Shepherds Of Wildlife

It’s hay-making season at the newspaper. That means multiple special projects, which means a lot of interviews and a lot of writing, and running a 21-day streak without a full day off. I’m not bitching about it; I don’t mind the work — it’s what I do, after all. However, all that engagement with people does have a draining effect on an introvert. So yesterday was mostly a solitary day, with a good, hard FP Biathlon. The afternoon found me pretty much done up as far as creative energy went — I just wanted to lay back and soak in something interesting, but unchallenging.

Well…

I turned to Curiosity Stream and cut the sign of something that gave me a whole new shot of energy. I found Shepherds of Wildlife.

Well, more accurately, I found the documentary film Killing the Shepherd, a project of Shepherds of Wildlife. But you know me: Never a sidetrail beckons that I don’t hie off down…

 

 

A remote community in Africa, led by a woman chief, attempts to break the stranglehold of absolute poverty by waging a war on wildlife poaching. For decades illegal wildlife poaching by both subsistence and bush meat gangs has led to the government declaring this community’s homeland “depleted” of wildlife.

The chief finds help in the form of a safari operator. They collaborate to bring stability to the community in the face of threats from disease, food instability, and rampant alcoholism that hamper access to basic necessities like health care and education. Dark forces including South African land speculators, criminal poaching gangs, and her own people conspire against the chief. Even elements from the outside modern world work against her.

Will the chief and her community achieve success?

I have been a convinced partisan of hunting-as-conservation in Africa since at least the early 1990s when I was working at Pachmayr. Safari outfitters made regular pilgrimages to the retail store on Lake Avenue, and I knew a couple of law enforcement guys who had moonlighted doing anti-poaching work, though I can’t remember which nation they operated in. Even though they were in a fine gunshop, PHs were uniformly more interested in talking about wildlife than they were about firearms. They were committed conservationists — out of both passion and self-interest, an intersection where real work gets done. The destructive idiocy of hunting bans was already readily apparent. While the likelihood of me making it to Africa to hunt is slim, I nevertheless feel a connection — the history of the land and the hunt is a primary interest of Frontier Partisans.

Present-day Zambia (once Northern Rhodesia) was one of the hunting grounds of Frederick Courteney Selous, who had a near-fatal encounter with a bull elephant there:

 

One of the projects of Shepherds of Wildlife is the sale of bracelets made from metal snares pulled out of the bush in their anti-poaching work. The snares are crafted into bracelets by the local women.

I like what I see of Shepherds of Wildlife, and I want make some small contribution to their efforts. Here’s the caper: I’m gonna order up a couple of these and offer them up as patron rewards on the Patreon site (you can sign up here to support Frontier Partisans through Patreon and get in on the action). The doco can also be viewed on Tubi.

The outfit’s work is not solely focused in Africa. They are taking on the pressures that modern (post-modern?) life is putting on the old ways. This one will definitely get my attention, too:

Introducing: The Last Keeper

After the successful release of the film Killing the Shepherd, Director Tom Opre has begun work on the next film in the Killing the Shepherd series — titled The Last Keeper — and its focus is the great land of Scotland.

Scotland, replete with heather-covered hills, moorlands, and majestic mountains, finds itself, its people, and wildlife at a crossroads. Scotland has seen generations of war, but today the war is different. Gone are the swords and muskets replaced by government policies pushed by groups staffed by Scotland’s urban elite. It’s now a war for control. It’s a war where wildlife biodiversity and habitat conservation may be a thing of the past.

Conflict abounds as competing interests vie for control of the landscape. This film is character-driven, exploring a disappearing way of life based on hunting/shooting and the associated conservation role. It’s a film that brings in the romance and uniqueness of rural Scottish landscapes, practices, and communities pitted against those who work to change a way of life.