On a hunt in [country] a few years back, our group lost a wounded animal in thick brush at last light. The licensed professional hunter on the permit shrugged. The tracker with us, a man I will call S., took the blood trail on his hands and knees in the dark for two hours and found the animal bedded in a donga. He got a handshake. Someone else’s name went in the record book. At the fire that night he was not bitter about it. He just said, plainly, that he had been doing this since he was nine and would like one day to sign for his own clients.
The men who do the tracking
On most African safaris the person whose name is on the license is not the one who cut the track, judged the animal’s age, or kept a client from walking into a buffalo. That is the tracker’s work, and in a lot of camps the tracker is better at it than anyone holding a certificate. These are professionals with a lifetime in the bush, many of them taught by their fathers before they were ten. They are not a cause. They are the best in the field at what they do.
What stands in the way
Becoming a licensed professional hunter is expensive and slow almost everywhere on the continent. In South Africa, for example, a candidate has to complete a registered hunting school, pass written and practical exams, and serve an apprenticeship of sixty days or more under an already licensed PH before he can even apply. Some jurisdictions only license citizens or permanent residents at all. Add school fees, travel, and the expectation that a PH speak two or three of his clients’ languages, and the bar sits out of reach for most of the men actually doing the work.
Paul wrote that the parts of the body that seem weaker are indispensable, and that the parts we treat as less honorable are the ones God clothes with greater honor (1 Corinthians 12:22-24). The tracker is the part of the body that does the work and gets none of the credit. Scripture says that is backwards.
What this ministry does
We pay the way through the process. Depending on the man and the country, that means [hunting-school tuition, exam fees, the apprenticeship months, and the paperwork and travel]. We work alongside [an outfitter and a local guiding association] so the training is real and the placement at the end is real. Local guides lead the selection. We are not running this from a distance and picking favorites.
How we measure it
Not by thank-you notes. We count licenses issued, and past that, businesses and permits held under these men’s own names. A man we walked through the process in [year] now signs for his own clients [and has taken on an apprentice of his own]. That is the whole goal, and it is his, not ours.
Your part
The direct way to help is to fund a candidate through the process, which runs roughly [amount] start to finish. You can also help by hunting with outfitters who pay and credit their trackers properly, and by asking, on your next safari, whose name is really on the work.