WE HAD been hunting all day near Kimberly, not far from South Africa’s border with Botswana, looking for Cape eland or their spoor. The ‘grey ghosts’ of the veld are bigger than horses, quiet as mice. They drift like spectres through the scrubby veld.
THE country was flat, open forest with patches of thorn bush. A sometime watercourse staggered through it but no sign of water was present. Maybe a more succulent crop of grasses followed the dry bed. Eland browse on shrubbery as well as graze. This gives them a broader range area and better chance of survival than either specialised browsers or grazers.
We were stepping gingerly through a swampy area, now dry, when Jaco, my PH, crouched and pointed into the distance. Two Cape eland were feeding about 200m in front of us. Their grey skins blended with the deepening evening shadows. One was trophy quality.
The eland is the world’s
