Rhythms of Life: A story about Organic Meat Connoisseur Raphael Bongo
November 2019
Reading Length: 8 - 10 minutes
Darkness surrounds me as we walk deeper into the forest. It’s early, somewhere between night and twilight at the southern border of New South Wales. It’s so early that no living creature should be awake, but the forest is alive with sound. Every crack, scratch, hum, and whistle conjures up fear I had associated with the forest since I was young.
“There’s nothing out here that will hurt you,” Raphael Bongo says as he leads the way. The lone beam from his torch illuminates only a few steps ahead of him.
Behind me is photographer, Thomas Pinto, silent and carrying his bag full of gear. His biggest worry is keeping a steady hand when taking a photo in conditions such as this.
Raphael’s words are consoling since he’s been in this area before, and he’s trailed game as well. Deer to be exact. I’m not sure where Raphael finds the thrill in waking up this early, with freezing temperature (it’s late winter) but he is wide-awake, and alert to every commotion the forest throws at us.
“It’s no secret to the people I know that I hunt. But what they don’t know is that there’s so much more to it than just using a rifle to take an animal out,” Raphael says, his deep voice blending into the cacophony of sounds .
This is the reason why I decided to join this hunt, because I believe the best way to learn something foreign to my worldview is through conversation.
Raphael claims he’s a hunter. I eventually grow to understand that he’s more than that.
“Let’s set up here,” Raphael says as he puts his dark backpack down.
It doesn’t take long for us to setup on the side of a game trail. Multiple trees conceal us from a bend. It is the perfect spot for an ambush. After a few minutes of setting his position, Raphael is ready to take the shot.
“The idea of arriving early to hunt is the same as fishing. You have to be there before what you’re pursuing. It’s trying to stay one step ahead, because they are far more clever than we are,” he says.
“When did you discover game hunting?” I ask while we wait.
Raphael keeps his sight locked on his binoculars. “Very early in my life. I was born in Uganda, and there were certain food we grew up eating there which came from the field. It was a part of my upbringing.”
“How did you get involved in hunting when you moved in Australia?”
“I tried to hold on to the culture of eating meat that grazed. I went out to farmers markets and bought meat straight from the source. I really wanted that organic taste,” he replies. “I already had all the skills of tracking and catching game, but I eventually wanted to join a hunting club to surround myself with the right people for the networking aspect. There’s always been a communal aspect to catching game since the dawn of time: we find paintings of people hunting animals, and bringing them to their tribes to share around. There’s something that brings a community together when it comes to food.”
The thought of food is a distant longing I couldn’t even grasp as we sit in darkness. I soon discover that there is a lot of waiting in these expeditions, mostly in silence.
The first sign of light begins to rise as dawn breaks. Soon an orchestra of chirps and whistles fill the morning air.
Raphael looks into the distance with his binoculars. He returns the rifle to his arms, and looks through the scope. A light gust swirls against our faces, making the cold a little more unbearable.
The suitable space to ask questions open up.
“You said there’s a lot more to just firing the weapon at an animal,” I interrupt. “What kind of preparations do you do prior to the hunt?”
“Plenty. Firstly, I make sure I plot the key areas that I’m going to traverse.” Bongo brings out his phone, and opens up an app with different maps of public forests in New South Wales. “You have to appreciate cartography when you do these trips. Knowing where the depressions in a landscape will help you in the long run when conserving your energy tracking something, or knowing the junction of a water source and the edge of a forest will set you up if you’re planning an ambush.”
“What else is important?” I continue.
“There’s ensuring all the administration is up to date: I send documents to the government where I’m going, and what I’m planning to hunt. I also go to a gun range to make sure my rifle is aligned with the scope precisely. Then you need to have some sort of fitness, and then preparing my gear if I’m going to be camping—”
Raphael suddenly stops. He pans at the horizon.
“You feel that?” he asks.
I look back at Thomas, who shrugs his shoulder. If he meant the ever-dropping temperature, accompanied by the increased wind, then yes.
“The wind has shifted,” Raphael answers for me. “We have to move. They would have smelt us by now.” He starts packing up his gear, and encourages us to do the same.
Raphael leads us around the bend following the dirt path. Not too far along, he stops us and then points at some tracks.
“This is where they would have smelt us,” Raphael says. He presses a finger at the footmark on the muddy ground. It’s damp, fresh. “They changed direction towards that way.”
He follows the track marks towards the thick forest to our right. Another few paces, he stops us again and kneels next to a shrub.
“See the break on this branch?” Raphael asks, holding it between thumb and index finger.
I nod.
“The deer would have bit at this. The break is a clean cut, not jagged if it was broken off. We’re close.”
Raphael leads the way. Carefully, he treads slowly through the forest floor. Noise is now the biggest obstacle. Branches block our path, but he pushes past them, adamant to even just get a glimpse of the deer. Every step taken is a strategy in itself.
The snap of a twig stops all of us.
Raphael leaps onto a nearby log, elevating himself above the thick shrub of the forest. He anchors the rifle to his shoulder. The scope aligns with his eye.
I ready myself for the explosion.
But instead of pulling the rifle’s bolt back, he disengages from the target.
He steps down from the log.
“I didn’t have a clean shot.”
We let the adrenaline rush settle from the sudden scamper of events.
“But you saw her, right?”
Raphael nods. “I can’t hurt the animal. The shot has to be precise when taking an animal out.”
For a moment some of my assumptions about hunting begin tearing away. Initially, I had thought that it was a series of heedless activities with the focal point of incapacitating an animal.
A hunter with a duty of care begins to take shape.
Bongo signals us to follow him as he leads us to the other side of the forest.
“Let’s move on. There will be no more animals around here after all that movement.”
“You mention it’s not just about shooting, but you still have to perform that action. Is there a process that goes through you when shooting at an animal for you?” I ask.
“When I fire I have to be sure that it won’t maim the animal. That’s the main reason I go to the range the week before to ensure the scope and the rifle are perfectly aligned. There’s a few reasons that the shot has to be fatal: I have to ensure that the animal will go down, and not escape with an injury that it has to suffer through. Maybe it could even get sick and pass that onto other animals. Being precise is a key factor. Another reason is that an animal that is afraid has large amounts of adrenaline, and certain chemical run through its body. That significantly alters the taste of the meat. Since I do this purely for the harvesting of (naturally) organic meat, I try to make sure the animal is as calm as possible right to the last moment.”
After a while, Raphael leads us to a clearing where a group of kangaroos are grazing. They see us, and for a moment, we all stay still. Two different species watching each other, waiting for the other to extend something, anything. Then we all part ways: the kangaroos hop off, and we continue on our way back to the car.
“What are the other things you look for before taking a shot at an animal?” I continue to ask as we trek through the mulch ground.
“When I have an animal in my scope. I can tell a lot about it: how old it is, if it is sick, if it is injured. As much as I have an idea of its post-mortem, I also have a realisation of its anti-mortem. I will always let a young animal go, but never an animal that’s sick, knowing that it could spread that sickness to other animals. Especially animals that are introduced species.”
“Introduced species?”
“Certain permits limit what you can hunt for. For example, my one is limited to public forests, and animals that are considered pests because they wreck havoc to the Australian environment. By hunting these introduced species, it’s helping assist regulate the natural environment.”
“You mentioned the point of doing all of this is getting the premium meat. Do you share that around?”
Raphael’s face shifts to one with a smile. “Absolutely. Especially if an animal is around 200kgs, there’s too much meat to keep for myself. I actually thought about starting a business of distributing organic game meat.”
“Did it end at the thought?” I continued to prod.
“No, I actually got all the qualifications for it and I was on my way on really getting it started, but the transport system was just too expensive for me.”
“Is that still something you want to do eventually?”
“Not sure.” Raphael shrugs. “But everything I learnt from that course, I apply to what I do when I go on hunts, and when I give the meat to my friends. Everything I share, I want to do with a duty of care, and I never want to compromise the quality.”
After we return to the car and have a quick breakfast, Raphael then crosses the border to Victoria where he takes us to a forest twice the size of the last, and sets up for the evening ambush. There, the solitude surrounding me is exhilarating, and watching the mechanics of nature really makes you appreciate the rhythms of life.
“You’re currently launching a project called The Wild Estate. Tell me more about that?” I ask.
“It’s a collection of the hunting journey’s that I go on. I’ve always wanted to create awareness and a voice for those who have no idea what it is, rather than getting a caricature of what it might be. I also want to show people how to get the cleanest (naturally organic) meat. As I said, hunting is not just about shooting,” says Raphael. “And as you saw, you need to put on a few different hats: you need to have some sort of cartography skills when plotting your journey, you need some sort of fitness, a marksman in making sure your shots are precise, understanding an animal’s anatomy when you’re harvesting the animal, and finally being a chef when you’re preparing the meat. I want people to understand concepts like ‘fair chase ethics’, where you can’t use anything that gives you an unfair advantage over what you’re hunting.”
My eyes instantly shift to his rifle.
He nods, as if knowing what my next question was.
“I use the rifle to take the game out as quickly, and as humanely as possible. It’s a tool that assists me, the same way I’d use a blade to cut a plant.”
The sun slowly begins to set, and the temperature drops once again. Our patience doesn’t pay off as no deer comes out to venture in the pasture before us.
“Well that’s it, time for us to go,” Raphael looks at his watch. “Most hunts are never successful. You can plan everything, but it’s ultimately never up to you.”
When we arrive back at the car, Raphael disassembles his rifle, and packs everything away. “I hope you’re hungry. Let’s get some dinner,” he says. “Hunger is the best spice after all.”
At the dinner table, Raphael, Thomas and I dine on meat that we had bought at the supermarket. Irony and Serendipity linger in the air through the meal, but a new appreciation on meat’s taste and source dawns on me.
For any meat eater, eating game is an interesting experience on what we take for granted, and for a non-meat eater it is an interesting conversation to have. After all, holding the rhythms of nature in high regard is something we must continually be reminded of.
“So why do you keep coming back to do this?” I ask, mid-bite.
Raphael looks at the minced meat on his fork. “I never treat not eating meat as sacrilegious. It’s actually easy for me to just buy meat from the butcher near my house, but you can actually taste the difference with this meat, and the meat that is caught in the wild. There’s a certain value to meat when I get to consume it.” He takes a bite. “What I’ve started to actually do is when I run out of meat from what I’ve caught, I just eat vegetables. Yes, I’ll eat meat when I’m out when I’m with friends, but I’m trying to restrict my meat consumption to what I simply catch.”
This is the moment I realise Raphael isn’t just a hunter, but an Organic Meat Connoisseur.
To follow Raphael’s journey find his website here
To find more of Thomas’ photos find it here
Written by: S.I. Finlayson
Editors: Annie Tonkin & Tim Hamer
Photographer: Thomas Pinto
With Special thanks to: Raphael Bongo
Consultant: Liz Drury