to investigate. At the time the only rifle I possessed was an old and woefully inaccurate Lee-Enfield .303, complete with a wobbly front sight, and my only ammo was military FMJ. To cut a long story short, some five shots and lots of adrenalin later, I had my first buffalo ‘scalp’. My first shot (with the buffalo standing almost fully broadside) hit low down, thankfully, just behind the shoulder. This was where I thought the heart to be, and when I did an autopsy, I found that initial bullet embedded in the thickest part of the heart muscle. Interestingly, it was facing backwards – proof enough that military spitzers tumble when encountering fairly solid resistance. For the next two decades I pursued buffalo with feverish enthusiasm, and soon realized that the heart shot taken low down, just behind the shoulder, is not the best option for a broadside shot, as the buffalo invariably ran a long way and took quite some time to expire. No doubt this is why our most experienced PHs all said, “Never follow up a wounded buffalo until your client has had enough time to smoke at least two cigarettes”.
