All:

I was reading one of my African books last night and this question came to me.

In those areas that have quotas, if you wound an animal and do not recover it, does this animal count against the quota for that area?

Thanks for the answer!

In Zimbabwe, Yes. weather communnal (tribal) land or government. One drop of blood is is an animal deeemed killed or fataly injured. It counts against quota and must be paid for.

For aquatic animals shot in the water- or on the bank within 10 m of the water - ie hippo and croc, a shot fired at an animal is deemed a hit and an animal taken off quota.

Of course, on private land, I know of no land owner that would not charge for a wounded animal and count it against his management plan for his ranch - unless he has subsiquent confirmation that the animal survived.

Classic example- Roy Vincent ( Saeeds old PH) had a client shoot a distinctive elephant in Chete. It had an unusual foot imprint wand crossed over tusks. He was also by far the biggest tusked elephant in Chete. Anyway, client fired a frontal shot, Roy backed him with two rounds and that was the last they saw of the elephant- for a couple of weeks.By then the client had left, Roy had paid parks for the elephant and that was that- except that six months later - same year- another client shot that old bull. Roy's argument to parks was that he had already paid for that particular animal once that year, so it should count/should have to be paid for twice. I flew in and we dissected that elephant, recovering the clients bullet and one of Roy's. Definately same bull. Book of rules says any animal not recovered within 14 days is deemed a new animal. Just pay

My sympathy for the first client. He, and his PH both, make a FU on a frontal shot taht resulted in a lost wounded elephant. Had to pay for no elephant recovered.

Lucky second clienbt who actually got "...the biggest tusked elephant in Chete."Lucky Parks Board for being paid twice for the same elephant!

In good hunting.

Andrew McLaren.

What it taught me was- punching holes through elephants lungs does not kill elephants.

When looking for the bullets we traced the track of two of them through the lungs - Roy's one back up shot had gone through both- but no major blood vesseles had been hit

Since then I have dissecrted elephant with many AK bullets in their lungs- 29 exteriour uncers marked the hits on one bull a client of mine took. I wondered what the ulcers were caused buy - and started finding bullets. That old bull might have sucumbed to infection from so many hits, but i belive a younger animal would have probably recovered.

Ganyana,

So what you're saying then is that after 14 days the animal becomes a "new" animal then regardless of it being wounded or not. I wondered because I was reading 'Big Game Hunting in North-Eastern Rhodesia' by Owen Letcher and it seemed like he lost more roan to misplaced shots than he actually recovered, which brought about my question. It seemed like every corner he went around he was shooting at a roan. Where did they all go?

What about if you come across let's say a cape buffalo cow with a broken leg for some reason and you decide to take the animal out of her missory. Will this animal too be considered part of the quota? Or would this be one of those times where you don't say anything and I won't either and as far as I'm concerned I never saw that buffalo?

I've taken one whitetail (6 point) about 10 years ago that had most of it's front leg blown off from a black powder rifle, which is about 3 weeks prior to the regular rifle season. The leg was completely blown apart at the knee joint with the exception of about 3 tiny slivers of skin that kept the bottom portion of the front leg from falling off at the knee joint. After examing the deer, it had some kind of puss oozing from the wound and who knows what else growing in the wound. In Oklahoma where I shot this deer, you are only allowed 1 antlered deer per rifle season and I didn't check the animal in at the check station. I left it where it laid horns and all. Technically, since I made the killing shot I should have checked the deer; therefore, filling my tag. However, I thought it was my duty to provide some type of humane ending to the animal's suffering. On a side note, I never got my buck that year.

No mercy killing in Zim Gov't concessions. We ran across one old scrum cap bull that had been really clawed up and chewed up by lions, probably the night before we found him. We found him lying in a spring. He wasn't going to make it long. Ph said the lions would probably get him that night. I asked about putting him down and..."No mercy killing..."

I have killed two whitetails in mercy killings. One shot with a bow where the arrow failed to penetrate the shoulder. Green and oozing and you could smell her from 15yds. Killed her with slug from my duck gun and left her in the marsh. The other was a young buck with both front legs broken. He was hobling on the stumps. Must have been shot a day or so earlier on a farm across the road where some young boys were prooving to be poor hunters - and from where the arrowed doe probably came from since our farm borders marsh along most of the rest of the boundry. I killed it and took it to a check in site and called a DNR game warden. After looking the deer over he gave me a non hunting tag so it didn't count against my liscense.

JPK

Most rules are there because of abuses in the past, Lets not forget there are some real slobs out there! Slob is - Someone who routinely misses 50 yd broadsides shots, is proud to have made a 50 yd gut shot or brags about making a 50 yd neck shot even though he was aiming behind the shoulder. Most of these guys don't give a crap about outfitters or tracker spending hours recovering lost or wounded animals, All they care about is do they have to pay and are you going to talk about them when they leave.!