00:00:29 Speaker 1: Welcome to Africa Dispatch flop three. And first, before we even introduce who we're talking right now, we got to address the elephant in the room, which is this. 00:00:40 Speaker 2: Tell my mound. 00:00:41 Speaker 1: Yeah, this is for you people watching not listening. This is one of the most This is like a major feature of the landscape. Is this is a termite hill. They're everywhere. 00:00:56 Speaker 2: Yeah, and they go a little bit of an iceberg kind of thing, goang on. What you see above ground is much less than what's underground, So that's maybe a third of what's actually going on. 00:01:05 Speaker 1: Yeah, and this thing is it's a mound, looks like a mount of dirt probably nine maybe nine feet high, eight or nine feet high, riddled with holes. But they're all over out here. And there's even a fancy term for this. Because we're in a big we're near a big lake shore and so we're in a big like big open grass flat. It's kind of reminiscent of it would be reminiscent of like oak savannah in the US or in Florida. You get that grass lane with the I'm not trying to think of seth the Yeah, the grassland with the oak hammocks. But these hammocks are often based around these giant termite mounds, which have a name. It's a Morgan, the little territory made by the turmite mound, Turmitalia. 00:02:00 Speaker 3: And then all these trees have what's called termitalia association, so they like the. 00:02:06 Speaker 2: Kind a bit of a symbolt relationship that's. 00:02:09 Speaker 3: Created by the kind of moistured humidity that's going on inside that termite mountain. 00:02:14 Speaker 1: Yeah. So if you were here scanning around, it's all grass. If it's standing up, it's like six foot grass with all these little clusters of trees here and there, and they're built around these giant termite mountains. With dad, said George Dodds, George Dodds, who we're going to talk to him today because he is doing his second year apprenticeship to become a professional hunter. Right, and you are what's known as you have to explain as the people you're a white Kenyon. 00:02:46 Speaker 2: I'm a white Kenyon. 00:02:46 Speaker 1: Yeah, explain explain that everybody. 00:02:48 Speaker 2: Yeah, fifth generation Kenyon. My great grandfather came to Kenya in the early nineteen hundreds and yeah, we've we've born and bred every generations. Yeah, out of small small farming area in Kenya called like Keipia, yeah, which is sort of slightly north of central central Kenya. 00:03:08 Speaker 1: And you guys farm and ranch there, Yeah. 00:03:11 Speaker 2: Yeah, I correct, terminalogy would be a ranch. Yeah, so an indigenous cattlegory called the barn cattle and it's just a just a bit of a ranch and a small bit of crop farming. But yeah, full of full of game. Yeah, much like much like what we got going on here, just wilderness really top people. 00:03:31 Speaker 1: White. Elephants hate drones. 00:03:33 Speaker 2: Sound like bees. Elephants hate bees. 00:03:35 Speaker 1: I know elephants hated bees. 00:03:36 Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of a lot of small scale farmers actually put put beehives up around their crops because their elephants just hate that noise and it really helps them keep them away from their crops. Yeah, it's incredible. 00:03:47 Speaker 1: So when you guys, what is the number one things that do crop damage in Kenya? The number one like farm and ranch. 00:03:56 Speaker 2: Hassles, Elephant would probably have the biggest impact just because of shifts eyes. So you know, they they get into a small small piece of land, they do a huge amount of damage. They can they can you know, a group of elephant can clean out acres in a matter of hours of a maze crop. So yeah, they they probably do the biggest damage. And then we've got the bird species, the colia, which also do a massive amount of damage, but sort of large large mammals would definitely be would be elephant, and they're also so clever. They're how to break electric fences. Yeah, they can think about how to get into it and what kind of stuff kills your cable. Lions mostly lions and leopard leopard. Leopard will take out our calves, but lions take out our big, our big, fully grown animals. 00:04:42 Speaker 1: It doesn't on your like on your ranch at any given time, there could be African lions, elephants and leopards could be like on in among your live style. Yeah. 00:04:56 Speaker 2: We we've usually got about four resident lions on the on the farm, on the ranch, and anywhere up to sixty elephant at one time. They move a lot depending on season and water availability as well as you know the cropping season for small scale farmers around us. So they'll move into an area when they when the crops are nearly ripening and they'll come in and eat it. Yeah, and then a lot of leopard it's quite thick bush where we are. And then yeah, we've got the buffalo eland and all the all the antelope species as well. 00:05:29 Speaker 1: You know, a peculiarity of Kenya, or maybe it's not so peculiar in terms of all African countries, but I think that always has surprised me as I've tried learning a little bit about Africa, reading books about Africa. Is that Kenya years ago in the seventies, I believe banned honting. Yeah, I mean just like banned hunting across the across the board. What was that conversation? Like why did that occur? 00:05:56 Speaker 2: And I can't speak much to why. You know, I wasn't I wasn't around then, but yeah, they banned all large game hunting. They kept bird hunting for a long time. I think that was banned in the sort of mid two thousands. But yeah, they banned all sort of planes game dangerous game hunting, and I think seventy six, seventy seven, and yeah, no chance of it opening anytime soon. 00:06:20 Speaker 1: Again, was it like when it happened? Was it a regarded as a conservation move or does a cultural move? 00:06:27 Speaker 2: I think a conservation move. I think there was a lot of pressure to sort of move with the times. I think that was sort of the driving force and yeah, so definitely a big conservation move. 00:06:38 Speaker 1: Really. Yeah, so even though you grew so growing up in Kenya, you've come to like you would go elsewhere in Africa and do big game hunting. Yeah. Yeah, like like I imagine would it feel You're probably out from the States, But I mean, is it fairly easy and fluid to bounce around and hunt? 00:06:58 Speaker 3: It is? 00:06:59 Speaker 2: It is, it's it's definitely we can. We can access areas. I mean, Southern Africa is probably the most popular and most accessible, but definitely Tanzania, Uganda, Central and Central Africa, Cameroon's we can. You know, you can get to these places. 00:07:16 Speaker 1: But you're prior to the band you were from, you were you guys were a hunting family. Yeah. 00:07:22 Speaker 2: Yeah, we my sort of great grandparents and great great grandparents were all we're all hunters and yeah, I've been doing it, doing it for a long time and still shooting. We do a lot of sort of sports shooting. A lot of sports shooting is big in Kenya and that's yeah, so it's there's no hunting, but there's still a lot of a lot of sports shooting, fish, a lot of fishing. Great fishing some really interesting species as well. 00:07:48 Speaker 1: Describe the fishing to me, like, what what kind of fishing as a person doing Kenya. 00:07:52 Speaker 2: Sort of recreational fishing. Probably some of the most popular benal perch, which is a really big I mean they used to get up to sort of two hundred, two hundred and fifty pounds freshwater fish. 00:08:03 Speaker 1: Oh, I thought nile perch is a tilapia. 00:08:06 Speaker 2: No, no, so noile perch eat lapia. That's that's a really good bait that we use live bait. That's not the same thing, totally different, much bigger. Yeah, I mean when we're fishing for big, big noil perch, we'll use up to a two pounds size to lapia to catch a now perch. 00:08:23 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:08:23 Speaker 2: Yeah, they they're big, and they're they're a bit like bass in the way they sort of ambush and love structure. So it's really fun fishing. 00:08:33 Speaker 1: Yeah, and you you we we do. 00:08:38 Speaker 2: We keep the little ones. I mean, they're they're they're getting a bit rare now, the numbers. There's a lot of pressure on them, fishing pressure, so we release a lot of the big ones. But they're they're very good eating and where we catch them is a place of absolute beauty. Most guys fishing in a place called Lake Takana, which is I think the one of, if not the longest desert lake in the world, which is northern Kenya. And it's what we would call a safari, not a hunting safari, but a safari just getting there, take you two or three days, all offer a driving, no access to sort of shops or anything like that. So yeah, it's it's a bit of an adventure just getting there, which makes it really special. 00:09:21 Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I want to refer real quick to the to the very familiar uniform that people might see with with people from Africa, the hunt. Yeah, you guys were on the shorts. Yeah, you know you're getting malled all day by tetsi flies. 00:09:39 Speaker 2: Yeah. I hate hunting in all sort of cruising around in trousers. I just get too hot. I run hot. 00:09:46 Speaker 1: Oh yeah. But then the flip side is you get marled by fly. 00:09:49 Speaker 2: More by flies. I kind of look at it that, you know, you kind of just let them eat you for two weeks and then your body gets used to it, does it. 00:09:57 Speaker 1: Yeah, Because I'm kind of like a few of us, a few of US Americans are having some mic and some body feelings. 00:10:07 Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, we all, we all get those. 00:10:08 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:10:08 Speaker 2: I first week is always tough. 00:10:11 Speaker 1: Like a tingly poison ivy kind of feel from too many TESTSI fly some welts. Yeah, but that fades away. 00:10:19 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, after one of two weeks it goes. 00:10:22 Speaker 1: Yeah, and you run those cute little gators. 00:10:24 Speaker 2: Yeah, run the gators. Keep the birds and everything out of the socks. 00:10:28 Speaker 1: Yeah. Let's keep your socks clean. 00:10:29 Speaker 2: Yeah, keep the socks clean. Nothing worse than it she socks. Yeah, and then just some good quiet leather boots. 00:10:34 Speaker 1: Yeah. You want to like, I understand, you get your ranch responsibilities, but you're doing an apprenticeship to become a professional hunter, indeed, to work to hunt in Tanzani and be a hunting what would professional hunt being like what we would recall, you know, a hunting guide in Tanzania. Yeah. Uh, does that mean you're gonna walk away from ranching? 00:10:55 Speaker 2: No, I'll do it part time. You know, hunting is very seasonal and also depends on how many trips you can do, So I'll definitely sort of stay on the farm, run the farm, and then when I get a when I get a trip, I'll come down and do the work. 00:11:10 Speaker 1: Yeah, what draws you to do in the professional hunting? 00:11:13 Speaker 2: I just I'm I grew up a bush kid on the farm, you know, just being outdoors. Both my parents were photographic guides as well. My mum was a botanist, so yeah, she described some species of pint, Yeah, described a few. She specialized in aloes, so you know, aloverra sort of African species, So she's described a couple of couple of aloes. So my childhood was sort of spent traveling across Kenya and into Ethiopia searching for different species of plants, which took us to some incredible places, far out places that most people don't go to, off the beaten track, and just fell in love with being in the bush and just yeah, it just gelled with me. And this is this is as close as I can get to. 00:11:57 Speaker 1: That is the process formal meaning you have to do two years of apprenticeship. Is that because of who you want, because you want to work for Robin Hurt Safaris? Or is that a government thing? 00:12:07 Speaker 2: It's it's a government thing. I think that's a standard standard for all all want to be professional hunters. You've got to do an apprenticeship with one of the recognized hunting outfitters or hunting companies like Robin Hurtsafaris. And then once you finished that, then you've got a theoretical exam which is pretty heavy, and you've got to get all the law and everything. It's quite it's quite extensive. Yeah, So you finish your two years of apprenticeship, I think obviously, you know you have to be recommended to actually sit the exam. So if you if you've done your apprenticeship and the outfitter thinks, oh, he's not up to the task, you just won't be recommended to sit the exam, and then you can't sit the exam without a recommendation, got it. 00:12:53 Speaker 1: Yeah. Morgan mentioned to me, like I was kind of marveling how he was one in Australia, came here and learned the Swahili language Qui Swahili as says, and he said, you can kid yourself and think you can do it without but you gotta have Yeah. Absolutely, But Keny in Kenya, the national language is English. 00:13:17 Speaker 2: It's it's it's also ki okay. Kiswahili is very it's very different to Tanzanian Kiswahili. So the first couple of months for me. Every time I get back down here is quite a challenge. I would describe Tanzani and Swahelia as sort of a very very correct, very polite language, whereas sorry, which one is Tanzanian, whereas kenyansweely is quite colloquial, a lot of other languages thrown in there. 00:13:45 Speaker 1: So I can. 00:13:47 Speaker 2: I can converse with anyone back home in Kenya and they'll understand me. But I need to think a bit and and sort of use the correct words and not sort of use all these colloquialisms that we use in Kenya. Yeah, so it's it's tricky, and yeah, I think if you don't speak Swahili, yeah, I mean most of our most of our guys don't speak English language. Barrier is a big thing. 00:14:08 Speaker 1: So did you grow up you grew up bilingual? Yeah? 00:14:10 Speaker 2: Yeah, I actually I actually spoke to Heli before I spoke English. My My mom and dad said, well, he's obviously gonna speak English. You know, I went to an English English boarding school. So they just said, okay, everyone don't speak to these kids in English speak, and they spoke to us in Swahili until we were fluent in Swahili and then once we were fluent, then they spoke spoke to us in English. Yeah, which has been a godsend. 00:14:34 Speaker 1: So you'll you'll finish a prenticing this year, yeah, and then next season and we should clarify a season is what do you guys think about as the season the hunting season. 00:14:45 Speaker 2: So typically in western Tanzania where we are now, it'll be from from July up to October. So yeah, so hopefully by by next next July, I'll be I'll be fully qualified before it goes well and. 00:14:57 Speaker 1: You might come here and hunt. 00:14:59 Speaker 2: That would be that's to go. Yeah, this is this, Yeah, this is the standard for me. This this loupganz or tonge gamers of his. Yeah, it's unbelievable. It's as you've seen. Yeah, that's the thing that you know. Prior to coming here, I went out to Massi Land. Yeah, you know, and that was so cool in its own right where you're you know, you're out in that like very desert like open grassland and you know, every couple of hours or whatever you see, you're seeing. 00:15:35 Speaker 1: I mean, well, one, you can never look around and not find in the open you can never look around and not find animals. Absolutely, there's always something there. But every couple hours or whatever, there's like a group of Massi kids with like yeah, their parents. You know, they make water runs with donkeys loaded with jugs of water. So you'll see a string of you know, women with you know, a dozen donkeys lower water going across and it's like a working landscape and mixed within this is all this wildlife and it's it's stunning, it's like amazing. But here you are in like one of the pure, pure, more vast chunks of wilderness I've ever been in. Yeah. 00:16:19 Speaker 2: Absolutely, I think we've got different sort of classes of land use in these in these wildlife areas in Tanzania, and this this area is a game reserve, so there's no there's no permanent settlement, there's no semi permanent settlement. The only access guys will have is permitted honey harvesting, which is you'll see you've seen all those bee hives. 00:16:40 Speaker 1: It's incredible. 00:16:41 Speaker 2: So we get guys coming in about twice a year to come and check on their hives, harvest their honey. But other than that, it's it's pristine wilderness. Yeah, there's no one here. There's nothing here yeah. 00:16:52 Speaker 1: And then when you start, you'll you'll engage with clients. Yeah. Now do you imagine, like, do you imagine that you are probably have clients from off the continent. 00:17:04 Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, absolutely. I think the majority is is is American clients or European clients. So yeah, that's the that's the next trick is to get your name out there and and start getting some trips. 00:17:19 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:17:19 Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll hopefully get some get some trips for the company if I if I make the cut. 00:17:25 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:17:26 Speaker 2: So it's it's a long it's a long, slow process, but it's I think that's what it's all about. That's you know, at the end of the day, when you do come out here, you you're you're hunting with someone who who knows what they're doing. 00:17:37 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, Well I don't want to interfere in it, but good luck on getting the okay. Thank you. I feel like you might be gonna Yeah, I feel like you're maybe going to get the okay. I haven't. I feel like somehow if you weren't, we wouldn't be talking to you. I just feel like it'd be awkward, but fresh as on. I feel like you might get the okay to do some studying. Last note, when we ended the Last the Last Flop edition, we're heading out back on the trail of some buffalo and that night we got one. I'm i gonna give you any more detail in that, but we got one. We've been eating them, yep. And he's a beauty of three times yesterday and two times today. 00:18:20 Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's what we're doing, all right. 00:18:24 Speaker 1: Thanks man, Cool