Student shooting excursion: right on target

I spent the last part of this week at Polytechnic's "shooting excursion" for 3rd-year students in Nature Conservation. As with all excursions, students and lecturers camped in the veld, which is always fun. We were 70 km's west of Windhoek on a private farm that has a shooting range. Mr. Willie Adank is the instructor for Techniques III, and it was his class that was being 'marked' during the excursion.

The purpose of the excursion was to introduce students to firearms and shooting. Earlier in the semester, the students had been lectured and tested on theory of firearms (covering safety and all the parts of different firearms, etc.). Now, it was time to actually hold a .303 rifle, and for most students, this was the first time they held a gun. See my earlier blog "Can Namibians Hunt in Namibia?" to learn why most Namibians have never had a reason to hold a gun. Many of the Polytechnics' Nature Conservation students will be using firearms on the job, or just because they will be around people who are using firearms, so it's a very important part of their education.

Back home in the States, I participate as an instructor for the Conservation Leaders for Tomorrow (CLfT) program. The goal of CLfT is to introduce students to topics related to hunting, provide gun safety, and offer a chance to participate in a pheasant hunt after several hours of instruction/training on shotgun handling and shooting. Essentially, CLfT is a program where students and faculty think about hunting and wildlife management together. Because more and more of our wildlife students in the States come from urban areas, fewer and fewer current students have had experience with hunting or firearms. So, again--an essential program if wildlife professionals are to be safe and competent on the job.

Now, at the University of Nebraska, we do not teach 'shooting' in classes. One of our courses, Wildlife Damage Management (taught by soon-to-be-fellow safarier, Dr. Scott Hygnstrom), does take students to a shooting range for the afternoon. But, Polytechnic takes it to another level by requiring a week-long excursion. And, the students are graded on their marksmanship. On the last day, students shot at targets with the .303's from prone and standing positions--they "shot their marks". Five shots at the target. Bulls-eye is worth 10 points. Total possible 50 marks from 5 shots. They also shoot a series of 'falling plates' (metal armor plate) where they just have to hit a 35-cm square piece of metal to make it fall over--each one is worth 10 points. Hit it, you've got the points. Miss it, you've got 0 points. And the 'falling plates' are timed--15 seconds for 3 shots, starting with an empty chamber with the gun in your right hand resting by your foot. It's hard--I tried it. Two for three.

A couple other related notes. First, Mr. Adank (at right, giving a student some pointers on pistol handling as a fun exercise after the final test on rifles) is the only lecturer at Polytechnic that can teach the shooting, which is why he was fairly happy that I joined him for 3 days. Not only is there a shortage of shooting expertise in the students, but also in the faculty. They have arguments about how important shooting really is--is it worth giving up a week of other classes to teach them shooting. Our program in Nebraska is done over 3.5-day weekend, and faculty take leave to participate with faculty and professionals from Kansas. Students voluntarily sign up. We've talked about whether it should be a part of our curriculum at Nebraska--interesting that Polytechnic may be going the opposite direction.

Second, Namibia is currently going through a tightening of their gun ownership laws. The current (new) regulation is that a person can own only 4 guns. Polytechnic is presently caught up in a bit of a conflict about this, as the police consider Polytechnic to be the same as a private citizen, so Polytechnic can only own 4 guns. It is hard to run a gun-safety-training course with only 4 guns...!

Last, it's always interesting to compare how these types of things are funded. Our CLfT in the States has one main sponsor, and some smaller sponsors that work to Keep CLfT a free program for students. Polytechnic currently pays for their excursion (no sponsors), and students pay a bit of a fee. But, it's an expensive proposition--each of the 22 students probably shot up US$80 in ammunition (remember to triple that to 'feel' what it would cost for a Namibian). One way to reduce costs is to re-use targets. So, every time the shooting stopped, and the range was declared "SAFE", the Glue Brigade would come out--pasting little scraps of paper over the holes, so the next student could use the target. It worked well.

Perhaps not surprisingly, many of the Polytechnic students failed the exercise--based on their marks. It's not easy to shoot over 50% of the total marks possible. But, I'm guessing the benefits they receive from the experience will more than make up for the failing grade.

POSTSCRIPT: not directly related to the story, but I was pleasantly surprised to see a student wearing a pale green NEBRASKA t-shirt during the shooting. No idea whe

re he got it. Of course, this student was the best shot, so it made sense for him to be somehow affiliated with Nebraska!