On the trail with the hunters who believe shooting big game can save Africa’s wildlife
The Audio Long Read
The Guardian
4.2 • 2.5K Ratings
🗓️ 22 May 2026
⏱️ 29 minutes
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is The Guardian. |
| 0:09.0 | Welcome to The Guardian long read, showcasing the best long-form journalism covering culture, politics and new thinking. |
| 0:15.8 | For the text version of this and all our long reads, go to the guardian.com forward slash long read. |
| 0:29.6 | On the trail with the hunters who believe shooting big game can save Africa's wildlife. |
| 0:32.2 | Written and read by Cal Flynn. You can kill almost anything if you're willing to pay. |
| 0:43.5 | Big or small, land, water, or air. |
| 0:47.3 | Ten a penny, or one of the last of its kind. |
| 0:50.7 | There's nearly always a way, that what might not make you popular. |
| 0:55.0 | The Niasa Special Reserve, a vast reservation larger than Switzerland, stretches for 190 miles along the northern rim of Mozambique, |
| 1:03.9 | taking in 4.2 million hectares of woodland and rivers. |
| 1:08.1 | The reserve, one of the world's largest protected areas, is home to elephants, |
| 1:12.6 | leopards, hyenas, zebras, and about a thousand wild lions. That word, however, protected. It applies to |
| 1:23.1 | some, but not all, of its animal inhabitants. Each year, a specific number are set aside for sacrifice, |
| 1:30.0 | for the greater good. Not long ago, I joined an expedition in Nyasa, with one of Africa's top |
| 1:35.9 | game-hunting companies. Safari guide Paul Stones and his client, an American neurosurgeon in his early |
| 1:43.1 | 70s, were preparing to shoot a Cape |
| 1:45.5 | Buffalo with the expert assistance of two professional trackers, Mozambican Sabite Mohammed and Tino |
| 1:51.7 | Salvador. It took the trackers mere moments to find the first prints. The trail led us through |
| 1:58.0 | the labyrinth of green and bronze. We passed along dusty, thorn-tangled riverbeds, then damper, cooler corridors of leaves set buzzing |
| 2:06.5 | by tiny insects. The whole time we moved in silence. |
| 2:12.2 | Suddenly there was a movement in the tall golden grasses close at hand, something large, moving fast. |
| 2:19.3 | Stones and his client swung their guns sharply towards the source of the noise. |
... |
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