The snake that bit

A park ranger kills some species of animals and tries to save others. One of my first postings as a young park ranger in central Australia was at the Alice Springs Telegraph Station Historical Reserve (Mparntwe on Arrernte Country). The soon to be retiring chief ranger had warned a local man that his labrador was not permitted to accompany him when he jogged through the reserve. One morning the chief ranger walked down to the edge of the Todd River (Lhere Mparntwe) and saw the man jogging on the far bank followed by the yellow dog. He went back to the ranger station, unlocked the armoury, removed a rifle, returned to the riverbank and shot the dog. Later, when this was discussed in the tea-room, the other rangers were in agreement that the chief ranger had every right to shoot the dog.

When I had been in the ranger service for six months or so, I was sent on a firearms training course run by the Northern Territory Police. On the last day of the course the police instructor brought out a dozen high-powered automatic rifles with telescopic sights. Rangers sometimes used these rifles to shoot feral horses from helicopters. I’d never shot with a scope before. We lay on our stomachs in a line of dugouts facing a set of human-shaped cardboard targets. I placed my left eye against the scope and squeezed the trigger. The butt of the gun belted back into my shoulder and the hard edge of the scope punched into my face, cutting the flesh around my eye. It was a pastry-cutter wound, deep and perfectly circular. The police instructor was impressed by how much it bled. He drove me to hospital where they stitched the wound and gave me a tetanus shot. That night when I couldn’t sleep because of the throbbing pain, it seemed fitting that in learning how to be a danger to animals I had been a danger to myself.