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| Product Description |
| Sunset Tales of Safariland will be of considerable interest to anyone interested in big game hunting. It is a first class story of adventure and achievement, told with modesty and humor about a land that was full of glamour and promise, and written by one of the very few individuals with more than fifty years of first-hand experience on the greatest big game hunting fields the African continent has ever produced.
There was a time when the great game animals of East Africa were widely recognized as one of “Africa’s greatest assets.” During the decade preceding the end of the British Empire, a very few specially qualified men were selected to serve as Game Wardens in Kenya’s Game Department. Stan Bleazard, author of this book, was one of them. Sunset Tales of Safariland is much more than its name implies. It offers a look at the rise and growth of the safari industry, at many of the larger than life characters with whom he worked and hunted, and at big game hunting as it was done by those living in the country, working for the Game Department and taking visiting clients on safari.
Stan was born in Kenya in 1930 and was still a very young man when he joined what was then regarded as the best and most progressive Game Department in Africa. Furthermore, he was one of the very few who spent his entire life in that department, taking out numerous safaris during the well- known “golden era” and beyond. After the Game Department closed, Stan, ever the adventurer, obtained a commercial pilot’s license and worked on wildlife projects in Zambia and Kenya. Eventually he emigrated to western Australia. In “retirement” he co-authored, with Ian Parker, An Impossible Dream, and now he offers the story of his own amazing journey through Safariland.
Stan’s youthful recollections—exploits and pursuit of skill in the big game hunting arena—make great reading. He was guided by none other than Bill Woodley when he shot his first elephant. He hunted with men like Reggie Destro in famous places such as the Darajani Thicket. George Dove and Geoff Bennett, legends in East Africa hunting lore, were his early mentors. Peter Jenkins, Nicky Blunt and Brian Nicholson were his colleagues and contemporaries. Hunters such as George Dove and Geoff Bennett (to name a few) that may not be well known in America but who are revered to this day among East African hunters), and many more legends appear throughout Stan’s Sunset Tales.
From 1964 to 1968, Stan was also Deputy Chief Game Warden in Kenya, one of the two best jobs in the world. He was able to hunt throughout those great game areas that yielded the kind of trophies that fell only to hard working hunters and visiting sportsmen. As part of his regular job there was also a lot of game control, hunting that was as exciting as sport hunting, much of it for known rogues and marauders. It was all part of the basic, everyday job description.
There is much in Sunset Tales of Safariland that current day hunters will learn about dangerous game, for Stan’s numerous, well-told stories are as expert and instructive as they are interesting and exciting. Lion play a prominent role in the hunting yarns, as do buffalo and elephant. This is a book in the greatest tradition of pioneering and adventure by someone who spent more than half a century pursuing Africa’s great game animals, and who became well known in hunting circles as a result of his service in the Game Department. His stories of the Game Department itself make fascinating reading and will become an important part of the recorded history of this once proud institution.
In time we believe that Sunset Tales of Safariland will become recognized as one of the modern classics of big game hunting lore in the first part of the 21st century. |
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