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T H E O F F I CIA L PU B LIC ATION OF HO US T ON S AFARI CLUB F OUND AT I ON • S UMMER 2022
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The late Houston Safari Club President Tony Houseman conducted an early "green hunt" for white rhinos. He said that when this picture was taken the animal had been given the antidote and the animal jumped up far quicker than they expected.
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TONY HOUSEMAN AND THE POWER OF OUTDOORS MENTORSHIP
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PHOTO COURTESY GISELA HOUSEMAN
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BY CHESTER MOORE, JR.
hester Moore. This is Tony Houseman. Can you be at my office in an hour? I need to speak with you.” “Yes sir. I will be there,” I replied. “Good. See you then,” he said. That was the shortest phone call I had ever taken and one of the most important. At age 20, I had never met Tony Houseman, but I knew who he was. Signs with his name were all over the place in my hometown of Orange, TX, as he and his wife Gisela owned a well-known development company there. More importantly, I knew from reading a newspaper article, he was a hunter, and conservationist and had been president of the Houston Safari Club. When I walked into his office, I was impressed with the kudu, elk, and other mounts on the walls. But I was even more impressed with the man. “Chester, I’ve been reading your articles in the newspaper and I like what you do. You’ve got talent. And that’s why I want you to write about the record red stag I took in New Zealand,” he said. At this point, he slid over a photo of a monster red stag that at that time was the pending SCI world record taken with a muzzleloader.
“Have you written for any magazines yet?” he asked. “Only a local business journal,” I said. “You’re going to write this one for Hunter’s Horn and it will be in the next issue,” he said. I sat there blown away at the opportunity. Getting published in a prestigious publication was great, but Tony’s generosity touched me at a different level. At the time I was literally just starting my career and here was this great man extending a helping hand and giving me an opportunity. It’s something I will never forget. This was my first brush with mentorship. Over the years I would write about various aspects of Tony’s hunting, conservation work, and philanthropy and would always glean some wisdom from our interactions. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this was planting seeds for my future role as a mentor to many young people.
A HIGHER CALLING
In 2012, my wife Lisa and I founded Kingdom Zoo Wildlife Center, a ministry centered on giving wildlife encounters to hurting children. We work with kids in the foster system along with kids with critical illness, parental loss, and who have suffered various kinds of abuse and neglect. Three years ago we birthed an offshoot called Higher SUMMER 2022 HUNTER’S HORN™ 79
Above: Reannah Hollaway got to take part in a desert bighorn capture at Elephant Mountain Wlidlife Management Area courtesy of Texas Parks & Wildlife with Chester Moore and his wife Lisa. Reannah is now a senior pursuing wildlife management at Texas Tech. Right: Nathan Childress got to dart an ibex that had escaped its breeding pasture and help move it back. He said the experience of getting to do this and learn more about how game management works inspire him to be pursue a career as a game warden.
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and believes more young people should get involved with wildlife conservation, hunting, and fishing. “It’s a good, wholesome thing to be a part of,” she said.
CARRYING ON THE TRADITION
To honor Tony Houseman and to inspire young people involved in wildlife, we created the Tony Houseman Conservation Legacy Award. In 2020, the first recipient was Reannah Hollaway. After going through our program, she began her journey to work in wildlife biology at Texas Tech. At the time of this writing, she is now a senior there and has done projects with owls in New Mexico and the endangered Attwater’s prairie chicken in Texas. Her first inspiration for conservation was us granting her wish to meet a sea turtle when she was a senior in high school. We followed that with an expedition to take part in a desert bighorn capture at Elephant Mountain Wildlife Management Area courtesy of Texas Parks and Wildlife. Emily Odom was the 2021 recipient. Emily was the fifth child
PHOTOS: CHESTER MOORE
Calling Wildlife that mentors teens facing special challenges to become wildlife conservationists using social and traditional media. We have taken two boys’ expeditions to the Nueces River to fish for Guadalupe bass, including a 2021 trip funded by a Houston Safari Club Foundation grant. One of the most exciting projects was taking teens Emily Odom and Dustin Wolfe on an Eastern turkey release courtesy of Texas Parks & Wildlife and the National Wild Turkey Federation. “Knowing the birds in the boxes we were carrying had been brought into Texas from Maine and we literally got to release them into the wild was amazing. That one event taught me so much about conservation,” Emily said. Olivia Hogan got to do a shark cage dive in the Texas State Aquarium last summer through the program. “It was a little scary but I have so much more of an appreciation for sharks now. There’s something about getting close to wildlife that makes you really appreciate it,” she said. Olivia loves to hunt with her father Lewis and brother Dalton
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to go through our program and got inspired to get involved in conservation after taking part in the wild turkey release described earlier. “Emily has really stuck with us and she is quite the artist too. She has been using her artwork to help us on a conservation project involving wildlife in Israel. She has now stepped up to do some work on tarpon for a new conservation awareness project that debuted through the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation’s magazine,” said Lisa Moore, the program’s co-founder. “A few weeks after the turkey release she sent us a beautiful watercolor of a gobbler and we knew we were onto something. Since then, she has been steadily involved in doing wildlife art to raise awareness of conservation.” Emily said it is an honor to win this award and to help people understand issues facing wildlife around the world through art. “I wish I could have met Tony Houseman. It’s people like him that help make the world a better place for wildlife,” Odom said.
COMING FULL CIRCLE
Fourteen-year-old Nathan Childress was nervous. I had been involved in mentoring him since he was eleven and this was the moment we had prepared for. The huge ibex billy he was hunting had eluded him all afternoon, but now it seemed as if he might have an opportunity for a clean shot. The big, beautiful goat was positioned behind a tree, which made a shoulder shot impossible, but the ibex had his head down and was eating. Perhaps he would continue feeding and move out just a few feet, and that’s exactly what happened. With only a few yards of the opening between the tree and a cedar thicket, fourteen-year-old Nathan raised the rifle, placed the crosshair behind the shoulder, and squeezed the trigger. “You missed,” said outfitter Thompson Temple, who was watching with binoculars. “Oh man, I thought I had him,” Nathan replied. “I’m just messing with you. It was a perfect hit. Job well done
Chester Moore took Nathan Childress on a Rio Grande turkey release courtesy of Spring Creek Outdoors and the Rafter K Ranch.
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PHOTOS: CHESTER MOORE
young man,” Temple said. Nathan breathed a sigh of relief, and we all had a good laugh. Now it was time to wait a few minutes for the ibex to go down, but there would be no blood trail to follow. Nathan shot it with a special dart that injects a tranquilizer. Temple needed to inoculate it from disease and move it to another pasture. There, it could mate with a herd of female ibex as part of his ongoing breeding management program. Ten minutes later, we found the ibex. After administering some inoculations, Nathan posed for photos with the animal he had very legitimately hunted. Then we moved it to another pasture. Temple injected it with the antidote, and the billy shot straight up and started walking. He would not have passed any sobriety test with his wobbly strut, but it didn’t take long for him to find his bearings. Soon he was off with the nannies that were calling out in the distance. Emily Odom and Dustin Wolfe got to take part in an Eastern turkey release in Titus County, TX “That’s a little different story than courtesy of the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department and the National Wild Turkey Federation. This the first dart hunt I ever heard of back was one of the first Higher Calling Wildlife expeditions author Chester Moore put together. in the early 2000s,” I said. “My first outdoor mentor, the late Tony Houseman shot a white rhino as part of a ‘green hunt’ on a remote tract in Southern Africa. They and can do as much for you as it does for them. Don’t just limit dart rhinos and take DNA samples, collect tissue and sometimes this to kids in your family but think about reaching out to kids in collar them to track their movements. He went on one of the early your community. green hunts and now you are doing something similar.” I have met kids in Texas who have never seen a deer or a racNathan smiled and said something very profound for such a coon or a wild hog. They have never caught a fish or been in a boat. young boy. A few years ago, we held a sleepover for boys at our church and did it with a campout theme. We had a grill set up and roasted weenies “When you get to experience something like this, it makes you and marshmallows. Numerous kids as old as 12 had never done that. want to do the right thing for wildlife. It makes you want to get Think about that for a second. There are children in our area that involved with conservation,” he said. have never done anything related to camping, much less hunting, Nathan said his dream is to become a game warden. and fishing. A decade from now, the kid you buy an iPad for won’t The last story I did on Tony was about his rhino green hunt and remember that, but he or she will remember the day they caught I can’t help but think he would have loved to have been there for Nathan’s experience to cheer him on and tell some of his trademark their first redfish or shot their first hog. safari hunting stories. You can do very simple things to help keep kids inspired. Send them messages periodically about your trips to the great MENTORING MATTERS outdoors. Share cool videos and photos about their favorite animals At no point in history has mentorship mattered more than in and use your social media to salute them when they do participate in an outdoor event. Get them a membership to the Houston Safari the world of hunting, fishing, and conservation. Club Foundation, where they can read Hunter’s Horn and get Bush Our tech-savvy culture gives kids thousands of alternatives to Telegraph updates. outdoor activities and without guidance, many will never have the Mentorship doesn’t have to be vast amounts of time. It just needs opportunity or the inspiration to take up the cause we believe in. to be sincere and intentional. The kids in our lives despite how much they might beg for the Kids love to feel as if they are a part of something; and truthlatest electronic technology really crave time with us. A commitment to spend time and mentor them in the great outdoors could fully, they have much to offer. Kids’ hearts are much purer than ours so when you get them involved you get all of them involved. And be the definitive event in their young life where you can speak life, that’s something we could use in the world of hunting, fishing, and blessings, and strength to them. wildlife conservation. ★ Maybe you are a master duck caller or have a deep knowledge of whitetail behavior. Perhaps you can work a topwater plug better You can learn more about Chester Moore’s outdoors mentoring projects than most or have a real knack for finding redfish in the marsh. Passing on this knowledge to youngsters is deeply rewarding at highercalling.net. SUMMER 2022 HUNTER’S HORN™ 83
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