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| Africa Subsaharan |
| I Grew Up on Safari. The Most Dangerous Game Isn't What You Think |
| 2026-05-12 |
| [OutdoorLife] As a professional hunter who grew up in the bush, I've had my fair share of animal attacks and run-ins with Africa's big five I grew into hunting because my natural father, Clary Palmer Wilson, has long been a professional hunter in East Africa, and hunting is in my blood. My earliest memories are of being on safari when I was five or six years old. Between safaris on which Clary guided clients, he often took my mother, my two brothers, my sister, and me for a month or two on safari while he hunted elephants for the ivory. Once on such a trip, when I was about six, a rhino walked between our tents and stood sniffing some of the toys I had left on the ground. I was utterly captivated and could hardly be kept from running closer. The rhino soon left, without giving any trouble. On another safari I remember as a child, a leopard chased a bleating native goat through one of our tents, which was open on both ends because of the heat. Next morning we found where the leopard had killed and eaten most of the goat and hung the remainder in a tree, hardly a stone’s throw from our camp. We lived on a farm near Lushoto, Tanzania, where we raised cattle, sheep, and pigs and kept a large vegetable garden. It was game country, and we had a lot of trouble with forest hogs rooting up our vegetables. Cape buffalo occasionally broke fences to feed in our gardens. Lions and leopards occasionally killed our livestock. Throughout my boyhood my fascination with these wild animals and their habits and with hunting them far overshadowed any slight interest I had in farming. Clary, at age 16, had guided alone a group from the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago to collect big-game specimens, and my desire to hunt was just as fierce. By the time I was 15, I had dropped out of school and was hunting elephants and hippos for their ivory, and crocodiles for their hides. Today, at 25, I am a full-time professional hunter. I am licensed as a professional white hunter in Tanzania, East Africa, and I am also a registered guide in Alaska. While visiting in the United States when I was a boy, I met Bud Branham, an Alaska guide, and we remained good friends and corresponded for many years after I returned home to Africa. I came to the U.S. to attend college in 1963, and at that time Bud Branham legally adopted me, which makes me one of the few people in the world with two fathers. Three years ago I graduated from Texas Christian University with a degree in Business Administration. I now am an American citizen and work as a full-time partner with Bud, who is also licensed as a white hunter in Tanzania. We have an agreement with Clary, my natural father, to work with him winters in Africa, where we hunt what until recently was the Selous Game Reserve, the largest game reserve in Africa, an area that was closed to human entry for about 50 years. During the rest of the year, we hunt in Alaska. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
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| Posted by: Skidmark 2026-05-12 12:13 |
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| Posted by: Skidmark 2026-05-12 12:12 |
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| Posted by: Bangkok Billy 2026-05-12 08:46 |