quote:

Originally posted by 7MMNut:
This was posted on AfricaHunting originally. I asked for permission from the poster to put it here on AR as I thought it a worthwhile read. It is raw and perhaps a bit of a rant. However sometimes I think these unrehearsed, unscripted, brutally honest expressions of frustration communicate better than more carefully planned and edited writings. The post comes from an outfitter in Zambia and was in response to previous posts in the thread. I have added some spaces in between 'paragraphs' to make it a bit easier to read, but other than that these are the original posters words.


i have been there and done that which plenty of members on AH and presumably others ..lurkers , readers whatever you want to call the people who come on here, who love being in african countries wish/want to do... .....meaning i am lucky /fortunate enough to be able to spend time in "africa" and be/been involved in game ranches/reserves whatever you wish to call them.

this involves acquiring the land, spending lots of money fencing, restocking different species that were originally there (but had been poached out) equipment , infrastructure, internal tracks , dams.......etc, etc,etc......buy the few animals that are still originally surviving there from the game dept.then sit there waiting for them to breed and bring the numbers up while trying to combat the poaching ...oh did i forget you still need to keep throwing money in!!!

now the staff are involved in the poaching as the novelty of actually having a job in an area where there are fk all jobs, and earning a wage has worn off and the usual greed has set in.... because the mzungu has an unlimited supply of everything!! ( dont anybody dare call me racist with this comment as it is not ...it is the truth in how the people see things) so after losing many usd in animals from poaching over the years you are hopefully slowly building the numbers up...oh did i forget to say throwing money in there still!!

you get to where you can start trying to sell a few hunts. now breaking into the market is hard , as you are new and we have to charge more due to costs being high compared to say SA. you are also trying to combat poaching which is escalating all the time, with a middle class emerging and workers especially in the mines who are earning good money for the country who prefer to eat bushmeat to other types if they can...and the staff including your game scouts are happy to be paid to look the other way , or are involved themselves........

then we get some fkn lion that gets shot and causes a storm whipped up by the antis on social media....then yet again the lion hunting in SA is well under the international spotlight due to plenty of fkn idiots in the "business" and fkn idiots who are "clients" putting their ridiculous videos on facebook or youtube...etc, etc, etc!!!!!!!!!!!!!! oh forgot to say throw more money into it.......so we have hunting portrayed as the worst thing for the short term..... long term....or any term outlook of wildlife in africa, due to the very clever manipulation of the social fkn media by the the antis, so changing the outlook on the subject of thousands of people who didnt have a fast opinion either way prior..................so the airlines wont transport trophies...the shipping lines wont transport trophies....the usfws wont allow ele trophies in from zim and tanz and moz . ........usfws decide lion trophies cant be imported from certain countries, or you jump through hoops and bend over and maybe you can get them in....the eu follows suite...but certain eu countries decide to go it themselves and ban any lion trophy imports anyway.......

now you might have noticed i am a bit pissed off........as we have rehabilitated an area that was poached out, as have other people with their conservancies or game ranch/reserves etc, and we are now the bad people because we need the money from hunters to make money to cover the costs and for most to make a living .........out side our fence they are cutting the trees to make farms... great would these antis prefer all the trees on ours to be chopped or ringed and burnt to clear it, and to poach every single animal for meat and turn it into not very productive farm land with no animals or fk all trees?

if so i can give my bank acc details to their lawyers and they can do what the fk they want with it after i have been paid!! so someone has to decide what is going to be the future of lion hunting in sa, as unfortunately the way its taking place now isnt working or helping hunting anywhere in africa due to the way it means the antis can use it to emotionally play on the non hunters in the whole rest of the world, and in using this subject they are turning a frightening amount of those people into fervent anti hunters...........................

so yup the lions and elephants are the "ICONIC" species these antis use because they are AFRICA to joe public, who also hasnt a clue and never will be told that there are plenty of insects, plants, trees , etc, etc,and small animals that they never will hear about ...and unfortunately dont give a fk about that are about to become extinct!! so yup i know there are plenty of people on here who will disagree with me big time, but somebody has to get their act together and sort this "BIG PROBLEM" out or i see it getting a lot worse very quickly.....................as i said depressing.... i love being in the bush and i get fkd off at the idea something is probably endangering that and the future of wild african places i love................

quote:

Originally posted by fairgame:
Sounds like me but it is not.

quote:

Originally posted by Russ Gould:
I looked at his website, he is not hunting lion or elephant, so I am a bit puzzled as to why he feels the world is against him. Maybe the prior postings on AH would give some context. Looks like he has some good Sable hunting which is, I would argue, a big drawcard now that Sable are hard to find in Zim.

Russ well said.
Zambia stands to be a major beneficiary of the shutdown in Botswana and of course the ongoing slow motion crash in Zimbabwe. So I see some cause for optimism there.

Having said that of course it's frustrating that the hunting community has been made out to be some kind of pariah when in fact it's hunting that has saved wildlife in Africa outside the reserves.

The conduct of some in the hunting industry (and some governments in Africa) is of course partly to blame for the turn in attitudes .. the wound is to some degree self-inflicted. So let's work on what we can and ignore what we cannot control.

quote:

Originally posted by spike.t:

quote:

Originally posted by fairgame:
Sounds like me but it is not.

hi andrew it was me cheers mike

quote:

Originally posted by Russ Gould:
Maybe the prior postings on AH would give some context.

quote:

Originally posted by KMG Hunting Safaris:
Welcome to the Wild West Mike!