Hunting Journal · Nyae Nyae · 2014
A hundred days for a hundred pounder.
Field notes from thirty-one days walking up elephants in Nyae Nyae Conservancy, Namibia — a primary-source memoir of regulated, community-owned conservation hunting with PH Felix Marnewecke.
Begin the 2014 safariThe record
Between 2012 and 2015 I spent roughly three months a year on foot in southern Africa, chasing an old-age elephant bull with tusks approaching a hundred pounds each. This is not a brochure. It is a set of notebooks — kept for my own memory, shared here because the era they record has already begun to pass into history.
Felix Marnewecke, the Namibian professional hunter who made most of these safaris possible, died in April 2024. The land, too, is changing: the Ju/'hoansi San community that owns Nyae Nyae Conservancy is renegotiating how hunting and tourism share its 900,000 hectares. The journals on this site are set down as primary sources, with the conservation, legal, and community context placed up front rather than tucked away.
Featured journals
The record so far.
Namibia · Nyae Nyae
Long-formA Hundred Days for a Hundred Pounder
Thirty-one days walking up elephants in a flooded season. Verbatim daily notes, 395 field photographs, prologue through final day.
Namibia · Nyae Nyae
Long-formFirst Year with Felix
Nineteen hunting days, August–September 2012 — the first client through Camelthorn's brand-new Nyae Nyae camp. Reconstructed from the original AfricaHunting.com posts.
Zimbabwe · Cancellation hunt
Photo essayLate-Season Bulls
November 2014. A short photo-essay with a 21.5-inch-diameter bull taken with a Winchester .500 MDM. Images first, a short note second.