Howdy all

New fellow here, with plans to scratch a long standing itch to hunt Africa.

Just curious - lots of postings about buffalo, elephant, lion, leopard, etc. etc., but little about rhinos. I understand they are an 'endangered species' (according to what definition???), but there are lots of pics on various sites of guys with their trophies...???...

Does anyone have thoughts or opinions - are rhinos huntable? Endangered? Depends??..

Sounds like a grand trophy to pursue, but is it 'right'?...

thx...

The white rhino is not endangered and is still hunted today. Different story with the black rhino. I personally would not hunt white rhino because shooting one would be similar to shooting Bossy the cow in the south 40. The ones I have seen are just too docile. Not much of a sporting hunt, IMHO. The rhino should be taken from the Big 5 list and replaced with the hippo.

I've shot all of the Big Five, plus hippo and croc, and that includes rhino. Rhino are not like shooting Bossy the cow in the south 40. Aside from that, if you are planning on shooting rhino now, be prepared for sticker shock. I understand that a white rhino hunt in South Africa is now going for around 90K on a rhino with a fairly good horn.

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shooting one would be similar to shooting Bossy the cow in the south 40.

I feel this sentiment has become blown out of proportion. While many white rhino hunts are for specifc specimens, two posts here on AR in the last few months told of clients describing their white rhino hunts as very challenging. I recall one post telling of a Spanish client in Zululand saying that his rhino hunt was comparable in chalenge to forest elephant.

I have been involved in the darting of two rhinos and the one gave us the run around for sure, required some dilligent tracking and careful approach...

Don't forget many animals in non-pressured populations can seem docile, this includes game like elephant, cats, bighorn sheep, elk etc..

Do not underestimate a darted rhino hunt. I did this this year to finish up my Big Five, and, although it is different, it is as exciting as hunting elephant or buffalo. You hunt them in really thick stuff and you must get half again as close as elephant. There are several outfitters offering these "green" hunts, so I'd do a web-search. I hunted with Wiets Safaris and I would not recommend them because of issues that relate to treatment of clients, not hunting conditions. Please see report of hunt in Hunt Reports. Kudude

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Originally posted by kayaker:

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shooting one would be similar to shooting Bossy the cow in the south 40.

I feel this sentiment has become blown out of proportion. While many white rhino hunts are for specifc specimens, two posts here on AR in the last few months told of clients describing their white rhino hunts as very challenging. I recall one post telling of a Spanish client in Zululand saying that his rhino hunt was comparable in chalenge to forest elephant.

I have been involved in the darting of two rhinos and the one gave us the run around for sure, required some dilligent tracking and careful approach...

Don't forget many animals in non-pressured populations can seem docile, this includes game like elephant, cats, bighorn sheep, elk etc..

I am only stating my personal observations from seeing "wild" rhinos in SA. Ted Nugent shot one in 95 that was actually PAINTED with a white stripe on it's ass to make it easier to identify as the taget animal. BTW, the Bossy comment is a direct quote from Peter Capstick, who many around here hold up as almost God like. He went on to say a white rhino is about as dangerous as a defanged Yorkshire terrier. I think I'll pass on hunting white rhino.

I have been very close to both white and black rhino. Veryclose.

For some reason I have no desire to shoot one.

Nothing against anyone who wants to, it is just that I do not.

I have shot a few cape buff, not really all that big on them either, but would shoot others if I "bumped into them".

I have shot a lion, would shoot another if "encountered while walking around".

I would however like to shoot a couple of hundred elephants.

We all have our "Holy Grail".

Any animal the size of a rhino has to be dangerous to an extent - if you get into it's fight zone, or if it's wounded and you're on it's tail, there's no doubt it will can stuff you up big time......... Are they as dangerous as the other DG? - I'd say not usually. After all, in the old days the Zulu kids used to play a game where one would sneak up to a sleeping rhino and put a stone on it's ass, and the next kid had to go bring it back....... but as I said, under the right, or perhaps wrong circumstances, they can be very dangerous. FWIW, I personally think that darting them is a lot more fun and more of a challenge than it is to shoot them.

Also FWIW, Neither black or white rhino are anywhere near being endangered. - Both black and white rhino can now be hunted and the reason they can be hunted is that parks boards/game depts have carefully researched and bred them and when the time is right, they've allowed males past breeding age to be hunted, and then used a large part of the money recovered from those hunts to finance further research and breeding programmes. If it hadn't been for hunters and the PBs etc, we wouldn't have any rhino left, black or white.

The reason why the rhino was added to the big five list is because of the black rhino. Reading books on African hunting in the old days you will get a lot of descriptions whereby the hunters had to dive out of a steamrolling rhinos way. With the huff's and puff's they make. Then black rhino is mostly encountered in very thick and dense bush and it usually happens that you either hear him running away or running towards you not as an intented charge but to get away from you.

And having a 1 1/2 ton beast bearing upon you sure will get your adrenaline going especially now that you cannot shoot them unless you are one of the lucky ones to get a permit and are sure that it's the correct rhino to be taken.

Depending on terrain white rhino could be very challeging if you wnat to make it a challenge come and hunt one in February when it's hot and the bush is very green and dense so you will have to get close.

I darted a White Rhino this past year at Howard Knott's Greater Kuduland Safaris in the Limpopo. It completed my Big Seven and was a lot more enjoyable than I expected. It was quite exciting getting that close (15 yards) in thick bush with those big monsters. I would encourage others to do it.
According to Howard, the reason traditional rhino hunts have become so expensive is the influx of Asian hunters who book more than one rhino hunt a trip. One man allegedly booked ten rhino hunts on just one visit to RSA. Apparently they can still make money on taking the horn home legally and selling it for whatever wierd reasons they have!


You can borrow money, but you can't borrow time. Go now.

I did a green hunt in 2002 and had 7 stalks before being able to dart him. I could have shot and killed him on every stalk but to dart you must get up close and personal with him. I really enjoyed the hunt and it was totally a hunt - no kiling - so the trophy is your pictures and the fun of the stalk. Maybe I am stupid but this past spring after geting my Leopard in Zim we went stalking the Black Rino sans guns. We got within 20 yds of them a couple of times. My Rino was the first of the Big Five for me and very enjoyable, it was just as tough a hunt as the Buffalo (Omay) but maybe not as satisfying as the Leopard this past spring but that was my 4th Leopard hunt so it was very sweet to have sucess. I can only speak from my experience not PHC's. I am looking forward to hunting the rest of the Big 5 and Dangerous 7 as I am sure they will each have a special aspect to them. With all that said Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.

A lot of hunters who dart hunt rhino or elephant or hunt PAC elephant, now have fibre glass trophies/tusks made nowadays....... they're actually very realistic indeed and well worth the money.

Some people need the hunt to be a challenge in order to justify the killing in their mind, or perhaps to justify the cost. Some people do not care a bit about this and look at it more from a collection stand point. I have no problem with either point of view. Rhino (black & white)are fantastic animals and I think it is great that the opportunity exists for them to be hunted whatever the motivation may be.

That being said, I think you would have to hunt a lot more than one of anything in order to judge if it is dangerous or not. There are too many variables.

Kayaker,

Your exactly right. My client Enrique is an exceptionally experienced DG hunter and he was the one that compared the white rhino hunt to hunting forest elephant in Cameroon. We were hunting the Mkuze reserve and the cover can be very thick and the terrain challenging. This is were Ross Perot's grandson got the rhino horn up the butt. Dangerous??

Enrique's rhino



How could anyone think that being within 20 yards of this guy in the bush would not be exciting???

Guys, we need to face facts on this subject. Rhino are simply not dangerous game any more, and by most objective measures they are barely game.

Even in days past, the main reason rhino were considered dangerous to hunt was because of their sheer numbers and penchant for charging when surprised.

Black rhino would as soon charge when surprised as they would flee. And when they were thick as flies in the brush, one could easily surprise one or even several. Under those circumstances, a charge was a not infrequent occurrence.

Still, even in the old days, experienced hunters nearly always ranked the rhino as the least dangerous of the Big Five. A rhino is, by most accounts, easy to kill and its charge can be readily turned by a heavy bullet that does not strike its brain or spine.

It would be more accurate to say that, were it not for the black rhino's numbers and its penchant for charging blindly at anything and everything, the old-timers would have ranked it closer to non-dangerous game than to the other members of the Big Five.

And these days, the rhino that can be hunted are few in number, captive raised and behind fences. One is unlikely to encounter more than a few, and they are not generally found in the thickest brush - such as the bamboo forests in the Aberdares - as they were in the old days. This is not to say that they need not be stalked, but rather to say that they are not so difficult to stalk.

And here's the kicker. One can and generally does hunt one specific rhino. All of the resident bulls in any given fenced area are known, and the trophies are chosen and priced according to length of horn.

I have killed all of the Big Four plus hippo on land, but for the reasons noted above I will not hunt rhino.

Note that I am speaking here as a hunter and not as a conservationist. As a conservationist, I think it's wonderful that both the black and white rhino have been brought back from the brink of extinction by game ranching.

And if hunting them on ranches can add value and increase their numbers, I will not object if anyone wants to do it. But I won't do it because it doesn't meet my standards of what hunting, and dangerous game hunting in particular, ought to be.

If their numbers increase, and poaching can be curtailed, to the point that black rhino can truly be reintroduced into the wild for free range, fair chase hunting, then, but only then, would I consider hunting them. But if that day comes in my life time, I will be surprised. Happy, but surprised.

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Kayaker,

Your exactly right. My client Enrique is an exceptionally experienced DG hunter and he was the one that compared the white rhino hunt to hunting forest elephant in Cameroon. We were hunting the Mkuze reserve and the cover can be very thick and the terrain challenging. This is were Ross Perot's grandson got the rhino horn up the butt. Dangerous??

Ah ha...Yes Mkuze is a GREAT plcae. My mate did soem black rhino monitoring there, I walked with him a few times. Black rhino researchers need to be expert tree climbers as well as you spend half your day in one!

His name eludes me now, but at the time their head ecologist had been really beaten by a rhino some years before. The docs felt that had he not been a very fit/healthy Iron Man athlete that he was, he would have died.

I agree that white rhinos don't have the same defensive dispostion as other species but they are 2 tons and worthy of respect!

Mike,

As I was writing about Enrique's hunt I just knew you would jump in. You know for me the only reason I'm not hunting a white rhino is the cost. Of course I would want to hunt one on Mkuze were they are self sustaining, not fed and you don't know the score before the hunt.

I don't see how anyone could be so positive that a white rhino under the right conditions could not be a sporting if not very challenging hunt. If the fenced idea is a problem for folks that is understandable but to just say flat out that the white rhino is not a worthy quarry with no real expereince with them is baffling to me.

Mark

Here's the one that I took in 2006 in Zululand at Intibane with Ally Robins. Intibane is next to the Mkuze Game Reserve.

Keeping in mind that "if it pays, it stays", both the Black and White variety should be hunted and darted in accordance with strict attention being paid to the renewability of the resource.

mrlexma,

I don't follow your logic that rhino are not dangerous game or hardly even game animals because there are fewer of them and that this some how impacts whether they charge when surprised.

I'd also like to know why killing lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo and hippo on land would take rhino off the table? Kudude

Sorry I wasn't clear. I have edited my post.

Any one that thinks a rhino is a cow should shoot it like a cow with a 22 in the head

guys what about gaint sable i know it was last hunted in 1952 any hunting available or any recent pics ,regards

Markhor, if yuo search this site you will find a fair bit of discussion about giant sable..

Cheers

Here's one for you, taken in Angola a while ago. 3 seperate herds have been located.

Anyone who considers either Black or White Rhino are as tame as a cow hasn't hunted them...and believes in Disneyland and the Tooth Fairy!! Blacks have come back to a point there are 2 I recal on CITES in Namibia...the trophy fee is probably a King's Ransom...a friend from Dallas just darted one in South Africa. In 2002 I darted two WHITES that were to be moved, sold or shot...it was equally as difficult a hunt in the heavy bush as any of my other Dangerous 7 species...bar NONE!! Took three days to find the first one, and two stalks to get to within 16-20 yards for the shot...the second we had to find by helicopter which set us down within 200 yards...and it still took two hours to find him and stalk in close...two times later I darted him...all on 20,000 acres...no daisy walk...then the follow up in the tall bush (in February) 100 degrees, ticks and snakes enroute!!
Rhinos that are darted regularly or kept in small paddocks should NOT be darted or shot...and South Africa is imposing strict rules about this. Trust me...Green Hunts are in and don't have the sticker shock of shooting one!!
Be VERY careful who you book with. I had an acquaintance go the same year, actually I was invited and declined, he was shown his Rhino chomping on a bale of hay in a 5 acre paddock...they walked out, with Vet in tow...who had loaded the dart gun...they shot and it didn't go down...the Vet reloaded and they shot again...still didn't go down, they had to rope the leg and pull it out to get him down for pix...yes, this is a BAD story, but it happens...be big enough to walk away from a BAD situation...I have a number of times in Africa...as well as here in ol' USofA!!

Looks like a Park beastie...but very nice one!! I see the paved road in the lower picture...a dead give away. Nice try!!

100% correct about 12km from lower Sabie