“ The Real Safari Magazine”: First of all, we would like to congratulate you on achieving such a high level of awards of the CMH as the "International Wild Goat Super 40 Award", which is issued for getting of forty species of animals according to the Capra list, and in this regard I would like to ask a few questions. The first one is: how did the collecting of mountain trophies begin, how did you turn from hunting in general to mountain hunting?
Edward Bendersky : I wouldn't call it a turn, because I continue to hunt for other species too. There was rather a shift in emphasis. And the impetus was an article in Safari magazine about GSCO. I've read it with interest, it just has hit the target, because my life position is to set high goals and strive to achieve them while doing something. The article’s expanded the horizon and has indicated the vector of movement - mountain hunting becomes popular among hunters all over the world, they create clubs that are quite narrowly specialized in terms of hunting objects, and try to reach certain levels. And I decided to set myself similar goals. Somewhere since 2010, I began to give preference to mountain hunting, and the collection of trophies began to grow quite quickly.
“ The Real Safari Magazine”: How new were the first such hunts for you?
E.B.: Not really new. I hunted in the mountains from my childhood. And my first trophy was a mountain one – at the age of 10 I got an antelope on the border of Turkmenistan and Iran. Therefore, mountain hunting didn’t become a revelation for me seven years ago. Although I had to revise a lot, to gain experience and understand that it is mountain hunting that attracts me the most. Today, at least 80% of my hunts are hunts for mountain ungulates.
“ The Real Safari Magazine”: What about other 20%?
E.B.: Hunting is a big holiday for me. Any kind of hunting. Communication with wildlife, with friends is always very emotional. Periodically I hunt in Africa, in Russia I hunt for birds, and take part in corral hunts in with friends. But my real passion is primarily mountain hunting. It's difficult to explain why. Do I still need to find the answer. I feel the lack something in my life if I don't get to the mountains for a month.
“ The Real Safari Magazine”: What should happen to an ordinary hunter to "get infected" by the mountains? Someone doens’t like it in principle…
E.B.: Mountains are not given to everyone. Even if we don’t take into account the financial side of the issue, then the state of health may become an obstacle. It is necessary to devote much more time to prepare for mountain hunting – both in terms of shooting and in physical terms - than to hunting in Africa, for example. It is difficult for someone to spend so much time on his hobby. One more moment is that the attitude to mountain hunting can be extremely negative even if you have all the possibilities, simply because you met “the wrong people” from the very beginning. An inattentive guide can drive an inexperienced hunter that he will curse both the mountains and the hunt, and put an end to it. Those, who come to the mountains for the first time, are not ready for the specifics of such hunts and are completely at the mercy of the host party. It is very rare to meet a guide who competently know how to work with a hunter. They are all well prepared physically, because moving around the mountains is a daily habit for them. Their bodies are adapted to the highlands. Not everyone can adapt to an unprepared hunter who is still poorly adapted to the mountains. I have seen only one perfect gamekeeper in Nepal for all the time I’m hunting in the mountains. He was a Sherpa who adjusted to the pace of the hunter's walk, and did not rush like a madman. As it turned out, he had his own climbing tactics called "Just don't sweat.” He walks at a certain pace and as soon as he feels a slight perspiration under his clothes, he stops, has rest and then rises again. We walked like that, and in the end, I saw that we almost didn’t lose time and our condition, didn’t sweat and were not cold. It was the work of a professional! Climbing the mountains for the sake of hunting is not some kind of competition, there is no point to catch up with a guide who rises faster. You need to adjust to yourself, to your body. If you travel in a pair with a novice hunter, you need to act as an instructor, correcting the mistakes of the guides. You need to adjust to the rhythm of a friend to help him to adapt correctly to the movement in the mountains.
“ The Real Safari Magazine”: Are you lucky, as a novice mountain hunter?
E.B.: My first mountain hunts from the already planned series took place were in Kamchatka, in Magadan, in Yakutia and I was lucky to happen into good hands. And the hunts were well organized , and the people were trained professionals. It must be said that the RORS Association established the first Russian mountain award – the Mountain Five. I took the participation in it, and considered it obligatory for myself to get these animals. But the first hunts showed that I needed to prepare seriously for mountain hunting. There wasn't enough special information that could have been useful to me at that time. Or I didn’t know where to get it. One of the main tasks that we set ourselves when had established the Club of Mountain Hunter was to provide maximum information assistance to beginners so that they would not make mistakes, but could remotely learn the basics that we were given with sweat and blood. I gained experience with each new hunt, communicated with the same obsessed mountain hunters, my horizons expanded, the ability to select equipment, to find qualified hunting outfitters. It's allowed me to reach a certain level of knowledge and skills, which allows me to consider myself an accomplished mountain hunter.
“ The Real Safari Magazine”: What is the CMH place among other hunting clubs?
E.B.: I must say that we do not compete with any club, but try to contact and cooperate productively. For example, I am a member of the Spanish club "Masters of Mountains", a member of GSCO, a member of SCI. Most of the CMH members are also members of GSCO and other clubs. We are now in process of approving a single prize "Super 29" together with the Moscow Safari Hunting Club. We are participating together with them in the publication of the Book of Russian Trophies. However, with all due respect to the North American clubs and hunters, to their experience and status, they are not systemically determining for us. We use their knowledge and experience, we are interested in trends. But the CMH is not a GSCO branch, we have different approaches to compiling rating tables. I like our ratings more because they are more interesting to me, are much more diverse.
“ The Real Safari Magazine”: What is the difference?
E.B.: There are milestones in the GSCO ratings – 12 objects, 20, 30, 40 and so on. Quarterly, the list of all hunters who have reached these milestones is printed in the club's magazine, and it practically does not change in the top positions for years. Today only five people in the world have reached the level of 40 sheep. There are 47 sheep on the GSCO list in total, but a good dozen of them have been included in the International Red Book for several years already. It means that it is impossible now to reach the level of 40 sheep. If we talk about the Capra GSCO list, then there are a little more than forty objects in it, and several animals cannot be legally obtained. Then it becomes unclear why the club gives hunters a landmark, which is impossible to approach?
The members of the CMH have the opportunity to get both 50 sheep and 60 sheep , since the list is much more diverse.
“ The Real Safari Magazine”: What is the reason for such diversity?
E.B.: The CMH ratings include animals of the same species and even subspecies, but extracted in different regions, in different countries. We divide the species into populations. How is the Siberian ibex hunted in the Altai Mountains worse than the Siberian ibex got in the mountains of Kazakhstan? NOTHING! So why not make the rating tables wider? This also gives some advantages: it provides work for people on the ground, creates an opportunity to increase the populations of these animals, which hunting farms are beginning to protect, protect from wolves and poachers. This gives the hunter the opportunity to experience new adventures in unfamiliar places, meet and communicate with people in these areas.
“ The Real Safari Magazine”: The increase in the ratings of the CMH is not at the expense of the red books?
E.B.: With regard to the Red Book’s species, we strictly adhere to the letter of the law. And we have ratings of photo trophies…
“ The Real Safari Magazine”: But they are not very popular yet?
E.B.: The reason is simple – the club starts counting them when the hunter has already got 60 normal rated animals and has come close to the red Book species, and there are no such hunters yet. We don’t urge you to give up gun hunting by registering photo trophies. We just give you an additional opportunity to get rating points. There is no need to break the law – you just need to organize an interesting expedition and take a picture of a live animal that will be counted as a trophy. The first trip, in this regard, took place last year – an expedition was organized to Chechnya, where the guys managed to take pictures of a Bezoar ibex. This year I took a picture of a red book mouflon in the mountains of Cyprus.
“ The Real Safari Magazine”: Now I would like to hear a few words about the forty animals from the Capra list…
E.B.: As you know, two lists form positions for mountain trophies - these are Capra (ibexes and related species) and Ovis (sheep). It turned out that my results for ibexes were higher than for sheep. There was any special intent in this. I strive to get animals from both lists when I go to places where both live. But at some point I noticed that I have more species from the Capra list. Moreover, it turned out that there are no people in the world who would get 40 animals from the Capra list. There are many people have achieved high results in sheep, including Russians, for example, Alexander Egorov, Konstantin Popov, Sergey Samotin, Vladislav Reznik, then I am ahead of everyone in ibexes. To be honest, When I’d seen and analyzed the situation after thirty ibex, I began to focus on them, I purposefully hunted them first of all. I am very pleased that I’ve been able to reach such a serious milestone – 40 Ibexes. And I am happy that I was able to reach it first. I came to understand over time that I even like hunting ibexes more than hunting sheep. They live in more inaccessible places, prefer rocky terrain, and therefore hunting them is more difficult, harder.
“ The Real Safari Magazine”: Once again, we congratulate you on an outstanding result and wish you not to stop there!
E.B.: Thank you. There is still something to do Since this year, I have already begun to build a plan of expeditions, the purpose of which will be the markhors.
