AFRICAN SAFARI CLUB
Of
WASHINGTON, D. C.
A BRIEF HISTORY:
In 1959, Jim Bugg, who had just returned from safari in Mozambique (with Frank Abbo, Bob Will and Cecil Kaufman), suggested the creation of a Washington D. C.-area luncheon club of people who had previously hunted or photographed on African safaris and wanted to preserve the wildlife and habitat.
While shooting skeet, Jim met Maurice ("Maury") Stans, Deputy U.S. Postmaster, Director of the Budget, and veteran African hunter, along with Mark "Evans" (Austed), Ambassador to Norway, African hunter and former local TV/Radio personality who endorsed the idea.
Maury wrote the By-laws: with the organization’s purpose for the conservation of African wildlife
and habitat with the membership prerequisite that applicants must have been on an African safari, either hunting or camera or both. Mark chaired the Membership Committee, and Jim was selected the first President.
In 1959, those who had been on an African safari were few in Washington, D. C., but soon ASCW became a vibrant club as its membership grew. While the regular luncheon meetings at the Roma restaurant were primarily devoted to "campfire tales" and camaraderie among its "Old African Hands", the mission statement of the Club, wildlife and wildlife habitat conservation, was being formulated.
The conservation committee with members Kern-lit Roosevelt, Judge Russell Train, Jim Bugg, Dr. Harold Coolidge, Judge Edward Sweeney, and Maury Stans, formed the African Wildlife Leadership Foundation (AWLF), a world respected organization (now known as the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF), a non-profit foundation, with its parent, the ASCW) ();Russ Train led the formation of the Foundation.
By the 1960's, the membership of the ASCW included many well known African safari hands living in the Washington, D.C. area: tv personality, Arthur Godfrey, General "Nate" Twining, General Curtis LeMay, General Richard O'Keefe, and Jack Clink as well as some of conservation's best known figures like "Pink" Guttermuth PhD, Ray ("Tiny") Amett, Byron Engle, (a leading law enforcement spokesman, and the U.S. State Department's expert on Africa), member Howard "Moe" Sims. Soon well known local sportsmen were quickly attracted to the Club and became African hunters, including: Dr. Richard Gilbert (who hunted using only a long bow), archer Tink Nathan, former skeet shooter Bill Rollow, and Dr. Karl Jonas and his wife Bonnie, both avid trap shooters, and Edgar Alien ("Pudge") Poe, III, from Baltimore, who joined and brought many Baltimore safari members to the organization.
More recently, the late Edward "Ed" Liffmann-- a highly honored, WW II, Dutch resistance leader, then living in Washington, D. C., and who had been on 20 to 30 individual photographic safaris became an avid supporter of ASCW. Ed's African wildlife calendars were widely published in Europe.
In the same artistic vein, ASCW was also supported by Guy Coleach - a world famous painter of wildlife – who was given the ASCW conservation award.
In the 1960's, ASCW instituted an annual Conservation Dinner-- a black tie event to honor the individuals who had contributed significantly to the conservation of African wildlife and its habitat. An award, in the form of a parchment testimonial or plaque, was
given only in those years when a deserving recipient had been approved.
HONOREES: include South Africa's Dr. lan Player (golfer Gary
Player's older brother), who was the one person primarily responsible for saving the white rhino from extinction, and as a result, is AWSC’s club logo
Skeet and Trap Shoot: Another ASCW annual event, begun in the 1970's, was the Diplomat Skeet and Trap Shoot, hosted by former President Bill Rollow, who also was President of the National Capital Gun Club (Skeet & Trap). This event attracted many senior diplomats from around the world who were interested in African wildlife. It was not unusual to see a five-man skeet squad composed of the Ambassadors from Finland, Zimbabwe and South Africa, together with a high ranking diplomat from Russia and England. Despite the then "cold war," the love of the African safari experience knew no national boundaries or ideologies. Sadly, this event died when the National Capital Gun Club was taken over by Montgomery County, Maryland.
ANTI-POACHING PROGRAM: In the late 1980's, ASCW turned its eyes towards the prevention of African poaching and snaring, killing rare African animals for their horns, tusks or other body parts. The ill-equipped and underpaid game scouts of the poorer African countries were unable to control this predation which was severely impacted the populations of the black rhino, white rhino, elephant and rare plains game.
ASCW, through its charitable trust, the Southern African Wildlife Trust, instituted an anti-poaching program whereby a game scout who apprehended or put out of business a poacher, was given a meritorious service award by ASCW, consisting of a citation, a special pin for his hat, binoculars, and a $100 cash award (a princely sum to the underpaid scouts).
In 1992, in Zimbabwe, a successful anti-poaching program funded by private donations to the Trust, as well as by grants from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was founded, and later expanded to Zambia and Tanzania. This program, originally overseen by ASCW Past President and trust member David Murchison, and is now run by ASCW Secretary/Treasurer John Bruce, and continues to this day.
RECENT DONATION OF AFRICA RANCH: Shortly before his death, the late George Small, club member, created a trust donating his MPala Ranch, a 75 square mile ranch located in northern Kenya, devoted to the conservation and procreation of its indigenous African species, including lion, leopard, elephant, the endangered Gevry zebra, cheetah and buffalo.
Former club president, Pudge Poe, (and George’s close friend), pushed for this grant. Currently, ASCW Director David Barren, who co-owns a game ranch in Africa, is deeply involved with Africa and the goal of conserving its habitat for wildlife, And, from its inception, ASCW has urged ethical hunting and "fair chase" - a subject vigorously pursued by Bill Rollow to this very day.
PRESIDENT EISENHOWER RECEIVES CLUB’S WHITE TIGER FOR D.C. ZOO: No history of ASCW would be complete without recounting the "white tiger" event, now passed into folklore.
In 1963, Ralph Scott, who had been to India many times and seen the rare white tiger there, pleaded with ASCW to help him bring a white tiger to the Washington National Zoo. Maury Stans arranged an appointment with President "Ike" Eisenhower. Maury and Jim Bugg met with "Ike" who agreed to help. Ike then requested President Nehru of India to secure a white tiger for the children of America. President Nehru agreed. The problem of transporting the white tiger, a female named "Moheni," was solved when ASCW member John Kluge, donated $10,000 to hire a Pan Am jet to take Dr. Theodore Reed, Director of the Washington Zoo to India to pick up Moheni and fly her back toWashington. The official presentation of Moheni to America was held on the White House lawn with Ike personally accepting Moheni on behalf of the American people. Note:
If you look at the October 1963 issue of the National Geographic magazine, you will see a picture of Jim Bugg and John Kluge standing with Ike at the presentation. What was not well reported - and now folklore - was Ike's quip to Jim Bugg, namely
"I thought you were President of the African Safari Club and tigers come from Asia, don't they?" Many of Mokeni's issue grace a myriad of American zoos. Although it comes over forty years too late, Jim Bugg’s reply to Ike was something like this: In prehistory days, Africa did host tigers, but not the white tiger.
While the driving force of ASCW was and continues to be conservation of African animals and their habitat, informative information to its members about ethical and reliable African professional hunters, reliable outfitters, places to hunt, where to stay, where to go and what to bring, remains a most important function of ASCW.
MISSION STATEMENT: ASCW networks with member information and contacts from people in Africa as well as its sister club, the African Safari Club of Philadelphia, and occasional contacts with the African Safari Clubs in Texas, New York and Chicago.
A further important function of ASCW, is to provide social events for its members. The Club hosts an annual Christmas party at The Chevy Chase Club, and in the past has held cocktail parties, bird shoots, target events and similar functions which are of interest to its members.
Under the tutelage of its current President, Roy Lindquist, an ambitious future schedule is being proposed.
PROGRAMS SUPPORTED and ENDORSED BY ASCW & ITS MEMBERS:
When a wildlife habitat becomes overpopulated, overgrazing results--ending with extensive starvation among its animals. Accordingly, the wildlife must be kept to a size which the habitat can regularly support. Two methods of population control are currently in use: The first is culling, under which segments of the population are killed by government employees or their agents; Secondly, is selective game hunting. Under culling, (for reasons of cost), entire herds - male, female old and young - are usually culled. This is not only a waste of wildlife, but is an unnecessary expense upon the public treasury.
SELECTIVE HUNTING: ASCW supports selective hunting. Under selective hunting, hunting licenses and tags are issued to, and fees collected from, private hunters. Licenses and tags are issued only to the extent needed to control the population, and usually covers only mature male adults. The income so generated, under sound game management programs, is returned to the wildlife by way of habitat acquisition and its maintenance, including partial payments to the salaries of the governmental game agents who administer the wildlife habitat. As a result, habitat, its game population and the public treasury are enhanced.
ASCW for years has been urging a game management program for poorer African nations under which a substantial portion of the revenues obtained from hunting are returned to the local inhabitants living in or near the wildlife habitat. This not only deters the inhabitants from killing game for food – by supplying them with monies to buy food and necessities, but also turns them into a formidable anti-poaching force determined to protect "their animals."
There sometimes is a tension between those solely interested in photographing African game and those who hunt game. This does not exist in ASCW. Most, if not all of its "hunter" members are also avid photographers — and many, many more photographs are taken of game than game harvested. In reality, both groups share more common experiences while on safari than differences. And all share a united commitment to support conservation.
A CLOSING TRUISM:
The following message written for our Winter 1995 newsletter by our first President, Jim Bugg, applies today as much as when it was written:
"I like to think of the African Safari Club of Washington as a kind of incubator for
the beginning of conservation consciousness for many African hunters. Many people have become great conservationists, but they were formidable hunters first, as was Russ Train, Maury Stans, and others. Truly great hunters also almost always become great
conservationists. You often do not start out as a hunter and a conservationist in the same
breath, but in time, the hunter will want to conserve the very animals that he has chased and pursued, for no hunter can dream of a world absent wild animals.
What tomorrow brings depends upon our own actions. The African Safari Club of
Washington and its members have done much for animals and wildlife habitat
conservation, and it must continue its course-- as laid out in its By-laws 40 years ago...to protect and conserve African wildlife and its habitat. Members will come
and go, officers will change, but our mission will always remain."
EPILOGUE
The foregoing brief history was compiled from ASCW publications and my
memory. I apologize to the many ASCW members whose noble efforts I have either
forgotten or omitted for reasons of brevity.
I remember most fondly our early luncheon meetings at the Roma restaurant and
the deep friendships formed at our gatherings. But, most of all, I treasure the sharing
between our members of our respective African experiences... some were terrifying,
some absurdly humorous, and some sad...but all reminded us of the small part we
humans play in Nature's amazing wildlife theater. This is the legacy we "Old African
Hands" pass on to our successors.
WILLIAM E. ROLLOW, February, 2006
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