Robin Hurt has released a new book chronicling his lifetime of adventure hunting and living in Africa.
Robin grew up in Kenya and shot his first buffalo and leopard before he was in high school. He was a licensed PH in Tanzania and Kenya by age 18. He guided clients to find the biggest and the best, which included Zaire when it was wild and dangerous and Sudan when rival tribal factions were at war. He hunted during the “golden era” of the African safari when Kenya was in its heyday, Zambia was renowned for its hunting fields and the entire Big Five could be shot in Tanzania in a few days. Wherever he went, he got exceptional trophies for his clients. The late Tony Dyer called Robin Hurt “The Hunter's Hunter,” hence the title of this book.
Robin has a well-deserved reputation as a PH par excellence and fair-chase-only professional who keeps wildlife conservation in the forefront of whatever he’s doing. Robin has been indefatigable in his wildlife conservation work within his community and has turned poachers into anti-poachers, helped previously disadvantaged communities by ensuring healthy game populations and hunting opportunities for the future. This new book includes a chapter by Robin’s wife, Pauline, on her efforts in protecting rhinos in Namibia so these magnificent animals will be preserved for future generations.
Some professional hunters in Africa are known as “buffalo PHs,” having guided their clients to buffaloes with 45- to 47-inch spreads. Some PHs specialize in elephants and, if they are old enough, have taken very heavy tuskers, some possibly approaching 100 pounds. Then there are the cat specialists who have guided for heavy chuis and large lions with heavy manes. Robin is the only PH who can genuinely say he has done it all. He has taken 50-inch-spread buffaloes, 100-pound tuskers, 200-pound leopards, 10-foot lions with heavy manes and 30-inch-plus rhinos back in the day. His clients have shot numerous, superlative, free-range trophies of the entire Big Five. Robin’s record is an unsurpassed accomplishment in the history of African hunting.
Having been in the field for a lifetime—he still hunts today from his home in Namibia—he has enough stories to fill up five books. In his Hunting the Big Five, he gave us highlights of his hunts for the Fabled Five of Africa. In this book, he rounds out the rest of his career: being savagely and horrifically attacked by a wounded leopard; shooting the world-record bongo; operating in Zaire when it was wild and lawless; hunting a Kenya bongo in an area so remote that it required a fifteen-mile walk in by foot while hacking a trail with machetes. When a client got injured on this hunt, the crew spent a day cutting a clearing in the forest with axes so a helicopter could land.
A significant portion of the book is devoted to the trackers and other camp staff without whom an African safari is impossible. He tells the tale of his Kenyan tracker, Joseph Sitiene, who while hunting in the C.A.R. was forced by a local chieftain to marry a young girl and the tragic and gripping tale of another PH who was burned in a grass fire during the filming of the famous movie In the Blood.
In addition, Robin’s sons Derek and Roger contribute chapters on their near-fatal leopard and buffalo attacks they’ve encountered while hunting. Robin has always been a passionate international hunter himself and he tells us of his own hunts for Marco Polo and Asian ibex, as well as birds and stags in the British Isles.
The book is printed in an extra-large format, 12×15 inches (30 x 38 cm), on the highest quality paper, with 400-plus pictures in color and black-and-white over a whopping 524 pages.
Foreword written by Ross Perot Jr. and Dr. Knut Bellinger, both recognized hunters and conservationists.
Available from Safari Press: safaripress.com; 714 894-9080