The second day is a rest day. Yesterday we worked hard: "Garmin" showed I wasted 3500 kCal in active mode. This was the result of overcoming 1000 vertical meters and 16 km horizontal. The wind was roaring outside the window, I could see through the window how its violent gusts twisted the bunches of tahr grass. I came up with the name myself – it was like the wool of those animals. It was tall – up to half a meter - grass, something like our sedge, with tough and strong leaves, had helped us more than once on the ascents.
Himalayan tahr had been bothering me since the moment I saw it on TV. It was like an alien animal, strange, disproportionate, with a square face and a lion's mane. Not a trophy, but a hunter's dream. Telling the truth, my last year's trip to Nepal was for the sake of that beast, but the government of the country reduced the quota to four animals per year for populist purposes, so I had to settle for hunting bharal, which turned out to be also very interesting later.
Facebook reduced the world to the size of an entrance in a high-rise building – after I published my report on hunting in Nepal, a young man named Joseph knocked on the messenger and asked sarcastically why I could not get a tahr when visiting the Himalayas. We started the correspondence and it turned out that he was a guide and owner of an outfitter company in New Zealand, and dreamed to hunt a Central Asian ibex. As much as I dreamed about Tahr. As a result, we concluded an agreement on the exchange of hunts: I'd hunt tahr and chamois, and he'd hunt an ibex.
It's not very fun to travel alone, so I’ve invited my hunter friends to join. The expedition was planned to be interesting, and the price offered for hunting two mountain animals was very reasonable. So, we flew out with one of my friends, from Astana, who had already tasted the charm of mountain hunting.
New Zealand is a very advanced country in the hunting sense. It allows, unlike Kazakhstan and Russia, to rent weapons, so we flew light, and had just twenty kilograms of equipment. I won't describe it specifically. Almost everything, I took, was from the Nepal expedition list, with the exception of the warmest things, which didn't need to be taken. There are no frosts there.
The flight Almaty-Hong Kong-Auckland-Christchurch took us 36 hours. The checking in Auckland was very strict. It included a circular check for biological danger, even the soles of mountain boots were examined, as if we had not brought some kind of infection to that Eden.
That was exactly how it seemed to us from the first minutes through the window of an old land cruiser. The climate there is a unique. It's mild, there is no winter, a little snow falls high in the mountains. There are no predators, harmful insects, poisonous snakes and other reptiles.
The history of hunting New Zealand is interesting. There were no mammals on either of its islands. A hundred years ago the British brought various ungulates from their colonies – red deer, muntjak, sika deer, zambara, fallow deer, tahr and chamois. The animals have multiplied to incredible numbers thanks to the very comfortable condition there. There were so many of them that in the 80s they began to shoot animals from helicopters. Hunting in New Zealand is open all year round for all kinds of animals without restriction.
The population of the country is 4.5 million citizens and 200K of them are hunters. There are about 250 hunting shops work, and 26-28 thousand (!) foreign hunters come per year! TWENTY-EIGHT THOUSAND!!!
I don't know how, but for hunters it's definitely paradise! That is the results of the private hunting farm management. The number of animals is uniquely high there, wild breeding is one of the strongest in the world, there are more than 1.2 million deer in the aviary alone.
We were convinced of the highest level of animal husbandry, including hunting. All pastures were fenced, the territories were well-groomed, there were tens of thousands of animals around. I hope that someday the state of our country will turn its eyes to this branch of the national economy, and herds of wild ungulates will walk across our endless expanses.
But this paradise has its own problems. A sharp increase of the number of wild ungulates led to the fact that in the eighties the government abolished all prohibitions on hunting and weapons, as a result a legalized hunting lawlessness began. It devalued the very process of proper hunting as such. What this will lead to is unknown.
Arrival The first day.
We arrived tired, had a light snack, and fell asleep immediately. In the morning it was necessary to get up at 6.00. We accommodated in a small hunting lodge, without frills, but with everything we needed and a reliable roof.
It wasn't cold in the mountains, but it was very windy. Therefore, I used "Dallibor 2" as the main costume, a hood was a great help in a strong wind. We had breakfast as we were used to, New Zealanders drank tea only!
At 7 am we began to go up by the cattle trail. Twenty minutes later I noticed a furry monster. It was a young male, which was in a hurry somewhere and slid quickly along the steep cliffs. We all cheered up. The guide studied it carefully through a scope, which he resorted to whenever he saw an animal, waved his hand and led us on. Soon, we detected a small group of animals, which had rest on the pass, in the direction where the young goat went. We had to hunt together, one by one. We decided that Almas would be the first to shoot. Carbine "Tikka" in carbon fiber caliber.300 WSM was shot in advance.
I hadn't used a short magnum before, and was pleasantly surprised by the soft recoil, which was compensated by the suppressor like the sound.
By 11 o'clock we crossed the first ridge and went far into the depths of a large gorge. There was a view of the opposite ridge, in the rocks from there. Soon we spotted several groups of tahrs. They were already in a pre-rut condition and were moving very actively along the slope relative to each other.
Finally, I managed to see them in all their glory: the long, yak-like, dark chocolate-colored wool shone in the sun, it took off in waves and repeated the movement of the manes of bright green grass waving in the wind. A lion's mane around a neat head with small crescent-shaped horns deserved special attention. It had light gray, sometimes ashen color, and turned into golden and even lavender. The hair around the head of some old males can be up to 40 centimeters long, and the animals look very impressive with it. They resemble bears more than the ibexes they belong to in proportions and a gait.
There were at least two dozen animals, but only one large specimen. So, we began to approach it. We had to go down into the gorge, and then ascend almost to the very top, where a trophy animal was seen in the rocks.
On the descent, we fell into a trap, prepared by the unfriendly New Zealand vegetation. I'd seen a lot of thorny bushes, but those ones turned out to be the evilest. Long thin needles grew on almost iron branches, and it was impossible to bend them even a little, so all the needles immediately pierced the clothes and thrust into the body. Others, which looked like a decorative yucca, pricked us with sharp and hard lanceolate leaves. It was especially painful when I tried to grab a bunch of grass on a steep climb, and it turned out that there was that "yucca"! My mistake was that I put on the lightest Alois pants so that it wouldn't be hot. I won't shock you with photos of my tortured body, but just believe me, there was nothing like this in my hunting practice. In general, all the plants on the island are very strong, they do not break, do not tear, do not bend. We learned that lesson very quickly and understood what we should avoid. So, we did not hesitate to go around the thickets when it was possible.
A couple of hours later we came to a group of tahr, frightening several animals on the way. The distance was 200 meters, and my partner began to prepare for the shot. That was actually his first responsible trophy hunting. The situation was complicated, the view was obscured by the thickets of tahr grass, it blocked completely the view. They tried to build an elevation from backpacks, the position for the shot was not the most successful plus there was a squall wind.
I set up a camera, but I didn't see a hit on the screen. The tahr jumped down, turned over its head and flew into the gorge. “You got it!” - the hunter shouted joyfully, confident in the accurate shot. The animal was out of sight, but the way it tumbled down the slope, there was no doubt about the hit. However, a moment later out "dead Tahr" limped out of the gorge and ran away. Incredibly, it turned out to be our beast!
We decided to check in order not to arrange a shootout. We searched the entire canyon, checked the place where it was when the hunters shot and saw confirmation of the hit - shreds of wool and blood. It became clear from the tahr was wounded. There was nothing to do but to get it... It seemed that it had fallen into a thicket lower down the slope. We began to descend, surrounded the thickets, but our Tahr did not show up. Joseph and I were checking different sides of the gorge, while Almas was sitting at the ready with a carbine.
I finished my side, and Joseph was almost approaching the last bushes, but he got stuck in the thorns. For a moment everyone was distracted, and then Tahr popped out! No one understood where it was hiding. The hunter managed to shoot a couple of times, but did not hit. The goat crossed the ridge and disappeared from sight It was already five o'clock, the chances to find it were fading before our eyes
. May in New Zealand is our December, the days are short, it gets dark early. But the dramatic denouement did not suit anyone.
The Tahr moved to the mountains. Fortunately, that slope, overgrown with bushes, was without grass practically, and a fresh footprint was clearly visible on the clay. However, after about five hundred meters we lost its tracks, and just went towards the house.
It was getting dark, the fatigue of the day was felt, the mood was not very good – we did so much work and such a mediocre denouement. In addition, a wounded animal is equated to a taken one according to the rules of trophy hunting. Everyone was thinking about something different when Joseph sat down abruptly. We did the same. He looked into the pipe and nodded happily – "there was our guy"!
The shooting position that time was impossible at all. The shooter secured himself on the branches and the bushes, and a second shot sounded. The Tahr had already heard our preparations and was looking in our direction. The bullet hit it in the chest. The beast collapsed and rolled down the slope like a bag of cement. Then we heard how it hit the rocks of the New Zealand southern Alps with a loud bang. A huge weight fell from the hunter's soul. Joy came over the whole company! It wasn't a day, but some kind of thriller!
W had caught the last rays of the sun, to make pictures then butchered the trophy. It took us three hours more to went down to the road. We came out much lower than the camp was and had to force the river many times, but in the end, we reached the house.
The second day.
We decided to rest on the second day of hunting, but we couldn't sit at home and went down to the foothills to see red deer and fallow deer. All treeless hills were divided into squares by low wire fences, no higher than a meter. It's done for more efficient pasture management, sheep are distilled after a certain period from a "cage" to a "cage", so they don't knock out the grass completely and do not spoil the soil cover. So, deer live there right along with the sheep! They use thickets of thorny bushes, and hide during the day, and in the evening, they go out to graze. They are not afraid of sheep and perceive them as their own kind, which is understandable due to the absence of shepherds, dogs and other factors of concern. The dogs are not needed at all, since there are no predators or any other dangers. A local farmer who has a herd of 6000 sheep, employee only two assistants! According to personal observations. deer treated sheep fences without visible respect and jumped over them easily.
There were a lot of deer, but we were not excited by the trophies. They looked like ponies after an Akhal-Teke after our Siberian deer.
We could see the opposite side of the mountain on which we hunted on the first day from the place where we stood. The guide said that that was a very promising place for hunting tahr, and we really saw a large group of animals in the rocky circus throug the scope. We listen to his words, reviewed the approaches, and decided to try our luck in that gorge in the morning.
The third day.
The second hunt for Tahr began at six in the morning. It was hard for me to climb the first half hour, but then the body adapted, and it went more fun. At last, we chosen a position on a hill, and sat down to monitor the surroundings. At the beginning, it seemed that the slope was lifeless, but soon, one by one, animals began to appear out of nowhere. It turned out that there were thickets of some kind of shrub on the opposite slope, which reminded me very much of the cedar elfin in Kamchatka. The animals made paths just right in those bushes, and therefore they were almost invisible.
Joseph scrutinized each male. It's impossible to o determine how many centimeters in the horns of the tahr with a scope at such a distance, but some signs he could determine the age, and most importantly, to evaluate the skin of the animal, which was the main trophy of that animal.
The gray rock, cut by canyons, resembled the wrinkled face of a gloomy old man, over which cold rainwater dripped. The harsh, inhospitable vegetation bristled with unshaven cheeks, as warned of the serious consequences of communicating with that world.
We looked out all slopes very carefully and after half an hour we found a trophy animal. It turns out that old-timers tahr have a white back, like our ibexes.
The trophy was grazing at the very top surrounded by females, and the approach promised to be very difficult: a crazy gradient of up to 60 degrees, a lot of rocks, canyons, waterfalls and terrible thickets of New Zealand thorn and holly yucca, from the sight of which we began to panic. Only sheaves of tahr's grass saved us, which were so strong that I could not tear a single leaf. We were grabbing its shaggy manes, and moved quite smartly for such conditions to the cherished goal.
Suddenly, we came out to the group of females, and hid not to make a noise. They slowly went into the next gorge, glancing at us with displeasure. It turns out that the tahr give an alarm signal, like ibexes , with a loud whistle.
We crept up to 200 meters, but the male moved away somewhere while we were approaching. Fortunately, the wind was on our side, and the animals behaved calmly. The guide commanded "Forward" and we crawled even closer. There were a hundred meters to the group, but our male was not visible.
We had nothing but wait when it'd get up and come out of the bushes, where it decided to rest a little. A couple more males came out from above, but Joseph just spread his hands, making it clear that he did not understand where our beast was. I had an uncomfortable position on a stone scree, and after about fifteen minutes it became unbearable to lie in such a position. I crawled carefully forward three meters, pulled up the carbine, looked up and stunned. The Tahr stood right above us about a hundred meters away and was preparing for a fight with the newcomers. We couldn't see it before because of the rocky ledge. I made a sign to the guide, waved my head in the direction of the beast, and began to prepare for the shot. He managed to change the position and shoot a video. A soft shot popped, the beast jumped up, ran twenty meters along the cliff, stopped and fell down. “ Good shot!” - said my PH.
I hadn't the opportunity to shoot a hundred meters in recent years, so I accepted congratulations and congratulated him too on his masterful approach to this difficult terrain. Then there were congratulations again, and a photo session. When we got the first trophy Joseph carried it almost all the way by himself, but that time our way was downhill. Now he was a little excited that he would have to go through the pass, which was still about-go-go. I supported his desire to save the meat, and took half of it into my backpack.
The fitness plan was also exceeded that day, but we all were in high spirit. When we came to the lodge I took up the preparation of a kuyrdak, our traditional dish, immediately, which I promised to feed the guys.
We already got to know Joseph well during those days, he was a young twenty-six-year-old guy from a family of farmers and hunters, of which there are most in New Zealand. He ran around the mountains with weapons in his hands since childhood, got the meat of birds and animals. Over time, he realized that he did not want to be an agrarian, and went to Canada to work as a guide and learn hunting. Then, he came back a couple of years ago and opened a Proper hunting company in New Zealand. I was imbued with deep respect for him after spending ten days in constant communication with this modest and sincere hunter, and we parted as good friends. He is one of the few people in New Zealand who tries to defend and popularize real hunting - in wild open areas, without the usage of helicopters, cars, thermal imagers and other technical means, based on hunting ethics, respect for nature and animals.
We had dinner in Kazakh style, ate fresh meat, told hunting stories and drank fine red wine.
Day #4.
Night. I woke up from some kind of rumble – either a thunderstorm, and thunder was rumbling, or the roof was torn off by the wind on the neighboring house. There wasn't any chance to fall asleep once again. I began to think about the city with its endless problems, or it might be just withdrawal syndrome after yesterday's bottle of perfectly Syrah, with which celebrated the trophy I had won. That beast was really special for me, even for a moment I felt sad.
But in the end, I slept. Almas and I were sleeping, when the guide had already done the initial processing of the trophy.
In the morning, we packed up all belongings.
Almost the entire territory of the South Island is consisted of mountains in one way or another. The first part of our hunting trip took place on the east coast. The mountains were dry, almost treeless there. There are some wooded areas, but they all are planted by colonists. The native vegetation is mainly shrubby and herbaceous, there are many succulents, thorns and other forms traditionally found in arid regions of the world. There is a lot of water in the mountains, transparent streams flow in almost every gorge, they gather into full-flowing rivers that form a system of large, very attractive lakes. There are two types of trout and salmon in abundance there (everything is also introduced). We didn't have a chance to fish, because had to move to the place of the second hunt on the west coast.
I announced the west coast as a must-visit place. This is exactly the "homeland of the Hobbits". The west coast is washed by warm currents unlike the dry east coast. These currents carry their waters from the equator along the coast of Australia. As a result, monsoon rains are frequent there, there are high humidity and rich vegetation in rain forests. Tree ferns, palm trees, huge agathis and docridums go up with their magnificent crowns on the slopes of the western spurs of the Southern Alps. Cautious chamois hide in these rocks above the forest zone, subalpine and then alpine meadows.
(to be continued with the story about hunting for the New Zealand chamois)
