The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 728: Dispatches from Africa - Tracking Dangerous Game

Episode Date: July 8, 2025

Steven Rinella talks with Senior Tracker Eliamani Marugwe. Topics Discussed: How to read signs on the ground; how to tell whether a track is old or new; sneaking up on game; poaching as a child and hunting cape buffalo with poison arrows; lighting restorative bush fires; and more. Connect with Steve and The MeatEater Podcast Network Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Ever wonder what happened to the hundreds of thousands of buffalo that used to call the eastern United States home or what caused the rise and fall of Bobwhite quail? Backwoods University, hosted by me, Lake Pickle, is the latest addition to the Bear Gryse feed on Meat Eaters podcast network. Together, we'll seek out a deeper understanding of wildlife, wild places and the people who dedicate their lives to conserving both. After all, you can't love

what you don't understand. Search Bear Gryse on Apple, iHeart, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast, and hit that follow button to enroll in Backwoods University now. Okay everybody, it's time right now for, what are we calling these? African Dispatch? Tanzania Dispatch? Dispatch is from Africa. Dispatch is from Africa, volume 2. Flop 2. What is it? Flop. Flop 2. What is it?

Flop. Flop 2. That's right, because you're flopping right now. We're on Flop 2. Last night we made a list of how many game animals we've seen in three days. This is our fourth full hunt day. In three hunt days. I think our list was ten.

Yeah, yeah, we're at least at ten. And I think we skipped a couple. I think there's stuff we 10. Yeah. Yeah, we're at least at 10 and I think we skipped a couple I think this stuff we missed. Yeah, and right now we are on If it's 10, we're on number 11. Yeah, we're working on number 11. It's gonna happen. So last night Yesterday evening we were driving through an area. We drove long ways yesterday. Yeah, we did we put some miles We had to go on a hundred miles. Oh easily easy. We were driving through the an area and The trackers from the truck Saw where there had been a herd

Yep, in one of the burned areas. Yep, and then we drove a little more and the trackers jumped out and more and the trackers jumped out and counted where four bulls had crossed this trail. So today we came in in the morning, parked and started walking into that area and like boom found three bulls. So we got on the tracks and the guys, two of our trackers, Salamani and Eliemani. Eliemani is standing here with us right now. Followed them. They were in sort of a flat and moved up a rocky valley wall. We bumped them.

Yeah, they got out wind. They went, climbed out, went to the ridge ridge climb back down into the valley we were in entered this big area of Eight foot high grass with maybe a few yards of visibility. Yeah maximum The guys tracked him tracked him till eventually you could hear him milling around. Yeah, they were like there Yeah, well the birds gave him away. The guys heard the birds on them, the oxpeckers. They could hear them kind of chattering. And so we knew those buffalo were right there in front of us,

maybe 50 yards, something like that. Oh, yeah, you just hear them. Oh, you could hear them. Yeah, you could hear them. But yeah, not a prayer seeing them. No. They milled out of there. The guys tracked them again.

And this is hours of time that goes by, bumped him again. And now you feel like we're just going to keep hammering on him. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, the closest we got in that tall grass was like 25 yards. I mean, I could just I could hear them like right there. Just the only thing I saw was just like a glimpse of one's back line. You know, it was so thick in there. And then, you know, from there, they weren't really spooked.

They're a little suspicious. So they moved off. They kind of came into this me on Bo here, laid down and then, yeah, unfortunately we were just, you know, it was one of those things. Even me, you know, I kind of learned a lesson. Like my concentration was lapsing a little bit and we were kind of like, well, let's just sit down. You know, the tracks were really faint. It was getting tough. And kind of like, well, let's just sit down. The tracks were really faint.

It was getting tough. And I was like, well, let's just chill out for a while. Let the trackers sort this out. And then, yeah, we bumped them. I mean, even if we'd been standing with these guys, we likely wouldn't have gotten a shot. But we would have seen them, at least. But really, it played out when I was first talking to you

and getting interested in hunting Cape buffalo. And you were laying out how it works. Yeah. You included everything that happened. Yeah. Well, even down to- You'll find them, you might move them, wait a while. Find them again.

Find them again. Keep bumping them along. Yeah. Well, even when we were in that tall grass, you saw them kind of zigzagging back and forward, which is an indication they're looking for somewhere to lay down. They're tired of walking. They're ready to lay down. they want to ruminate. So, yeah, we saw that several times today.

And yeah, unfortunately just bumped them. But on the good side, when they ran off, they made a considerable amount of tracks. So we've got something to work with this afternoon. So once we wrap up here, we're going to get right back on them. Yeah. And you explained to me before, you can't do this without the trackers. Oh no. No, no. It's absolutely dependent on trackers.

The other day we were tracking one and I said to you, I'm like, I don't get what they're seeing. And you said, that's the point. They can see things that you can't see. Not that you don't know how to see, but you're like can see things that you can't see not that you don't know how to see but you're like They see things you can't see. Yeah, that's absolutely right I mean their skills are phenomenal what they can do and the mental concentration and energy it takes to stay on those tracks in This sort of thing, you know where you've just got leaf litter on the ground. They can track those buffalo through here I mean, yeah, even after all my years in the bush

I wouldn't have a hope of being able to do what they can do. Do me a favor and ask Eliemani, when he picks up a piece of grass and looks at it and shows you and shows his partner, his other tracker, the grass, what are the things he's like, what is he looking at? What are the indicators? He's looking at when he picks up a piece of grass. Okay. Yeah, Eddie money come on, uh, you know, do you

Marry, you know paper to qua Marjani, oh, yeah. See kwanga Leah Una una, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know What do you look for in your daily life? I try to look for the things that are important to me. Because I look for the things that are important to me. I look for things that are fresh, like water. I look for things that are fresh, like water. So he's, he's when he, when he picks up a piece of grass, what he's looking for is like,

if it was broken or if it was damaged when it got trodden on by the Buffalo, he can tell based on like whether it's dry, whether it's still wet, whether it's got some water on it from like the dew in the early morning, when that actually occurred, when those buffalo passed through there. So he'll look at a piece of grass and he'll be able to tell based on its condition, exactly when those buffalo pass through. Ask him what is his favorite animal to track. So, so, um, come on, you know, Penda, Quinta, one, you know, my gun, you call one, you know, my wing, you know, pattern, you come up with a number, you know, my number, my number,

so yeah, he's Buffalo's number one. He says all the others are kind of easy in comparison. Mbogo, which is Buffalo's number one. How old was he when he first started studying how to track? Okay. When you were little, you started you start learning to make ayolins? Not really. I started when I was seven years old. But I started at home in Masua.

I started as a young boy. I know how to make all kinds of things. I know how to make a pot of rice and rice. I was very, very young. He used to live near a game reserve called Maswa Game Reserve, which is near the Serengeti. And he was a kid, basically, and he was a poacher. So he used to hunt with a bow and arrow and poison. Oh, really? Yeah, he used to hunt with poisoned arrows.

What was his favorite thing to hunt with a bow and arrow and poison. Oh, really? Yeah, he used to hunt with poisoned arrows. What was his favorite thing to hunt then? Um, Lazzamani, you loved hunting animals? Lazzamani, I like buffalo because they live in the water. We use to feed them in the water.

When a buffalo comes here, it looks at it and comes one by one. That's why I like to hunt buffalo. Really? Yeah, I like buffalo. So his favorite was buffalo and what he used to do, yeah, what he used to do was he'd build a small blind near a water hole, very close. And when the buffalo came in to drink, he'd hit him with those poison arrows. Oh, I got it. Ever wonder what happened to the hundreds of thousands of buffalo that used to call the Eastern United States home?

Or what caused the rise and fall of Bobwhite quail? Backwoods University, hosted by me, Lake Pickle, is the latest addition to the Bear Gryse Feed on Meat Eaters podcast network. Together, we'll seek out a deeper understanding of wildlife, wild places, and the people who dedicate their lives to conserving both. After all, you can't love what you don't understand. Search Bear Gryce on Apple, iHeart, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast and hit that follow button to enroll in Backwoods University now. When he looks at, like oftentimes they'll find a dropping, a buffalo dropping.

He'll scratch it. What clues are within that when he scratches the surface? What sorts of things does he like to see? When is it two days old? When is it one day old? On a dropping. So what he does when he, when he scratches it like that, he's looking at how dry it is and whether there's any bugs in there. If there's bugs in there, it's a, it's been a couple of days for sure.

If it's, if it's very wet, if there's just a very thin layer of dryness from the wind, then he knows it's fresh. Oh, okay. I got you. That's what that is? I was wondering why there's like an outside layer to it. Yeah, the outside layer is drying in the sun and the wind. So he's actually, when he kicks it, he's looking at of that of that outside layer to know like how long it's been There and then yeah, he said if he sees bugs no good

Yeah if you're if you're tracking a bull or a group of bulls and You bump them once bump them twice bump them three times Does it get? Less encouraging or more encouraging well from my perspective, it gets, I would say it gets slightly less encouraging. You're definitely winding them up. Every time you're kind of, they're becoming more tightly wound. So they're going to put themselves in thicker, darker cover. They're going to start to really kind of be very switched on as

opposed to if you haven't bumped them at all and they're kind of just in dreamland, they're just chilling out, which isn't to say that approaching them super easy. They're still tricky. But yeah, when you've bumped them a few times, it definitely, it starts to get pretty marginal. And that's where I think what we've done today, giving them that little bit of time between each kind of bump to chill out can help with that.

Like particularly now we've given them a couple of hours, they're going to be pretty desperate to ruminate and lay down. So with a bit of luck that'll, that'll work in our favor. But generally speaking, yeah, if you just keep pushing them like that, it gets kind of marginal and borderline dangerous too, depending on the situation. When Elie Mani was a boy, was he even aware that you could have the job he has now? Was he aware that this was a job and would he have wanted this job as a boy? Yeah. You were a young woman. Did you know about the construction of the company, and our company, and the work? Did you do any work?

No. I was young at the time. Because the company had started a few years ago. I was still young. Because I had started farming, I was still studying. I didn't know much about farming, but I still did. I did. But I got a job because I knew how to work. Ah ha. So he had no idea. He didn't know about this industry. He didn't know about the job.

He only came to learn about it later, when basically when this company started in Maswa hunting there, he became aware of it. But yeah, all he knew was poaching. And this might be an awkward question since you guys work together. But what does he like think of the job? Does he like the job? Is it just a job? Like, what's his take on it?

You like my job? Very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, he likes working with me, but he's just saying that to be nice. I think I really chap his ass sometimes. Yeah. Well, I hope he knows, I want you to tell him that I have every moment of watching those guys work is like pure joy to me. Like I really like, like I really, really like following those guys in the woods. Yeah, yeah. He says he loves to do work. He loves to go to the woods, if you see a fire, and everything, he's very happy.

He says thank you very much. Tell him this, I hang out, like I know people, my friends, I hang out with like very good hunters in America. Unless there's snow, okay, unless there's snow on the ground. For us, tracking is just that you can tell something came through or you can tell something frequents an area or you can tell it routinely comes through.

But unless there's snow, we never follow an animal. So, um, I'm saying, I know a lot of people who live in the US and they go to the fields, you can't do it like you're doing now. Without a hat, or without a hat, or a scarf, you can't get snow. deal. Yeah, I think he'd hide it. So we're gonna, we're gonna pack up. Yep. We're gonna go back to where we lost the track, and then when

do you call it? Like how do you, like it's 3, it's gonna be 3.30 p.m. Sunsets around what, 6.30? Yeah, you know that's, it's a hard question to answer, it's kind of my prerogative. I would say if we bump them again, hard, and they go snorting out of there like they did last time It's probably time to hang it up But in an ideal world We'll find those things sleeping and they'll have chilled out a good bit since that last bump and we can make a play on them And then last question if we if let's say we blow them out bad

Mm-hmm tomorrow. Do we just forget them and go find other ones that haven't been disturbed? Not necessarily. Not necessarily. I like this area. If we really, I mean, if we blow them out bad and for example, they go up on that escarpment again and they just beeline it to a different valley, then yeah, it's probably not worth coming back here. With that being said, yesterday was four bulls.

You know, this is three balls. One of them's either, it's either a different group or one of them spun off and gone on his own. Plus there's another herd in this valley too. So I'm not, I'm by no means going to give up on this place. And that's why I've told the guys not to burn it. Which was sort of somewhat- We haven't gotten into the burning yet and we need to get into the burning on another dispatch but the burning is the greatest thing in the world. Oh yeah, it's heavenly.

Being able to just flick matches in the right places, well it'd be like slow moving, low intensity grass fires that don't damage the trees, it just clear out the old dead grass. Yeah, the decadent grass. And then a few days later, new grass comes up. Yeah, I mean, the burning really appeals to the little boy in all of us. It's a hell of a lot of fun.

Especially when you look and it's like, you make like these perfect new grass growth areas. And then there's animals staying there. Oh, there's animals, yeah. It helps them too. Yeah, no, it's super cool. Very, like, not destructive. No, no, no, no, no.

Very restorative. Yeah, yeah. All right, so you guys ready to go? Let's do it. This is an iHeart podcast.