A couple of weeks ago I had the priviledge to have lunch with one of the most renowed Angolan PHs, Jorge Alves de Lima. He is a brazilian, now 88 years old and writting his memoires. He lives in Sao Paulo.

I have read the chapter of his hunts in Angola for lion and elephant in the 40's and 50's. Great stuff! And I have seen some of this trophies too. However, most of his early lions skins and ivory were sold as he hunted professionaly and not with clients for many years.

It was great to hear about his hunts in the Congo, in Ubangi-Shari, in Mozambique, in Tanzania, in Chad, Sudan, etc. He did hunt most cornerns of Africa. But his great passion was Angola and his concession in the Mavinga region, near the Cuando river.

His concession in the southwest of Angola was probably the best in the world, where one could shoot the big 5, with lots of black rhino and thick maned lion.

It was with Jorge who guided the great archer Bill Negley to hunt the big 5 with a recurve in the 60's.

His concession was destroyed, his staff killed and then everything was burned. This was a terrorist group led by Savimbi.

The fact remains that in the interior of Angola you can be killed just because you have a 20 dollar watch around your wrist! A lot of money for a bandit. Well worth of a kill. Yes it is improving fast, but still dangerous.

In many areas of the country there are no game left. Some efforts are being made to transplant elephants from Botswana to Angola.

Regarding game the HUGE news last year are that a small herd of Giant Sable was photographed by an infrared camera. This is great as many tought the only Giant Sable population on earth could have been erradicated. Lets leave with the good news.

Dante