I was reading a previous post and it was mentioned that in India some game is available. I was curious what game was there?

I'm not totally sure as to every game species, but I do know you were able to hunt leopard there. I know a man who has a leopard he shot in Asia. I believe tiger was also another game species.

Sevens

For all practical purposes, there is no legal hunting for the visiting sportsman these days. The local do a certain about of small game and bird hunting and some larger game I think is shot under the guise of crop protection. And of course poaching off all sorts goes on too...



It was a completely different matter pre the hunting ban which i think came about in the mid to late '70's.



Game that was formally hunted there include:



Tigar

Leopard

Lion (been protected a long, long time as there are very few left)

Cheetah (sp?)

Elephant

Bear

Blackbuck,

Sambar

Chitel

Muntjac

Wild Ox / Water buffalo (not sure if they are one and the same)

4 horned antelope



Nearly forgot to include Wild Boar!



And probably others I don't recall right now,



Regards,



Pete

Also remember that the "India" of the old books is not the same country as today. While the British were there it consisted of what we know today as India, Pakistan and Bangledesh (sp?)..I am pretty sure thats correct, but I am sure some of our other posters will correct me if i am wrong as its a long time since I did history and geography in school!

DSK1969,

Some states in India allow the hunting of wild boar, fox, rabbit and other pests on crop protection permits. Just before October last year, it was announced that Kashmir would allow hunting the Chukar pheasant because they had become a pest in some parts but only Kashmiris and army men can hunt there. There are no hunting licenses given and you can shoot these on private land alone. All forests and government land is off limits with a very few recent exceptions.

The recent hunting reference is to the Maharashtra (a western Indian state) government allowing the shooting of 5 leopard in Satara for the first time since the 1960s in early 2003. After the hunt, the environmental groups and PETA (Jason Baker of PETA is a huge celebrity in India) made such a hue and cry that a magistrate in another court brought in a law that mandated that even man-eating leopards couldn't be hunted. They would have to be darted and caged. This poses problems in certain other states like Himachal Pradesh where there is a huge overpopulation of leopards and a number of attacks on humans (though, fortunately, no man eaters) have been observed recently.

In states like Haryana the Nilgai are a menace but their hunting is not allowed despite farmers calling for permission to shoot them on crop protection permits. The same problem exists with crocodiles in certain other parts of India.

India is a conservation and hunting basket case and I cannot see it ever getting any better.

Maybe to the benefit of India and the animals they should come up with an "under the table" type hunting. Government approved hunting that the government never legally documented and conspicuously nobody knows about, beneficial poaching will you. 'Till that day will have to tell every PETA member that some sort of deadly parasitic worm needs a home to live in and gladly oblige when they ask to be the host for one.

Sevens

I had the pleasure of hunting in Tanzania with two clients last year who were from Pakistan, and from what they told me thay have some magnificent hunting there (although very tough in places).....I don't know if its for residents only or not......the wingshooting sounds superb and I would guess it must be some of the best anywhere in the world. If I ever get out that way, it will have to be in the wingshooting season and they're liable to find me camping on their doorstep with my shotgun as a pillow!

Both Pakistan and Nepal allow controlled hunting and waterfowling and sheep hunting are big revenue earners there. A number of foreigners hunt and you should be able to find outfitters/agents who organise hunts in that part of the world if you look.

Good hunting!

Has anyone on this board hunted in India for tiger, leopard, or any other game species before it closed? If it ever opens again, I'll be the first to get over there and bag a tiger.

Sevens

Thanks to all here!
Since this has come around is there ANY place you can hunt any species of tiger legally??

Sevens,

Tiger hunting ended long before I started hunting and that was a long time ago... Right now the tiger is endangered in all of Asia and believe it or not, the world's largest tiger population is in zoos and private collections in the USA.

Unless the US tiger breeding programme allows hunting, you are unlikely to see tiger hunting, ever. In Asia, I would not be surprised if the tiger is extinct in my lifetime. All of Asia is a conservation basket case.

Good hunting!

mehulkamdar,

Thank you for that bit of info. Somedays I wish I lived 100 years ago so I could go hunting for tiger or black rhino. The tiger will be the one trophy I'll probably never get. Texas should start breeding them like the blackbuck and fallow deer. It would be a fun hunt, just has to be fair chase.

Sevens

My uncle always tells me how he was invited to join a safari in India back in the late 1960s to shoot tiger etc but he was too busy at the time and decided to go some other time....Now he has the time, looks like it just a little late.
At least it taught me never to let chances like those go by...

Boghossian,

It must have been the late 1950s and not the 60s. If I recall right, tiger hunting was banned in India by 1956 though hunts did take place until the end of the 50s. This happened before I was born though hunts did take place in Nepal and what was then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) for a long time afterwards.

I'm sure your uncle sheds tears at missing one of the greatest hunting opportunities every day. My sympathies to him.

In 1980 I was in a taxidermy studio in Pretoria, South Africa. I was looking at three large cats ... full mounts .. One was your typical bush lion .. large but not much of a mane .. a fancy black maned lion which was a canned hunt ... and in a leaping mount .. a darn tiger! It was the ultimate canned hunt and cost, I was told, the 'sportsman' $7,000 U.S. way back then. I actually heard the saga of the actual hunt in 2002 in White River, R.S.A. but it is sort of fuzzy in my mind.. I know that the shoot was done poorly ...

Another tidbit: I overheard a man in Frankfurt airport talking about hunting to another person at the gate and approached him (what else am I supposed to do, read the same newsweek for the 3rd time?). Turns out the indian gentleman lived in Hydrabad and hunted regularly. He listed species such as blackbuck/chital and boar as being available for those with contacts....
Now I wonder if he wasn't doing a little underhanded poaching as he made no reference to crop damage (and he knew a lot about guns/hunting precluding a bullshitter)

there are kraut's making wild boar hunting's in pakistan(which is a part of india- not the state we know today) every year. They make it for a good price, if anyone wish to contact them post it here, I will looking for the addres.
and there are kraut's from austria making safari's in malysia( in german it was HINTERINDIEN in old time)for water buffalo and wild boar, maybe deer. the goverment hunting tiger and elephant from time to time when the animal's make problem's.
In pakistan you can only use double shotgun's with slug's like brennecke, will be the rigth hunting for your old paradox if you have one.

Boghossian,

Take it from me - the man is a poacher, and I don't want to say anything more than that. There has been no hunting at all allowed in Andhra (the state where Hyderabad is located) and this state does not even allow crop protection permits. Andhra, however, allows esy gun ownership because there is a najor communist (Naxalite) insurrection and a number of people own rifles/shotguns there because it is easier to get rifle or shotgun licenses than handgun licenses, and, until recently you were not allowed to own handguns larger than .32 caliber unless you had served in the police or armed forces.

There are a number of Indians who are knowledgeable about guns, especially those who live abroad, and the only way that an Indian can own a new gun is if he/she works abroad and returns to India permanently on what is called a Returning Resident's permit.

PWM,

You are very right about Pakistan and about 12 bores with ball used for most of the hunting in India and Pakistan. However, Pakistan allows freedom of gun ownership and there is also sheep hunting in the mountain ranges there. Nepal also allows hunting sheep, but they, too, are faced with a major Communist insurrection (virtually a civil war in parts) and I have no idea of the current situation there.

There are a lot of possibility's for sheep hunting in mountain area's in pakistan and nepal but think this is not the real topic we have here. The question was for old style india safari's if I understand it.
Some week's ago my girlfriend have talk with a german, having a school for children's of tibetian refugees in nepal. He say that the situation was more complicated from month to month. Nepal is not a sfe country in this time,it is a hidden border war between china and india.

Sevens,

I'm told by the KZN Wildlife people that they hope to be allowing limited hunting of Black Rhino within the next couple of years at the latest........but you'll need a BIG cheque book to pay for the hunt.

My estimate would be US$150,000 to US$250,000 per hunt. If they auction the hunts at the SCI convention (and they probably would) prices might go even higher.

NitroX,

Were the man to hunt boar in neighbouring states like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka or Orissa (where boar hunting is legal on crop protection permits) no one would have any objection to his hunting them.

When he hunts an endangered animal like the chital, he gives all legitimate hunters a bad name.

PWM,

The old Indian style driven- game hunts of tiger, leopard etc on elephant back will never, ever take place again. We just don't have game populations to sustain that kind of hunting since the govrnment took the old game reserves over and destroyed them in it's stupid, socialist way.

That said, the point that I was trying to make was that Pakistan and Nepal have done a much better job of preserving their wildlife and allowing commonsense gun ownership laws than India has. Those countries offer hunters hope. India only offers despair.

Aren't chital the same as axis deer and they are endangered in India? Not in America.

leo,

Yes, chital are axis deer. A number of species that are heavily endangered in India thrive in other parts of the world where they were introduced and have been properly managed by game management departments, game farms etc. Examples are the Blackbuck which are also hunted in the US, Tahr which are near extinct in India but are almost pests in New Zealand - even the tiger, which is endangered in every country in the world where it is still left, is in plenty in the US. At the risk of repeating myself, the USA has more tigers than the rest of the world put together, in zoos and private collections.

I hope that there were some way this could be used to show my countrymen what a tragic farce the hunting policies in India are!

carcano

don't know if the the native speaker here understand this joke, are you agree with me that the best carcano was the one rechambered for the 8x57IS

I agree with you that you have better weather most time

I agree hunting an endangered species is NOT commendable, but on the other hand there seems to be little hope for hunting to be re-opened so I doubt his actions will destroy anything villages/farms won't destroy in the near future.

I have worked in Pakistan, mostly in the Eastern and Southern parts. I saw nothing there put crowded towns, poor people and no game. I have been a lot of places and I rank Nigeria and Pakistan as the worst for Westerners - especially anyone going there as a tourist. There are better places to go and a lot safer.

I cannot speak for India or Nepal. I lived in Kazakhstan for nearly 3 years and would recommend that as a place to go for the adventuresome. Hunting is somewhat controlled but understand that it was good and largely unknown in the west.