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‘I’m
your guide, Chuck Roast, and today we’ll be on the hunt for this most
dangerous of game.’ (Theme music, credits and background of all sorts
of critters headed for the stew pot and, of course, commercials from our
sponsors.)
‘Welcome
back,’ our guide whispers. ‘We are now in our shooting house and,
boy, are we lucky. We’ve only been here ten minutes and we’ve got a
mature bull armadillo in sight! We are about 125 yards from this animal,
which during the rut is as close as you want to get to one of these. We
are using a very large caliber rifle for this bull because when you hit
him, you want him to go down immediately.’
(We
observe the bull armadillo as he digs around in an obvious dominance
display, amazed that he is unafraid of being observed.)
Chuck
Roast says, ‘Folks, it is amazing that he is showing us no fear; that’s
just how confident he is that his size, strength and aggression will
intimidate any of his enemies.’
(Suddenly,
hunter and guide are on the ground! They are going to approach the old
bull on his own terms and make the harvest up close. They approach from
down wind, as the background music grows tense. The two are talking in
whispers almost too faint to hear. Then they freeze as the armadillo
sees something and alerts.
A
few tense moments ensue as they wait for the inevitable charge.
Fortunately the bull’s sixth sense tells him its o.k. and he goes back
to the pawing and grunting that characterize his dominance display. He’s
letting all of the other bull armadillos in this area know that he is
the dominant bull and he will be the only one passing along his D.N.A.
this breeding season; and if they don’t like it, they are welcome to
come into his territory and fight it out. But they won’t, his three or
four pound bulk and a shell as tough as shoe leather lets them know that
this is a bull in his prime and he is nothing to be messed with.
We
watch in disbelief as the guide, Chuck Roast, and his hunter approach
even closer. They don’t even have a tree to climb should the animal
charge! Let’s hope that at least they are carrying some sort of
identification so that we won’t have to use dental records to identify
the remains.
When
they are about fifty yards away, the guide places the shooting sticks
and tells the hunter to take the shot. The music swells to a tense level…and
we break to a commercial.
The
commercial starts with action shots of charging armadillos and
successful hunters posing with their kill and shaking hands. Someone
like Charleston Heston narrates and tells the viewer all about the
benefits of joining A.H.A.A.- the Armadillo Harvesters Association of
Alabama. The commercial outlines the membership dues and the free stuff
you get. Somewhere, possibly on the web site, there would be the book of
records and the categories for which records are kept. The categories
are: rifle, handgun, archery, automobile tire, truck tire and instead of
the "picked – up" category for trophy animals that were
found expired, we would have "I took it away from the
buzzards" category.
Finally
we get back to hunter and guide. They take the shot and the armadillo is
hit and runs for the woods. Chuck looks at the camera with deep concern
and whispers that now they have got to go in and find the bull. He lets
the viewer know that the only thing he fears more than a bull armadillo
is a wounded bull armadillo.
He
pulls out his .500 Nitro Express rifle and in they go. Our camera is
following close behind. As we near where the armadillo has gone to
ground, we hear a bellow, and the camera view is like watching an
earthquake as the cameraman runs to avoid the charging beast. We hear
two quick shots from the big rifle and it’s all over. The camera goes
back into the bush and we come upon the sweating Chuck Roast who looks
as though he’s been in a fight. In the dust we see the big bull lying
dead at his feet. It seems Chuck has narrowly missed being gored by an
enraged bull armadillo.)
Chuck
winks at the camera and says, ‘See ‘ya next week on Tales of the
Armadillo.’
(The
theme music swells, some country singer singing about how great it is to
hunt armadillos and the show is done.)
So
what do you think, can you see it? I like the idea and there would be
plenty of front and backyards to pursue the beasts on camera and the
homeowners would probably let us hunt them for free. Why, down here in
South Alabama, we could fill up one museum type hall with specimens from
the "I took it away from the buzzards" category alone.
Ralph
Ricks is the manager of Quality Cooperative, Inc. in Greenville. |
