Hunter sparks fury

30 June 2005, 18:38

Jagter

quote:
Wounded jumbo sparks fury -
Landowners of nature reserves adjoining the Kruger National Park are furious after an American big-game hunter wounded an elephant, which probably crossed over from a herd in the national park, but killed it only 24 hours later.

The wounded elephant was shot dead at Klipheuwel, one of the farms in Balule Nature Reserve.

Wounded animal fled

The elephant, which was part of a herd of about 70 animals, was shot last Thursday about 16:00 at a waterhole in the nature reserve.

The American, who was accompanied by a professional South African hunter, wounded the elephant, but did not bother to follow it and the elephant fled.

The next day, Friday, the American hunter apparently hired a helicopter to look for the elephant. The animal was traced on Friday about 15:30 and shot dead.

What are the duties of a PH?
Has he got the authority to insist that his client does a follow-up on any wounded animal?
If so, is there any registration authority for PH's who can take action against them in case of neglect of duties?

Further investigation would be necessay to find out whether it was the PH or client who faltered in this specific case.

30 June 2005, 19:25

Bryan W

I would like to hear from someone with first hand experience in this case before passing judgement. The article is clearly anti-hunting biased, and I suspect some (most) of the facts have been exagerated.

30 June 2005, 19:47

Lhook7

To me the article appears to put a lot more stock into the ecotourism than the hunting tourism. I wonder how the two compare in dollars to the local economy.

30 June 2005, 19:49

shakari

The PH is bound by the game to follow the wounded animal as far as possible and try as hard as possible to put the wounded animal out of it's misery - however, he's not allowed to cross onto land owned by a 3rd party without permission which is probably why the hunt was abandoned. My guess is they then went to the neighbour for permission to continue the pursuit - which is probably why they hired the chopper (to locate the wounded Elephant).

Thr people who can discipline PH's are the relevant parks board and in some cases PHASA - but in this case I would guess the PH behaved perfectly correctly........but as Bryan says the article seems to be couched in anti-hunting terms.

30 June 2005, 19:50

Rysmier

It was never metioned in the Afrikaans newspaper "Die Volksblad" (todays edition) which also gave me the idea it was hear-say stories.

There was recently al lot of controversy about hunting in the Kruger Ntnl Park area. I am not totally up to date, just see bits and pieces in the papers. But I got the suspicion somebody tried to keep the "topic" in the media with this story.

Those afrikaans speaking people here, there recently was just such a big story (read: letters of complaint) in "Die Volksblad" about a foto of the winner of a McNab competition with his buck.

I would not be surprised if Gun Free SA is the drivingfoce behind a lot of this stories.

Anybody got another theory?

RM