Hunting deep in the jungle of Peru

© By Othmar Vohringer

Perched in his makeshift treestand the hunter could hear from somewhere deep in the jungle the monotonous beat of tribal drums. As the morning mist began to dance gracefully in the warming breeze of dawn the hunter got ready. His crossbow drawn, he waited patiently for the wild pekari’s that at any moment now would come down the narrow trail from their night quarters to the muddy little waterhole near the base of his tree. It was just light enough to see the forest taking shape. The black wall of vegetation turned into individual tree trunks that seemed to grow into the heavens above. A few sunbeams began to penetrate the dense canopy when the hunter’s heart skipped a beat or two. Right above him high in the canopy a pava de monte, a distant relative of the peacock and turkey, greeted the new day with a loud cackle and then flew with heavy wings to the damp forest floor…

When Ivan from the Asociación de Caza con Ballesta del Perú blog sent me an email to tell me all about his recent hunting adventure in the deep dark jungle of his native Peru it evoked childhood memories in me. As a child I often sat in my room reading books and stories of brave hunters pursuing exotic and dangerous game in Africa and South America. I admired these men that explored far off countries and lived off the land and learned from the native tribes the art of scouting and stalking in the jungle. Many of these hunters had hair-raising stories of life and death encounters with elephants, lions, jaguars and the odd hostile tribe to tell of. These were the adventures every little boy wanted to live.

Ivan’s recent email gave me the opportunity to ask him how he was doing and what he was up to recently. Ivan answered me back telling me about his recent hunt and kindly attached a few pictures to go with the story. Ivan does hunt peraki’s, a small but quite vicious little pig when provoked as well as pava de montes. These birds are quite a bit smaller than turkeys and peacocks but in every aspect just as beautiful. But it was the photo of Ivan holding up the gigantic anaconda that was to my mind the biggest prize. An anaconda is the largest snake it the world. These behemoths of the South American jungle can grow to more than 30 feet long. The Anaconda Ivan holds in the photo is not quite that long but is a respectable specimen by any standard. These reptiles are capable of inflicting severe injury and even death to any human not careful enough.










Here is Ivan in his jungle treestand waiting for game with crossbow ready for action.














The price of patients and stealth, a fistey pekari that, so Iam told, are very tasty too.











Here is Ivan with another trophy, this time it's a Pava de montes. In the picture you can't see what beautiful birds they are and so I included another one below.










That is a huge snake, a anaconda. I am honest with you all, I don't like snakes much. So anyone hunting them or getting otherwise close to these animals is a hero in my mind.














Tags: Hunting in Peru, Pekari, Anaconda, Pava de montes