The Last Spiral Horn

We started with day-old tracks that morning. It was a gamble, but not a big one--the only risk was a little sweat, for we had found no fresh tracks early in the morning, and we knew where we had left the bull in mid-afternoon the day before. The previous day we'd started with fresh tracks and we'd jumped him twice. The second time I saw the bushes move as he departed, but he'd gone with the wind so the best choice had been to leave him.

This bongo was living in a series of steep, forested hills and every couple of days was frequenting one of three mineral licks. Two of these licks were at the mouths of deep caves, the floors abraded with bongo dung. The third lick was in the roots of a giant tree, hollowed out by forest animals. The day before we had picked up his spoor at this tree, and as we followed this fresh track it had crossed and recrossed his tracks of previous days.

Now we followed his old tracks. He was living here, and if we hadn't bumped him too hard his fresh tracks just might cross the old tracks that we followed. We followed until about 11 a.m. and had gained no ground. Jean-Christophe Lefol, my professional hunter, called a halt. We rested for a few minutes, and I mentally prepared myself for a long hike back to the truck. The pygmies spoke among themselves, then gave Jean-Christophe their decision. We would continue on these tracks until midday.

Good decision. Not 10 minutes later we found a stout sapling that the bongo had twisted with his horns and broken off. Tthe break was clean, and white sap still oozed. His fresh tracks of this morning had circled back on the old spoor! Now his spoor was marked by cut leaves and nibbled stems, the dung fresh and shiny. But he didn't stop, and we followed for three more hours.

We were walking along a gentle ridge through a patch of fairly open forest, with maybe 25 yards of visibility, when the tracker to my right front stiffened and pointed. He said, "Bongo." I hadn't seen an animal, but I'd seen movement at the limit of my vision and I was chambering a cartridge. The movement had stopped; the bongo was there, but I couldn't see him. Jean-Christophe sidestepped to my left front. A full head taller than I, he had a window in the brush and caught a glimpse of horns. "Good bull. Shoot him."

I had the rifle up but could see nothing through the wall of leaves and vines. I brought the .416 down, thinking I must have trained the scope on the wrong spot. Then the bongo moved to the right. I saw the orange body and white stripes and brought the rifle back up--but he was already gone, swallowed by the forest. The total elapsed time was not five seconds.

It was a long walk back to the truck, and I replayed those five seconds interminably. Between the previous year and this one I had tracked bongo for more than a month, and this had been my first, best and only clear view of a bull. If I'd been quicker, if I could have seen better, if I could have thought faster, if.... I'd had a chance, and I had no idea how many more days would pass before I got another.

The bongo is a very large antelope that exists discontinuously across equatorial Africa. In the east he's found in the bamboo jungles of Kenya's high country. To the west, in the true forest zone, he occupies a huge range from southwestern Sudan across southern Central African Republic, down through the forests of Zaire and Congo Republic, on west to Gabon and southeastern Cameroon, then on west to the bulge of West Africa.

This is not a small range, nor, in many areas, is the bongo particularly uncommon. The problem with bongo isn't that they're rare but rather that they're the very devil to hunt in the tropical forests they call home. They travel at will, and with supreme confidence, in a habitat where visibility is measured in feet.

The sheer difficulty of seeing a bongo, let alone shooting one, would make them of interest to serious hunters, but the bongo caps his elusiveness by being one of the most magnificent creatures on the continent. He is a very strongly built antelope, donkey-like in both build and size, with bulls weighing perhaps 500 pounds.