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In Chile, an Animal Whose Numbers Please No One
CERRO SOMBRERO, Chile — The guidebooks for Tierra del Fuego somehow fail to mention the gunfire.
From the mist-shrouded Patagonian steppe to the dense beech forests, shots pierce the air here for months on end each year. Hunters armed with telescopic rifles roam this archipelago at the southern tip of South America in pickup trucks as they pick off their prey: the guanaco.
Humans have already hunted the guanaco, a wild cousin of the llama, out of existence across big swaths of the continent. While hunting the animal here is legal, the culling of Tierra del Fuego’s guanaco herds is setting off a fierce debate over the fragile recovery of a native species and the sway of powerful ranching and logging interests, which contend that rising numbers of guanacos are competing with sheep for pasture and foraging in commercial hardwood forests.
“We’re witnessing a grotesque subordination to businessmen who view a creature of remarkable beauty and resilience as little more than a nuisance,” said Valeria Muñoz, a prominent animal rights activist in Punta Arenas, the regional capital. “It’s a return to a 19th-century mentality, where logging and sheepherding triumph over everything else.”
Elsewhere in South America, the hunting of animals for population control has largely focused on curbing invasive species. In Colombia, hunters have targeted the descendants of hippos imported by Pablo Escobar. In Ecuador, park rangers in the Galápagos Islands mounted an eradication campaign against goats that compete for food with native species like tortoises.
Chile’s hunting of guanacos seems more akin to the disputed control of native species in other countries, like Australia’s kangaroo hunts, raising the ire of animal rights groups and tourism officials who say the culling stains the reputation of a remote place where visitors are often stunned to come across herds of wild guanacos.
Guanaco hunting is prohibited along the main roads cutting through Tierra del Fuego — a land divided between Chile and Argentina that juts out from South America’s mainland like a spike — but along the back roads during the hunting season in the Chilean winter, the signs of the killing are clear.
Gunshots from the hunters’ rifles echo through the forests of lenga trees. Blood from recently hunted guanacos blemishes the snow. Communicating with the hunters by walkie-talkie, work crews fan out on private lands in search of the carcasses, hoisting them into pickup trucks for transport to slaughterhouses.
Ranchers who are allowed to carry out the hunts argue that they are victims of policies that have expanded Tierra del Fuego’s guanaco herds in recent decades. As recently as the 1970s, only a few thousand guanacos were thought to remain on Tierra del Fuego’s main island, an area larger than Belgium, after widespread poaching.
A crackdown by Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship on firearms ownership (and by extension hunting) opened the way for guanaco conservation efforts; the number of guanacos in Chile’s portion of Tierra del Fuego has climbed to about 150,000, according to Chile’s Agricultural and Livestock Service. The authorities allowed as many as 4,125 guanacos to be killed this year.
“Aside from competing for food with our sheep, there are now so many guanacos in Tierra del Fuego that they represent a risk for motorists trying to avoid them when the animals cross our roads,” said Eduardo Tafra, a rancher who butchers guanaco meat at his slaughterhouse in Cerro Sombrero, a windswept outpost on the plains.
“We do not want to exterminate the guanaco,” Mr. Tafra explained, “but we cannot idly sit by and watch it threaten our livelihood.”
Tierra del Fuego’s ranching culture has roots in the sheepherding operations established near the end of the 19th century, largely by British settlers who displaced nomadic hunters of guanacos. By the early 20th century, the Selk’nam, the indigenous people who had lived in Tierra del Fuego for thousands of years, had been almost completely wiped out in a brutal extermination campaign.
Throughout it all, the guanacos, one of the main sources of food for the Selk’nam, persisted in Tierra del Fuego and other parts of Patagonia. The animals are thought to have first been glimpsed by Europeans in 1520 when Ferdinand Magellan, the explorer who sailed through the strait that now bears his name, described seeing a “camel without humps.”
Part of the camelid family, guanacos once numbered as many as 50 million in South America, their numbers exceeding other big hoofed creatures around the world like the caribou, African wildebeest and saiga antelope, according to the American zoologist William G. Conway.
“Enormous numbers of guanaco haunt these grim plateaus,” the British explorer H. Hesketh-Prichard wrote in “Through the Heart of Patagonia,” a 1902 book in which he describes no-holds-barred hunting for guanacos. “They were about as tame as English park deer, allowing us to approach on foot to within 70 or 80 yards.”
As herds of nonnative sheep expanded in Patagonia, the number of guanacos plummeted, reaching a current level of only about 500,000, said Cristóbal Briceño, an expert on guanacos at the University of Chile. Guanaco herds have dwindled significantly in other parts of Chile where they were once plentiful, he said.
While the guanaco is not threatened with extinction on a continental scale, the animal still faces serious threats of poaching and the degradation of rangelands, and is likely to disappear from several of the regions that make up its historical distribution range, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The Chilean authorities have quietly allowed hunting for guanacos in Tierra del Fuego over the last decade, arguing that the culling is needed to maintain a “sustainable” population that does not adversely affect other underpinnings of the regional economy.
Residents here generally abhor eating guanaco, so most of the butchered guanaco meat is exported to Europe. (An exception can be found at La Cuisine, a restaurant in Punta Arenas that offers Guanaco Grand Veneur, a stew of the camelid in a red wine sauce accompanied by mashed potatoes and pumpkin.)
“We closely monitor every aspect of the hunting to ensure it is carried out in a proper way,” said Nicolás Soto Volkart, an official with the Agricultural and Livestock Service in Punta Arenas. “We’re convinced this is good policy after guanacos recovered in numbers since the 1970s.”
Still, tensions run high over the hunting of guanacos, herbivores that eat everything from cacti to lichens and fungi. A proposal in 2012 to expand the program by allowing tourists to take part in the guanaco hunts was shelved after it met with fierce criticism.
Advocates of “rewilding” forests — essentially restoring ecosystems to something resembling how they once functioned — say that guanacos could help areas where they are reintroduced by dispersing seeds for certain types of trees.
“Guanacos seem to be an important missing species that used to play an important ecological role,” said Meredith Root-Bernstein, a conservation scientist at Aarhus University in Denmark.
Pointing to a growing resistance in Chile to hunting of various types, officials at the Agricultural and Livestock Service remain on edge after protesters attacked their building in Punta Arenas this year with firebombs in response to a separate proposal to allow the hunting of feral dogs accused of attacking sheep.
Even during the hunting season, the silhouettes of guanacos can still be glimpsed on stretches along the Strait of Magellan. The guanacos often gaze at approaching vehicles before sprinting away across the steppe.
“Hunting these animals is an aberration that reflects our skewed priorities,” said Enrique Couve, the president of Tierra del Fuego’s chamber of tourism.
“The guanaco is a treasure of Patagonia that brings a sense of wonder to people who are fortunate enough to see it,” he said. “And here we are, watching it be killed as if it were some sort of pest.”
The 5 Guns Every Outdoorsman Needs
It never hurts to have a few extra firearms, but if you’re a hunter and limited to just five, these are the ones you really can’t live without
If you’re like me, you’d own 20 or more rifles, shotguns, and handguns, however many you could afford. But truth is, to have a blast shooting targets and hunting every species of bird and animal across America, you really only need five firearms. And those are the ones we’re talking about here.
In this discussion, we’ll focus on the generic qualities and some specs of the five categories of guns. When you’re ready to buy, do your research on Google and at your local gun shop to find the brands and models that match your style and fit your budget.
A .22 Rifle
Every man, woman, and child on Earth needs a good old .22 rifle. Well, so long as they’re properly trained in firearms handling and safety. Whether for plinking on the Back 40 or potting a mess of squirrels in October, a .22 rifle is the gun most of us learn on. It’s the first gun you need to get into your kid’s hands as soon as he or she is ready to join our shooting fraternity.
Relatively quiet to shoot and with no recoil, a rimfire rifle is the perfect tool for young or new shooters. For those of you who have been hunting awhile, think of a .22 as the perfect understudy for your deer rifle. You can go to the range several times a year and comfortably shoot a scoped .22 rifle all day long to fine-tune your sight picture, breathing, alignment, and trigger control. There’s no better practice for the upcoming whitetail season.
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The .22 LR has long been the most popular cartridge in America, and today’s rimfire rifles are of the best quality yet. No matter your preference or budget, there’s a sweeting-shooting bolt-action or autoloader for you.
Which one? I like a bolt because it simulates my deer rifles, but I’ve got to admit that a .22 autoloader with a capacity of 10 or more cartridges is a lot more fun to shoot.
A Deer Rifle
I could write for days about deer rifles, but here I’ll simplify things: Any centerfire rifle that shoots a 140- to a 180-grain bullet accurately out to 250-300 yards is a good choice for hunting any species of deer anywhere in North America.
Five calibers you should consider: .270, .308, 7mm-08, .30-06, and 7mm Rem. Mag. There are many more adequate cartridges out there and new rounds popping up every so often, but go with one of the aforementioned and proven five, and you’ll be happy.
I have three favorites:
.270 Winchester: As hunting cartridges go, the .270 is a plenty accurate round with manageable recoil. The less that a rifle “kicks,” the better people shoot and hunt with it, no question. While the perfect caliber for whitetails, the .270 with a 140-grain bullet is fine if you get a hankering to go West for mule deer.
7mm-08 Remington: Overlooked by too many hunters, this round is accurate, easy to shoot, and has minimal recoil, making it an especially good choice for young hunters. I use mine to hunt Texas whitetails every year.
.30-06 Springfield: If you want more power and can handle more recoil, you can’t go wrong with the time-proven .30-06. If you choose a bolt-action that fits you well and feels comfortable and snug on your shoulder and cheek, the recoil of an ’06 actually isn’t that bad. With good 180-grain bullets, you can hunt every hoofed mammal in North America, including elk and moose, with a .30-06.
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Regardless, definitely go with a bolt-action. While some rifles will shoot better than others right out of the box, any new bolt gun you purchase will be more than accurate enough for deer hunting. All you really need is a rifle/scope/ammo combo that will shoot a 3-shot group that measures 2 inches or less at 100 yards. That’s a bar easy to meet, and most modern rifles with good scopes shoot better.
Final thoughts: Barrels on today’s hunting rifles are typically 22 or 24 inches; either is fine. Lightweight synthetic stocks are tough, look OK, and shed rain. Many rifles come from the factory with trigger pulls of 5 pounds or more. You will shoot better with a crisp-breaking, 3 ½- to 4-pound trigger. Have a qualified gunsmith measure the trigger and lighten the pull if necessary.
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A Bird Gun
“Bird Gun” is our Southern term for a wood-stocked, lightweight, sweet-handling 12- or 20-gauge shotgun that is perfect for breaking clay pigeons and shooting a limit of quail, doves, or pheasants.
We’re talking semi-auto or over/under with a 24- to 26-inch barrel(s) fitted with removable choke tubes. Skeet, Improved Cylinder, and Modified are the top tubes you’ll need and use. Many guns have 3-inch chambers, but you’ll be shooting mostly 2 ¾-inch shells from this gun (usually with No. 6, 7 ½, 8 or 9 shot).
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A bird gun is the cream of the crop of this collection, and it will run you $1,000 to $2,000 or a bit more. Shop around and check out the used gun rack at your local gun shop. Think of it as a lifelong investment; a gun you can pass along to one of your kids.
But you need a fine shotgun to get the most enjoyment out of your wing-shooting, be it for clay pigeons or live feathers. If you’ll shoot mostly skeet and clays, I’d recommend a 20-gauge. If you’ll hunt a lot of doves, grouse, and definitely pheasants, I’d go with a 12.
You could screw a Full Choke tube into your bird gun and use it to kill a turkey or a limit of mallards — I’ve done that a bunch of times — but there is a better choice of gun for that.
A Magnum Shotgun
While not a gun you’ll shoot every month, you need a heavy-duty 12-gauge magnum in your safe. It’s the ticket for turkey hunting in the spring, and a workhorse for waterfowling in fall and winter. It should be a pump or semi-auto, chambered for 3- and 3 ½-inch shotshells, with synthetic stock and cloaked in Realtree camo. If you’ll hunt mostly waterfowl, go with a 26- or 28-inch barrel. While that same barrel will work fine for gobblers, many of today’s specialty turkey guns have 21- or 22-inch barrels, which are easier to carry and maneuver in the woods. A variety of choke tubes for either steel or turkey loads are available in any gun you choose.
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An All-Purpose Handgun
I’ve been shooting a lot of handguns lately, mostly for the fun of it, but also because I want to be proficient with a pistol and ready to protect my family and property.
For ease of use and dependability, you can’t beat a double-action revolver. Load up, aim at the target and pull the trigger five or six times until the gun is empty. There are snub-nosed revolvers up to large-frame magnum revolvers, but for most, a medium-frame gun with a 4- to 6-inch barrel chambered in .357 Magnum (from which you can also shoot .38 Special, but not vice versa) is about right.
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I started out with revolvers and still use them, but these days I do most of my shooting with a semiauto handgun. A semi-auto in 9mm, .40 S&W, or .45 ACP (three of the most common calibers) holds more ammunition than a .357 revolver, is faster to reload, and typically recoils less. Plus, most of them have better triggers and are easier for new users to shoot. Personally, I shoot a full-size .45 ACP double-stack that measures 7½ from the rear of the slide to the muzzle. My wife shoots a smaller, lighter version of the same gun in 9mm. For a day at the range, running 10- to 13-round magazines through semi-auto handgun is about as much fun as it gets.
A semiauto pistol does require more thorough and frequent cleanings than a revolver, but I look at that as a good thing. It makes you learn your weapon — how to dissemble it, clean it, and reassemble it after every shooting session. That builds confidence, and makes you safer, too.
Summary
Once you’ve amassed these five firearms, you have the tools needed to hunt just about any critter that walks or flies in North America. You’re ready to plink paper or metal, and powder clays. Have peace of mind, because you’re set for both personal protection and fun.
Now go out and have fun, shoot straight, and be safe.
