Gryphon

Yes I know you don't write for SS. Unfortunately you are right. It only takes a few minutes to read it now.

But when examining the species of buffalo how much of it is hype and marketing and how much is reality (?)

There is no doubt that water buffalo will stand around and act like cows. Especially before they were heavily hunted. But the talk of shooting them with light calibres also coincided with shooting from the back of horses, Landrovers and Landcruisers when the vehicle getting dented was less serious than squashed.

Just as most water buffalo are hunted without incident, also are the vast majority of cape buffalo. Perhaps the Aussie "Mark Sullivan" can "improve" the reputation of NT water buffalo. Can a water buffalo charge a chopper, I wonder ?

I think the Africans are very good at marketing and at building up the hype which "adds" to the hunt. Of course I could be wrong

I will have to look for some quotations from writers such as Bell on how he considered the hunting of buffalo.

Brooks

I think you are somewhat right. Each generation of hunters always looks back to the previous one or more as the "golden age", just like the future one will to us. Which is sad.

Unfortunately I think we will never again see the wonderful hunting that the Indian sub-continent once gave. The game there is crushed under the pressing weight of over-population.