Some people do business over lingering martinis, in the boardroom or on the green. And then there are those like Harv Hollek, who broker deals in the presence of a huge stuffed sheep.
Perched on a pedestal in Hollek's home office, the creature is just one of the many work souvenirs that clutter his Sarasota house. Living room picture windows open up to a pool and workout area, watched over by a smiling marble Buddha. Dancing figurines from Vietnam adorn well-polished wooden furniture; curved knives and foreign riding crops decorate the walls.
Hollek, 75, is a high-end travel agent. Using his computer and international know-how, he helps well-heeled clients see exotic locales around the world — through the scope of a rifle.
Marco Polo sheep, ibexes, desert fox: Hollek guides well-heeled hunters to exotic creatures with long, twisted horns and delicate coats. The more far-flung the species and the region, the bigger the thrill.
"Some people drink, some people screw," Hollek says. "And some people go on international hunts."
In 1989, Hollek was an aimless 58-year-old living on a Chris-Craft boat in Seattle. Then he followed a classified ad to the offices of Professional Adventures Klineburger Worldwide Travel. The agency had cornered the market on Africa and Asia in the '80s, showing the hunting world Tanzanian buffalo and Zimbabwean leopards, and transforming historically isolated places into bona fide hotspots.
This was all new to Hollek at the time. Still, he took a job in sales and marketing. On his fourth day at the job, he met the hunting company's debonair CEO.
"So the first thing he asks me is, 'Do you drink?'"
Over a bottle of whiskey, at 10 in the morning, Hollek knew he'd found his place.
Soon, Hollek was one of the company's top agents and making upwards of 35 grand a year. The territory he dealt with spanned the globe: east of Moscow, down through the Caucuses, Argentina.
In 2001, Hollek decided to relocate to Sarasota and go independent.
His business card bears the inscription "Quinn Rafferty & Co." The moniker was inspired by a protagonist featured in his first published book, a safari guide whose "incurable wanderlust," fantasy physique and sexual conquests sound familiar.
"Quinn is a man 45 years old, 5 feet 9 inches tall, and about 185 pounds of mostly muscles. He would attribute his body to the fact that he had been going to the gym or health club since he was a young man of 15. …"
Though he hesitates to call himself a "hunter" and would never dream of stealing good game from his clients, Hollek often joins his groups on location to help with logistics, provide friendly travel advice and, sometimes, shoot.
A native Russian speaker — he's a first-generation American of Ukranian descent — Hollek's focused his business on the far reaches of Eastern Europe: Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. But he's also led teams through Vietnam — which is unusual given Southeast Asia's strict hunting laws — and introduced game seekers to off-the-rails regions of Mongolia.
This year, Hollek is considering Pakistan, where he and his team can chase Blanford Urial (a type of wild sheep) across the desert for four days with 7 mm Magnum rifles.
Hollek conducts one or two tours annually, each lasting about 15 days and focused on one or two particular species. Nights are spent drinking, shooting pool or sometimes dancing. "Most of my guys bring their wives with them," Hollek says with a wink. "Real romantic stuff."
At bank-busting prices — taking home a Marco Polo sheep can cost upwards of $20,000 — most clients can only afford one trip a year.
Hollek is reticent when it comes to talking about his clients. But he'll eagerly dust off photo albums — he's snapped 25,000 pictures abroad — and point out the scenery or the animals. "Get a load of that landscape," he says, indicating the arid mountains of Kyrgyzstan's Naryn region. In the forefront, a client, cosseted in Gortex and fleece, huddles before an Argali sheep.
Ask Hollek about his local friends, and he'll demure: "They're all good people, but most of them don't know much about my safaris. I'm not sure they'd understand."
In fact, Hollek tends to stay mum about his work with most people. "It's always the same thing," he says, rolling his eyes. "'Oh, those poor, poor animals!'"
What many don't realize, he maintains, is that game hunting has its roots in subsistence and that the sport functions "more as a historical tribute to survival than as some sort of malicious poaching game."
Fear of what others may think is fairly widespread among the international hunting community. "I've got about 20 or 30 animal heads hidden in the back of my house," says veteran hunter John Ventimeglia, "but you'd better believe I wouldn't have that stuff in my front lobby."
Over the past 15 years, Ventimeglia has led the Tampa Bay chapter of Safari Club International (SCI), an advocacy group and social network dedicated to protecting the rights of international hunters. With branches all over the country and members ranging from first-timers to old hands, the group counts a few senators and congressmen among its members.
"Most people living in an urban society have nothing to do with killing anything, so they judge," the Ventimeglia says, "and then they'll go to McDonald's and eat something that got its head chopped off or sledgehammered!"
International hunting may not be anathema to preservationists, either. In recent years, SCI has worked alongside foreign government agencies to establish game control programs, many of which are used to curb poaching in parts of Africa and India.
In Tanzania, says Ventimeglia, farmers defending their livestock often kill lions indiscriminately — a practice that has decimated the species — whereas licensed international hunters will honor the "sustainable number of animals" policy. "It costs about $50,000 to shoot a lion in Mozambique," he says. "Our prices alone are pretty preservationist."
In the past, SCI's greatest foes have been wildlife groups like Sierra Club and the World Wildlife Fund. But such opposition has softened lately. "There are certainly differences of opinion," says Sierra Club wilderness activist Bart Semcer, "but none of this gets in the way of our working together on other things."
Foreign sport hunters bring U.S. standards and other mores abroad, Semcer says, adding that SCI's tours have given struggling countries an economic incentive to keep wildlife on the ground, "and not just remove them as a 'nuisance species.'"
With such newfound support, one would expect the international hunting community to relax a bit. But status-related tensions within it still run high.
"Harv who?" asks Ventimeglia when the hunting broker's name comes up. He pauses to recall the 50 in attendance at his last meeting at the dog track.
Ever been to Kyrgyzstan?
"No, I sure as hell don't have the money to shoot them big rams," Ventimeglia says.
The owner of a modest dry cleaning business, Ventimeglia usually settles for Manitoba, Canada — it's $4000 for a black bear — over the pricier regions in the Far East. His friends at SCI may save for that big trip to Africa, he says, but even then, it won't be the five-star affair that Hollek's high-profile clients have come to expect.
"Am I surprised they haven't heard of me in Tampa Bay?" says Hollek, gazing out over his backyard pool and vintage Buddha sculpture. "Not at all. Some of us are just provincial."
This article appears in Oct 4-10, 2006.