Book/Pipe pairing

I like to read while I'm smoking some good burley tobacco. Peter Hathaway Capstick wrote some incredible books on dangerous game in Africa and one of his books is The Last Ivory Hunter. It's about Wally Johnson who was an elephant cropping officer for a time and later became a sought after Professional Hunter leading safaris. i realize some of you may not approve of shooting elephants but in his case it was to thin the herds in overpopulated areas. In any case this book and also the rest of Capstick's books are great to read while smoking a bowl full of your favorite tobacco. By the way Wally Johnson always had a pipe in his mouth (a bent). According to Capstick he smoked some sort of "evil looking black shag tobacco" but I don't know what brand it was. Just thought share my thoughts on this.

Well, it was a different time back then. The farms and livestock were being threatened by the overly high elephant populations and the governments over there thinned the herds both to protect the farms and to prevent the elephant population in specific geographical areas from becoming over populated which would result in starvation for both the elephants and the people living there. I'm not sure how it would be possibly to herd elephants but I guess it could possibly be done today. Not sure about back then though. I think the meat was consumed by the people. I enjoy hunting but I wouldn't want to kill one myself for the same reason that I don't hunt bears even though I don't have a problem with people who do. But I do think that population control by controlled hunting/thinning is the best way to ensure the survival of the species. I realize that the elephants were there first but the world was (and is) what it is. Today many elephant herds are slaughtered by poachers for their ivory just like was done in the early 20th century, even worse actually because the old time ivory hunters took the elephants with the biggest tusks they could find. Today the poachers kill every single elephant they can, some with tusks only weighing a few pounds, babies really. Controlled hunting in Africa, including sport hunting, is the primary funding mechanism for protecting the wildlife over there and gives economically challenged countries money to pay for things like armed game rangers that hunt the poachers.
Anyway, Wally Johnson loved his pipe. I've watched videos of him guiding safari clients back in the fifties and sixties and he always had that bent briar in his mouth.