Hunting and poaching played significant roles in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Deer-hunting was an integral part of the culture of the aristocracy and gentry. It afforded not only recreation, but also served as a symbolic substitute for war and rebellion. During this period, the distinction between lawful and unlawful hunting remained unclear, for the Game Laws were obscure and difficult to enforce. Roger B. Manning's meticulously researched study explores symbolic and covert forms of protest, and adds much to our knowledge of the interaction between aristocratic and popular culture in early modern England.

The Hunter's Game reveals that early wildlife conservation was driven not by heroic idealism, but by the interests of recreational hunters and the tourist industry. As American wildlife populations declined at the end of the nineteenth century, elite, urban sportsmen began to lobby for game laws that would restrict the customary hunting practices of immigrants, Indians, and other local hunters.

In 1977 the Kenyan government banned all hunting, whether by sportsmen or Kenyan Africans, in response to the poaching crisis that was then spreading across the African continent. This brought an end to the era of the 'Great White Hunters' in this 'sportsman's paradise'. This book traces the history of hunting during Kenya's colonial era from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Three main themes emerge: first, is the importance of hunting to Kenyan farmers and herders; second is the attempt during European colonization of Kenya to recreate in Africa the practices and values of nineteenth-century European aristocratic hunts, which reinforced an image of African inferiority and subordination; third, is the role of the conservationists, who claimed sovereignty over nature and wildlife, completing the transformation of African hunters into criminal poachers. North America: Ohio U Press; Kenya: EAEP

Publisher description

An account of technology in Africa from an African perspective, examining hunting in Zimbabwe as an example of an innovative mobile workspace. In this book, Clapperton Mavhunga views technology in Africa from an African perspective. Technology in his account is not something always brought in from outside, but is also something that ordinary people understand, make, and practice through their everyday innovations or creativities—including things that few would even consider technological. Technology does not always originate in the laboratory in a Western-style building but also in the society in the forest, in the crop field, and in other places where knowledge is made and turned into practical outcomes. African creativities are found in African mobilities. Mavhunga shows the movement of people as not merely conveyances across space but transient workspaces. Taking indigenous hunting in Zimbabwe as one example, he explores African philosophies of mobilities as spiritually guided and of the forest as a sacred space. Viewing the hunt as guided mobility, Mavhunga considers interesting questions of what constitutes technology under regimes of spirituality. He describes how African hunters extended their knowledge traditions to domesticate the gun, how European colonizers, with no remedy of their own, turned to indigenous hunters for help in combating the deadly tsetse fly, and examines how wildlife conservation regimes have criminalized African hunting rather than enlisting hunters (and their knowledge) as allies in wildlife sustainability. The hunt, Mavhunga writes, is one of many criminalized knowledges and practices to which African people turn in times of economic or political crisis. He argues that these practices need to be decriminalized and examined as technologies of everyday innovation with a view toward constructive engagement, innovating with Africans rather than for them.

A wild collection of illegal hunting and fishing stories—all of them true! Life as a game warden is more dangerous and exciting than you might think. Tom Chapin served as a Minnesota Game Warden for 29 years, and his career was both exhilarating and harrowing. He had run-ins with everyone from illegal night hunters to major fish poachers. In Poachers Caught!, Tom shares the details of 35 of his most amazing, incredible cases. Each short story allows you to experience a riveting encounter as if you were a witness and participant. Fans of the great outdoors of all ages—especially hunters and anglers—will appreciate and enjoy this look into the life of a vital yet often underappreciated enforcer of the law.

The centerpiece story takes place in Colorado's San Luis Valley, describing one of the largest sting operations to catch a ring of pachers in his career.

When a young elephant is brutally orphaned by poachers, it is only a matter of time before he begins terrorising the countryside, earning his malevolent name from the humans he kills and then tenderly buries with leaves. Manu, the studious son of a rice farmer, loses his cousin to the Gravedigger and is drawn into the alluring world of ivory hunting. Emma is working on a documentary set in a Kerala wildlife park with her best friend. Her work leads her to witness the porous boundary between conservation and corruption and she finds herself caught up in her own betrayal. As the novel hurtles toward its tragic climax, these three storylines fuse into a wrenching meditation on love and revenge, fact and myth, duty and sacrifice. In a feat of audacious imagination and arrestingly beautiful prose, The Tusk That Did the Damage tells an original and heart-breaking story about how we treat nature, and each other.

More stories, more action, more foolhardy hunting and fishing poachers! Tom Chapin served as a Minnesota Game Warden for 29 years, a job that was far more perilous and thrilling than most people would ever expect. He was cussed at, chased, shot at, and nearly run over. More Poachers Caught! is the follow-up to Tom’s widely popular first book. It collects 30 new stories from throughout Tom’s career and from a few of Tom’s friends. Dangerous, spontaneous, and sometimes comedic, these true adventures bring readers face to face with the problem of poaching. They are tales of greed, selfishness, and hope. The short stories tell of some of the most memorable poachers who were ever caught by a Northwoods Game Warden—and some who got away. Hunters, anglers, and outdoors enthusiasts of all ages will enjoy this fascinating book.