"This past January, I told you that long-time African PH Dougie Stephenson was going to wage a one-man battle this spring in Cameroon to revive the lost art of hunting bongo without dogs. Well, the good news is, Dougie has just taken his first bongo that way. `It was a hell of a hunt,' Dougie said when he called me on a satellite phone from a camp near Lobeke National Park. `It was very demanding... hot... humid. We spent a lot of time on our hands and knees.'
"The successful hunter is Thomas Essex. We have not been able to speak directly with him about the hunt, but we do know from Dougie that the successful stalk began at 9 am in the morning and lasted all day before breaking off at dark. Dougie and Thomas Essex came back to the same track the next morning at 7 am and followed it until about 9 am. The animal was put down by a shot (we do not know if more than one shot was needed) of about 25 meters. Essex was using a rifle of unknown caliber with a peep sight - no scope.
"During the course of the two-day stalk, Dougie says the bongo they were pursuing lay down five or six times. They were repeatedly close enough to it to hear the animal moving about. The tension and excitement was intense.
"Dougie is hunting Cameroon with a little-known Spanish company called Ngoko Safaris, owned by Jose Chelet. The US agent for that company is Beth Jones Levitz. Ngoko controls two prime areas on the border of Lobeke National Park totaling 550,000 acres. One entire area has been put aside this year for Dougie's experimental no-dog bongo hunts. It will be........(continued)
