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[Music]
Welcome to Fieldsports Britain. Coming up I meet a man who tangles with a big snake.
You pull him out of the hole like a giant robin would pull an earthworm out of the ground.
We have got Hunting YouTube, we have got News Stump, we have got Hallo Charlie. First, I
have come here to Texas to find out why shooting the worlds rarest animals is good for them.
[Music]
Fausto Yturria is one of many landowners in the vast space of South Texas who loves his
wildlife, loves his big game hunting, loves his ranch and has found a way of putting all
those three things together.
We have got scimitar oryx from north Africa. We have got the nilgai, we have got water
buck from Africa and we are especially proud of the scimitar oryx, because the oryx came
from the deserts of north Africa and it was almost extinct and some very wise men brought
some of them to the USA, brought them to Texas and we have basically saved the herd, saved
the species from extinction by having them here in Texas. We have thousands of them here
in Texas. Maybe some day we can take some back to Africa.
They do things big in Texas - game is big, ranches are big - the King Ranch is more than
800,000 acres - and, if you appreciate old jokes, only the kangaroos are small.
The first imports that I know of that came to Texas was back in the 30's when Bob Clayburn
who was head of the King Ranch at that time brought some nilgai in which is a large antelope
from India and he brought the in from the Santiago zoo and turned them loose on his
ranch. At that time we were in very severe drought condition and he was looking for another
source of protein so he wanted to turn to an animal that could exist in desert type
country because it was so hot down here and so dry down here. So they felt that the nilgai
would do good here in Texas which of course it has done. There are thousands of them in
Texas now.
The money from the oil and gas industry helps but, without an income from hunting, keeping
these large animals makes no financial sense.
That wasn't a nilgai was it, he was?
But you can't just go out and save the world without producing some income to do it with
and what the hunting does, it is a very fine equation and what you have to do is you have
to have a certain amount of animals killed every year, or you have too many animals and
you over graze the ranch. It is very similar to the cattle business.
And does it make environmental sense having exotics here? Well, yes. They seem to rub
along just fine with the local population.
Of course in drought areas we have just come out of a drought months ago, we had a die
off of white tailed deer, we had a die off of nilgai. Luckily we didn't have a die off
of any of our African animals. May be they are more sturdy than our native animals in
Texas.
So let's put this conservation into practice and go nilgai stalking with Fausto's guest
Chris, helped out by Fausto's son-in-law Brad and Fausto's staff member Tony. First stop
is the target where Chris can check the rifle.
Next stop is a nilgai, from the comfort of a purpose-built South Texas hunting vehicle.
Nilgai are not easy to get near to. You will see most nilgai as a brown blur if they are
calves or cows, or a grey blur if they are bulls, galumphing across the track in front
of the vehicle. Eventually, we get to one we reckon we can stop and stalk into.
There's an exciting few minutes but by the time Chris and Brad are in position, the animal
has moved on.
The nilgai won that one.
[Music]
There is a general presumption against feral pigs in Texas. These are not pigs - they are
a peccary, called locally a javelina. These are pigs and, once again Chris and Brad are
out of the car and into a tricky stalk. The wind is not with us and, when you are trying
to walk in quietly, this brush country has similar properties to a brass band.
It's a clean miss - the bullet goes just an inch over the top of the nearest animal and
they need no further encouragement to make a run for it. But you don't get dispirited
in Texas. There is simply too much to see here. Texans love their birdshooting or wingshooting
as they call it. There are morning doves and there are Rio Grande turkeys. We are not out
after these today but it is a joy to see them.
As for the nilgai, we are beginning to wonder whether we will ever get close to a takeable
bull. Then Fausto brakes sharply and Chris is already levelling the rifle.
Did you hit?
No I didn't hear it.
I didn't hear it either.
Well they are wrong, as this action replay shows. That's a .300 Win mag round and this
tough antelope didn't flinch.
Definitely he has got hit. Look here.
We find the animal 20 yards into the mesquite.
One, two, three.
Well I have been looking forward to this hunt because the nilgai is known as a great tough
animal to hunt and hard to bring down and they are also excellent to eat so I am really
looking forward to getting this fellow onto the grill.
They are probably one of the most difficult animals to bring down in Texas. They have
got a thick hide and actually these animals run for a mile or so before they are brought
down.
His back straps are going to be wonderful and he is a nice colour too. He has good horns
so you have got yourself a nice trophy brother.
Thank you very much I appreciate it.
Do you want the bill now or after dinner.
Well I know you started writing it up when we found the drops of blood.
Thanks to the hunting business, ranchers in South Texas have saved not just the scimitar
oryx but the addax and the dama gazelle from extinction. Texas is now home to a quarter
of the world's population of nilgai and Pakistan is this year reopening both nilgai and black
buck hunting.
Of course, the antis hate this logical way of saving species. They try to put a spanner
in the works by getting their friends in Washington to add new layers of laws on ownership and
hunting of these animals in Texas. They would prefer tourists to come and look at the animals,
not shoot them.
We are too far away from America. If we were close to Disney World or close to Disney Land
in Los Angeles we would conduct tours to see the wildlife, but we are sort of out of the
way here in Kennedy County Texas. This is basically ranch land. There are not more than
200 people in the entire county.
Of course it costs £1,000s for people to come and, as they call it here, 'harvest'
a bull. But without hunting, these ranchers would go back to cattle and even local species
could find themselves walking off into the sunset.
Well from one bunch of endangered species to David on the Fieldsports Channel News Stump.
[Music]
This is Fieldsports Channel News.
Australian education charity Boys Forward institute recommends hunting, fishing, crabbing
and camping in order to reconnect with nature. It is running an advertisement supporting
the reintroduction of shooting to Australian schools.
A man from Texas who paid US$350,000 to hunt an endangered African black rhino says he
has had to hire full-time security. Corey Knowlton told local television stations that
he has received death threats against himself and his family. Money raised by the auction
will go into protecting and conserving black rhinos but many still find the idea of shooting
a rhino offensive.
More white rhinos were illegally killed in South Africa in 2013 than in any previous
year, according to government statistic. A total of 1,004 animals were poached, representing
a 50% increase over the previous 12 months. Campaigners say that a growing demand for
rhino horn from markets in Vietnam and China is fuelling the killing.
A mother of two has put hunting ahead of the safety of her children. In the US state of
Florida, a mother has been arrested after police say she left her two children, aged
seven and nine, inside her car in near-freezing temperatures so that she could go feral boar
hunting. Kayla Shavers has been charged with child neglect. She says she went after the
hogs because they had been tearing up her property.
And finally, a couple of wildlife stories. Here are some lucky chamois, spotted by our
own Mark Gilchrist, who is resident in the French Alps for the winter. Chamois lovers
will be delighted to know that all the animals escaped the avalanche.
And here is a python swallowing an antelope whole, that's doing well on YouTube. Filmed
in Botswana's Moremi Game Reserve, the 8ft African rock python is able to swallow an
impala
You are now up to date with Fieldsports Channel News. Stalking the stories. Fishing for facts.
[Music]
Thank you David. Now let's see what the rest of you have been up to. It is Hallo Charlie.
[Music]
Here is what the world is up to this week.
[Music]
Hallo Charlie. Richard here. Thought you might like to see this one. We were out last night
for the first night foxing, out with my mate Ben who works for the Eggert Brothers. With
my .17 Hornet, Savage Arms, my MB -750 and my 800 hour lamp, saw two foxes managed to
squeak one of them back in and this is what we got a black fox.
Hallo Charlie. Ian here from in New Zealand, out to do some possum hunting, rabbits and
goats over night. Thanks for the show and speak to you soon.
Hallo Charlie Mark Strutton here again. Just thought you might like to see our game keeper
stuck in the mud and us just trying to pull him out.
Hallo Charlie. Hallo Charlie Steven and Evi here doing a cleaning on a .223.
It is not going too well.
Bye Charlie.
Send us your own Hallo Charlie. Film yourself on your mobile phone and just a sentence saying
Hallo Charlie who you are and what you are up to. Then share it or email it via Youtube,
Facebook, Dropbox, Yousendit, Younameit to Charlie@fieldsportschannel.tv
Now nilgai Chris was in Africa in 2011. He tells me how he sets about killing a python.
I was in northern Cameroon and I was in Sahil up around Gowra. I was hunting primarily for
lord derby eland and after I was successful in getting the eland, we had a little extra
time in camp and that is when I came up with the idea of hunting for python. The trackers
they go out and they look for a python track and apparently the python track goes in a
straight line. The python goes in caterpillar motion instead of an S shape track like other
snakes do and then you look at the width of the track in the dust and that tells you girth
of the snake. If you are going to dig them out of the ground it helps to have a lot of
strong backs to help you with digging the holes. The first thing you have to do is clear
the mouth of the hole and you peer in with a flash line and you see which direction the
hole goes until it disappears under the surface and then you intercept that hole with a vertical
shaft coming down from the surface. You take your next bearing and by doing this repetitively
then you may end up digging
ten holes, you slowly work your way to the end of the line and hopefully the python is
curled up in its sleeping den. Well, the first surprise was that there was more than one
snake in the hole and the first snake came out so quickly we never even knew what it
was. It shot past the shoulder of the fellow who was looking in the hole. There was a younger
python in the hole that was about eight feet long and so we had to sort out the two snakes
and we were successful in finding the bigger python in there. I was concerned with the
way they were trying to determine the direction of the hole was taking. The only way they
could do that was to take a fellow by the heels and lower him head first down the hole
and he could peer upside down up the hole with his flash light and that concerned me.
So I had a small camera like a GoPro and I taped it to the end of a stick with a little
light and then we just rammed the stick down the hole until we located the python and then
we finished our vertical shaft. Up until this
point none of the fellows digging the hole explained anything to me about what my role
was going to be. Quite frankly he didn't speak the same language anyway and the professional
hunter was very vague about this. He said if the snake comes out you must kill it. So
I said ok and I had a stick handy and I was going to whack it on the head and as soon
as I saw it go past the bottom of one of the vertical shafts I quickly realised that a
stick wasn't going to get the job done. So I had a .375. I took the scope off and I went
to the entrance of the surface and I waited for the snake to come to me. The snake's head
came to the surface and he looked around, saw all of us waiting on him and he decided
that he would go back down the hole now and so when he did the only way for me to get
a shot was to go to a vertical shaft and lower myself down into the shaft, I braced my feet
on either side of the hole and I waited for the snake to go between my legs and then when
he did, I shot him in the head with the rifle. It is
very similar to putting several pounds of baking flour on top of a stick of dynamite
and then lowering your face down and setting it off. I was covered in dust and after the
shot went off it took probably 30 seconds to clear the air before we could even see
what had happened. We enlarged the hole a little bit and then we got a stick underneath
it and then you bring a loop to the surface and then you work your way to the tail and
everyone grabs the tail and you pull him out of the hole like a giant robin would pull
and earthworm out of the ground. It was 16 and half feet, so that would be I suppose
about five metres. It was a lot of snake it kept coming out of the hole. I had this vision
of a big reel down there and it kept rolling off like a garden hose. It is a big piece
of meat this particular snake. It weighed 230 lbs so you had a 16 foot tenderloin. When
we carried it back to camp it was skinned and then the meat was all portioned out to
everyone who worked to get the snake out of the hole and I ate some
myself that night and it was a light meat, a little tough and chewy, but very tasty.
I found it to be like an alligator tail.
Now let's go to the wider world of hunting on Youtube it is Hunting YouTube.
This is Hunting YouTube, which aims to show the best hunting and shooting videos that
YouTube has to offer.
Viewer John Clements recommends Pheasant Shooting in Yorkshire by the ace photographer Jonathan
McGee. He says a little pointedly that it is the opposite of the Headhunter Chronicles
lion hunting film we put up last week.
Shared by the Daily Mirror newspaper no less, this is footage of how falcons catch their
prey by The Company of Biologists. It shows how falcons pursue prey by keeping the image
of that prey in the same place on their retina during the pursuit as they close in.
A different kind of feathered quarry now: Turkey Hunting 2013 - Double Bearded Gobbler
from PrimeTimeHunting has UpBowHunterOutdoors boss Todd Freeman taking down a big double
bearded gobbler with the bow. Sounds like a foreign language.
Staying on bows,'Deer Hunting: Awesome Multi-View Bow Hunt My 100th video upload' is not far
off the truth. The Field Archer gets experimental with different POVs as he goes out after deer.
Summer Hunting 2013 Is another deerstalking film but this time in the Southern Alps of
New Zealand and it is red stags he is after, not whitetail.
Now we get classy and go helihunting. Pork Choppers Aviation promises the hunt of a lifetime
in this, well, promotional film. Still - good effort.
At the other end of the economic scale, Slingshot Hunting Squirrel Kill by Bill Hays has him
after a squirrel that's acting strange - staying exposed and doing a lot of barking, putting
up challenges to any other squirrel around, even though there aren't any, so Bill kills
it.
Finally, I can't not mention the ShotShow. I met up with the Quinn boys in Las Vegas
- and here's their take on day one of the show. You can follow them through the whole
event in different films. Weird beards but good guys.
You can click on any of these films to watch them. If you are missing the fishing films
and the airgun films, watch our new shows, AirHeads and Fishing Britain. If you have
a YouTube film you would like us to pop in to the weekly top eight, send it in via YouTube
or email me the link charlie@fieldsportschannel.tv
If none of those took your fancy what about our programmes.
Welcome to Fishing Britain. This week we find out what a sport and a spawn looks like.
In Fishing Britain last week Howell Morgan took the 120 minute challenge try and tie
a fly, catch a fish on a fishery in under two hours and Thursday this week it is our
new Airgun Show Airheads. We are protecting red squirrels in Cumbria. We are at the Shot
Show in the USA with top TV star Jim Shocky and Darren produces and directs the most expensive
ratting film ever made. It is 7pm it is Thursday night.
Well we are of course back next week. If you are watching this on Youtube please hit the
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Fieldsports Britain from the United States good bye, good hunting, good shooting and
good fishing.