Safari Club

Written by Gordon Lull

Within a few miles drive of William “Bill” Mosesian’s Lamont, California home, a bustling grocery store is crowded with shoppers. For most of his neighbors, that store represents the only source of food they will ever know.

For them, food comes wrapped and boxed, canned or bottled, stamped with expiration dates, carefully displayed, and vacuum-packed. Mosesian knows better but he doesn’t hold it against them. He knows both worlds.

Often, he dreams of Africa. Always, sleeping or waking, his harvests surround him, peering down from walls or standing in magnificent stillness. Lions, tigers, kudu, cougar, zebra, water buffalo, even a baboon or two; taken over the years from the jungles of Botswana, from Zambia, Tanzania, and from the mountains above Kern County...all haunt the world around him.

“I know it sounds odd,” admits Mosesian, “but the truth is, I love them. Each one of them.”

Mosesian, 95, whose life and accomplishments as a hunter were celebrated May 19 at Bakersfield’s Petroleum Club by the local chapter of Safari Club International (SCI), is among a small but growing number of Kern County residents who intend to keep the hunting flame burning hot and bright. Formed in 1975 and now based in Tucson, Arizona, SCI has members in 100 nations worldwide and, according to its website, pursues its mission “to protect the freedom to hunt and promote wildlife conservation worldwide.” The organization holds conventions; educational seminars; publishes an array of magazines, newsletters, and other publications; promotes wildlife education and conservation; and also engages in various humanitarian services. It also engages in the political and legal defense of hunting and gun rights. Having enjoyed several high-profile court victories, the group’s advocacy approach, spearheaded by its political action committee (SCI-PAC), is straightforward: “support our friends and defeat our enemies!” In fact, many of America’s hunters feel themselves to be the victims of a relentless assault upon their rights, often at the hands of those who have never held a pistol, rifle, shotgun, or bow.

“Over-sentimentality, over-softness, in fact, washiness and mushiness are the great dangers of this age and of this people. Unless we keep the barbarian virtue, gaining the civilized ones will be of little avail.” —President Theodore Roosevelt

Most hunters see themselves as not only the defenders, but also the protectors, of a heritage—a well-established treasury of values which have taken the exit ramp from the American cultural highway. Values such as resourcefulness, independence, bravery, patience, respect, self-sufficiency, and a certain intimate connectedness with nature are in danger, hunters say, of slipping away from an increasingly digitized citizenry.

Hunting, in this respect, has become for some, including SCI members, a psychic shake of the shoulders, awakening them from modern somnambulism. While their fellow citizens drift further off to sleep, drugged by the narcotics of television; iPhones; laptops; and munching on faux foods produced en masse, wrapped in plastic and paid for by plastic, hunters go back to basics: man, hunger, predator, prey. No complicated division of labor, distribution chains, point-of-purchase promotions, or two-for-one offers. Legal game, patience, the alchemy of physical skill and instinct bereft of emotion, and an ethical kill. Writes Frank Miniter, in his The Ultimate Man’s Survival Guide, “...we have in just the last two generations transitioned into a society that is so successful the bulk of the public doesn’t know where its food comes from—and doesn’t have the slightest notion how to grow or kill their own. This is a staggering thing.”

Many activist non-hunters, however, argue that civilization, and a sophisticated division of labor, has obviated the need for game kills, and that what was once a survival practice has transmogrified into needless, bloody recreation.

“The thing about these people is,” says Bakersfield businessman and SCI member Harry Samarin, “how could they possibly know anything about wildlife habitats anyway? Until you’ve traveled around the world and seen these beautiful animals in their natural environments, in the backwoods of Botswana or the forests of Kazakhstan, I don’t think you have a credible opinion. Most of the anti-hunting activists haven’t ventured very far. A big trip for them is, ‘Let’s go to Starbucks and put it on the credit card!’ ”

Ed Jagels, Kern County District Attorney and president of the local SCI Golden Empire Chapter, agrees: “Nobody but a nut would argue with the premise that where hunting is healthy, game populations are healthy and the game habitats are being preserved. Where hunting is not healthy, the animals have no value. There’s no one with an incentive to keep the herds healthy.”

Bob and Darin Nelson, owners of Old River Sod, are also SCI members who have hunted large game internationally. “I am a mere postulate at the feet of the masters,” Jagels says of the Nelsons. “Darin is an unbelievable hunter.”

“I want hunting to have such a good, positive reflection for people,” Darin Nelson says. “When you come down to it, hunting is really about conservation, especially in places like Africa. We are the ones who protect the wild animals, from both poaching and habitat destruction. We want to make sure that wild game populations are healthy and plentiful. In fact, as far as SCI goes, it’s part of our mandate that our chapter has to be involved in conservation efforts.”

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 2006 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation, 30 million Americans over the age of 16 fished during 2006 and 12.5 million (roughly six percent) Americans hunted. Together, these fishermen and hunters spent $76.7 billion to pursue these recreations, including revenue generated from equipment purchases, food, fees, taxes, licenses, and lodging. In California, 281,000 hunters, during the same year, generated $813,239,000 in revenue for businesses and governments.

“Reminds me of my safari in Africa. Somebody forgot the corkscrew and for several days we had to live on nothing but food and water.” —W. C. Fields

For Kern County’s SCI members, the issues surrounding hunting, gun ownership, and wildlife habitat touch upon their real life passions and experiences and do not constitute bloodless ideological abstractions.

Jagels has hunted regularly in Mexico, Bolivia, Africa, and throughout North America. The Nelsons have hunted worldwide, including treks to Botswana, Zambia, and Mozambique. Samarin , along with his wife, Rhonda Samarin, recounted their adventures in Kazakhstan, Botswana, and Zimbabwe.

Bakersfield’s SCI Golden Empire Chapter is a revival of an earlier attempt to establish an incarnation of the organization in Kern County (Porterville, California, to the north, has a well-established SCI group), with earlier chapters failing due to in-fighting, membership erosion, and lack of funding. Jagels, who announced his retirement as District Attorney in November of 2009, believes that, despite the harsh economy, the new chapter may well thrive.

Raised in the Pasadena area, Jagels recalls hunting ducks and pheasant in the Sacramento Valley with his father and brother.

“I never imagined I’d grow up shooting bigger things and actually going on African safaris,” he says.

He believes that, in addition to standing in the gap to protect hunter rights, SCI performs another critical cultural role.

“There are obviously some cultural attitudes that are changing in America and which present threats to hunting and to the very character of our country,” Jagels says. “One of the biggest threats to hunting in America is the divorce rate. I know that seems almost incomprehensible, but hunting, generally, is passed down from fathers to sons, and since it’s customary for mothers to get primary custody for small children, that breaks the chain. I know it sounds ridiculous but it’s more than speculation. The studies have demonstrated this. There’s a relatively advanced average age for hunters and one reason is that there are many hundreds of thousands of young boys that would have been trained as hunters by their fathers but that opportunity has been taken away from them.

“I don’t think there’s any question about it,” he continues, “and I can think of a couple of books, both of which make the case that we are arguably feminizing young men. There has been a definite but gradual feminization, in some respects, to refine boys toward a manner inconsistent with their basic character. That’s a danger and it’s a danger that groups like SCI address through conservation, education, and litigation.”

Another SCI member, Ken Quarnberg, owner of Valley Gun, recalled the importance of hunting in his personal history.

“Some of my best memories are of my dad taking me hunting. He passed away four years ago. Those are memories I’ll treasure forever. But I also want to make sure that other young kids have that opportunity.”

Jagels contends, along with several SCI members, that one of the genuine contributions SCI’s Golden Empire Chapter might make is to enlarge the worldview of Kern youth. Jagels intends to address this by initiating educational seminars, weapons training programs, habitat protection efforts, and construction projects.

“When I was young, we were outdoors all the time,” says Quarnberg. “Nowadays, if you’re a parent, you have a legitimate worry about turning your kid loose in the city. We need to get these kids outdoors in nature, away from the television screen and the computer keyboard.”

“Things only have a value if they’re worth a monetary amount,” adds Samarin. “What the hunter does is translate and support that value by paying fees, buying licenses, paying taxes, purchasing equipment, ammunition, and so on. People on the other side, what monetary value do they put in? All they want to do is stop hunting and they keep trying to do that year after year. Somebody has to pay the bill. The hunter pays the bill.”

Regarding Bill Mosesian, whose accomplishments were recognized at the group’s May 19 “re-start” dinner and auction, Jagels says, “I’ve known him for 10 or 15 years and first met him when I finagled an invitation to go and see his trophies at an event. I brought my children. Bill started hunting when Africa was more like the Wild West, back in the mid-’70s. His last hunt, he killed the number 3 SCI lion in the world. That was when he was 80 years old. He holds a number of world records and has always embodied the principles of fair chase and responsible sportsmanship. And he’s been very generous to Safari Club, both to the Bakersfield chapter and the Porterville chapter, donating guns and trophies, including to the Buena Vista Museum on Chester. This is one remarkable guy.”

The mission statement for Bakersfield’s Buena Vista Museum of Natural History states its overall goal is “to educate and involve the community, through recovering, preserving, and displaying local and worldwide natural history objects.” The majority of those “objects” were donated by Bill Mosesian from his collection.

Located at 2018 Chester Avenue, the repository crowds fossils, petrified wood, archaeological reconstructions, gems, minerals, and a spectacular collection of African, Asian, and North American animals into a 20,000-square-foot setting, featuring remarkable “up close and personal” viewing for museum goers. For many of the animals, although tens of thousands of eyes have looked upon them in their deaths, the last eyes to view them in their lives were Bill Mosesian’s.

Visit Buena Vista and stand within reach of mighty African lions (Panthera leo), a cape buffalo, African kudu, 14 antelopes of various kinds (most taken from Zambia and Tanzania), a zebra, an ostrich, wart hog, red kangaroo, Savanna Baboon, cougar, muskox, coyote, lynx, reindeer, and Canadian goose.

“I can’t say enough about Bill Mosesian,” explains Koral Hancharick, Executive Director of the Buena Vista Museum, “not only because he is such a renowned hunter but also because of his generosity. Because of his donations to the museum, people for whom the natural world is fearful, strange, and remote will be able to see animals, up close, they’ve only read about or seen on television.”

“Civilized life has altogether grown too tame, and if it is to be stable, it must provide a harmless outlet for the impulses which our remote ancestors satisfied in hunting.” —Bertrand Russell

Warns Harry Samarin, to those who might look upon the specimens with misplaced pity and assume that their final moments were cruel interruptions in an otherwise blissful existence, “What most people don’t understand is that the destiny of many of these animals is brutal. They may hear that Bill Mosesian killed one African elephant. What they don’t see is that the elephant was crippled with injuries, emaciated by near starvation, and would have died in misery.”

“Human hunters,” contends Hancharick, “are the true conservationists.”

“When despair for the world grows in me, and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and the lives of my children might be—I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought or grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.” —Wendell Berty

Mosesian started hunting jackrabbits when he was 8 years old. At age 14, he bought his first weapon, a .410 shotgun, one of the more versatile among small-bore shotguns. Still, small game was his only interest and would be into adulthood. But one rash act, which led to the loss of sight in one eye, would edge him toward his life’s passion.

“When I was a boy,” he says, “I walked around barefoot, wore these oversized shoes, and bathed once a week in a wash tub. I was kind of big for my age. Life was a lot different then. One of the things we used to do was stare at the sun to see how long we could last. I did some damage to my right eye and lost my sight.”

The real fear came for Mosesian, however, when he was in his early thirties and suffering sight problems with his remaining eye. Doctors advised that he was suffering from macular degeneration and might lose his remaining vision.

“We used to watch the T.V. a lot,” he recalls, “and I remember seeing all these movies and shows, like Frank Buck and so on, about big game hunting in Africa. I figured, I better do this before it’s too late.” And do it he did, throughout Africa, Asia, Australia, and North America, filling the SCI record books with his accomplishments.

“Hunting is an instinct,” he says, “which has to be in you. I was just born to hunt.”

Article appeared in our 27-2 Issue - June 2010