THE ISARD
NEVER CAUGHT ALIVE. How to catch an isard alive is an unsolved problem of hunters in the Pyrenees. The isard is a kind of chamois, only to be found in these mountains, living in herds on the highest peaks. Two years ago a famous German zoo offered ten thousand francs for a live isard, but none Iras ever been caught. All the Pyrenees guides who are isard hunters have tried and tried again to catch an isard. Traps of all kinds have been set, but to no avail. One guide managed to wound an isard, but it died shortly afterwards. Very few people can hunt the isard with success, for it is one of the most difficult animals to hunt. The hunter must be not only a first class climber, but an extremely good shot, for he cannot hope to get closer than five or six hundred feet and then only if a strong wind is blowing away from the animal. The isard is extremely agile and fast and can climb, or rather leap up, to inaccessible parts of the mountain. With every herd one isard stands on some high rock or summit mounting guard. The hunter has to approach with as little noise as possible, must keep well out of sight of the sentinel, iHe very rarely sees the herd and generally aims at the sentinel isard. The sentinel always stands dead still so that once the hunter is in position he can take careful aiming. The guides of the Pyrenees use telescope sights to their rifles. They can only have one shot, for instantly the herd disappears. They rarely miss, but they do not always get the isard, for the body often falls in some inaccessible hole or ravine. One shot, and the day’s hunting is over, for all • the isards within sound of the shot disappear for the rest of the day.
Some guides carry a stuffed isard to a lonely peak, setting it up ns a decoy and then taking cover. Very often they will wait a whole day for nothing, and it is quite normal for an isard hunter to be gone two and three days at a time.
Isard is good to eat and has the dainty taste of venison, and forms one more of the delicacies for which the south west of France is famous.
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Bibliographic details
Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 306, 25 November 1937, Page 9
Word Count
394THE ISARD Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 306, 25 November 1937, Page 9
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