Hey Guys,

Have any of you hunted black impala ( not black faced impala) or Golden Gnu? If you have please post some pics. Just wondering what the demand for these animals is to hunters. I've introduced black impala to my game farm here in the Eastern Cape, SA and they are doing well, thinking about getting a couple golden gnu's soon.

Bush greetings

I know a few people who have hunted the black impala. I dont know anyone personally who has hunted the golden gnu. The impalas are exquisite but I dont see much demand until the price comes down. These are just too high priced IMO for a colour phase animal. At this point they are "fashion hunting". I would love to have a black impala on my wall but just cant justify the price tag. They are no different than any other colour phase animal in my book. As more ranches breed them the price will come down to a realistic level and then you will see the demand go way up. Right now they are a specialty item for a few well heeled collectors. What kind of price range were you thinking about?

Hey Mike,

You hit the nail on the head with the demand for the black impala i reckon. Impala breed quite quickly so it wont be to long before there are more available thus bringing their prices down. I will only start hunting mine from 2011. The price will be determined then, but will probably be around $5000. They are exquisite animals. Get ready to choke, the golden gnu's are going for about $30 000 each now in SA. Thats madness!!

I've never heard of either - please post a picture of these - uh - animals somebody

quote:

Originally posted by Settlers Safaris:
Hey Mike,

You hit the nail on the head with the demand for the black impala i reckon. Impala breed quite quickly so it wont be to long before there are more available thus bringing their prices down. I will only start hunting mine from 2011. The price will be determined then, but will probably be around $5000. They are exquisite animals. Get ready to choke, the golden gnu's are going for about $30 000 each now in SA. Thats madness!!

$30 000 is a good price for the golden gnu, one sold last year for R 550 000 ZAR, but my opinion is that it is madness to breed those stange and unnatural breeds for commercial purposes, its like letting black and blue wildebees carry on interbreeding, its just not natural

quote:

Originally posted by .458Aubs:

quote:

Originally posted by Settlers Safaris:
Hey Mike,

You hit the nail on the head with the demand for the black impala i reckon. Impala breed quite quickly so it wont be to long before there are more available thus bringing their prices down. I will only start hunting mine from 2011. The price will be determined then, but will probably be around $5000. They are exquisite animals. Get ready to choke, the golden gnu's are going for about $30 000 each now in SA. Thats madness!!

$30 000 is a good price for the golden gnu, one sold last year for R 550 000 ZAR, but my opinion is that it is madness to breed those stange and unnatural breeds for commercial purposes, its like letting black and blue wildebees carry on interbreeding, its just not natural

I have just recieved correspondance that there are 3 golden gnu females available at R 220 000.00 each

With all this breeding of various color phase animals like golden, black and white springbok and now black impala and golden gnu, it will come to the place that you might be just as well off to stay home, pay a farmer a few hundred bucks and shoot a Holstein or Black Angus.

Trophies on my wall need to be wild, natural and unscrewed around with.

I saw some black impala a couple of weeks ago in SA that a guy had. Very beautiful but at $6,000 trophy fee they were not in the cards.

impala ewe from the limpopo province





hunt safe wisent

quote:

Originally posted by .458Aubs:
its like letting black and blue wildebees carry on interbreeding, its just not natural

That's not necessarily true. It is natural, these hybrids are generally fertile and can reproduce. It is the same as a whitetail and mule deer crossing, which happens, not extremely often but surely does. Also, they completely imbred a couple of thousand years ago, thats why certain populations of Mule deer and Whitetail deer have the same mitochrondrial DNA. So it is COMPLETELY NATURAL!

Un-natural would be defined as Man made, ie..manipulating genes. I'm not a wildbeest expert, however, if they can interbreed now, that means, they diverged not too long ago, (meaning 1000s of yrs). It's just like Buffalo (Bison) and Cattle, they can interbreed and make Beefaloes, in fact, 99.9% of all buffalo are hybrids, containing cattle genes.

I love all these color phases, the difference is, on a game ranch, the Rancher, has taken out, Natural selection, which would target, Black impalas as leapard bait, instead, the trait is selected for! therefore it prospers.

Hi SilentT,

May i ask where you got/ took your pic of the black impala mixed with splits. Looks like East Cape coastal bush? nice ram!

What about this new collor for impala http://www.specialistgamebreed...cat/566/subcat/0.htm
This is new for me

hunt safe wisent

quote:

Originally posted by Grumulkin:
With all this breeding of various color phase animals like golden, black and white springbok and now black impala and golden gnu, it will come to the place that you might be just as well off to stay home, pay a farmer a few hundred bucks and shoot a Holstein or Black Angus.

Trophies on my wall need to be wild, natural and unscrewed around with.

Couldn't agree more - what next???

quote:

The black Impala cost R50 000 and the wildebeest was around R150 000

WTF???????
Extortion is what that is! R150 000, for a wildebeest??? While agree with privatising wildlife in most aspects this is an example of its potential to be rediculous!

Amen! What did W.C. Fields say?

quote:

Originally posted by Settlers Safaris:
Hey Mike,

You hit the nail on the head with the demand for the black impala i reckon. Impala breed quite quickly so it wont be to long before there are more available thus bringing their prices down. I will only start hunting mine from 2011. The price will be determined then, but will probably be around $5000. They are exquisite animals. Get ready to choke, the golden gnu's are going for about $30 000 each now in SA. Thats madness!!

Sorry I didnt answer you quicker. I am on the road again and wont be home for another week. This is the first time I have had access in a week. The prices are already coming down as the going price 3 years ago for a black was about 8k if I remember right. The golden gnu dosnt do anything for me personally even when the price comes down. The black impala however will be on my list when the prices stablilize in 3 or 4 more years. They are exquisite for sure.

I shot a golden gnu an East African Nyasa wildebeast Tanzania.



Mike

Mike,
That animal is a beauty!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

quote:

Originally posted by chuckmaxman:
Mike,
That animal is a beauty!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And probably a good bargain during that hunt!
Wonderful (and wild) animal, Retreever.

Wow Mike. Fantastic trophy. Pardon my ignorance, but is this a "mutation" from a standard Nyasa Wildebeest? Obviously the coloration is different and the chevron on the nose is noticeably muted.

A tremendous animal regardless.

I know that i am going to upset a lot of guy's, but what is going to happen with the gene pool if everybody is 'cross breeding'....?

Will there one day only be these exotics to hunt or will the original gene pool still be available?

These abominations have really only come about since high fences. Game farming is exactly that, another version of animal husbandry. Selective breeding. A white springbuck in the Kalahari would be nailed by the first fit predator that came along because it would stand out like a sore thumb.

quote:

Originally posted by Scriptus:
These abominations have really only come about since high fences. Game farming is exactly that, another version of animal husbandry. Selective breeding. A white springbuck in the Kalahari would be nailed by the first fit predator that came along because it would stand out like a sore thumb.

I quite agree with you that general availability of color variants have only become possible with the advent of game farming, and SCI's,and other similar, organizations recocnizing them as "special enough to get the president's [or other influential office bearer's] trophy a No 1 ranking"!

For what it's worth I have managed to convince the owner of one of the Eastern Cape concessions to elliminate all his white blesbuck! For anyone interested in color variants, seeing that I pay for them for the same price as the normal brown common blesbuck, I'm also selling them at that price! There are some very nice trophies available.

In good hunting.

Andrew McLaren

Thanks for the support Andrew, sometimes I feel like the only trooper in the squad marching in time. You must try telling this to a breeder of "rare white lions." Damn right they are rare, in the bush they would have died hungry.Everything would have seen them coming.

Designer wildflife....no thank you. I'll take my impalan in tan, my wildebeest in black or blue, and please, keep the elephants gray.

What... you don't a polka dot elephant?

Lovely color, but her tusks are to small!

Andrew McLaren

IMHO - All this cross breeding, and colour mutations is a crock of s....t ! Another money making racket ! For crying out loud lets try and keep hunting in (south) Africa as natural as possible !There are enough black and white springbuck,as well as white blesbuck around "polluting" the south african plains,to keep clients interested in these stupid species ! - that we surely do not need anymore designer animals that look out of place ! What next - Paintball safaris ! It never ceases to amaze me that whenever there is some ridiculous, dodgy or underhanded thing that happens in the hunting industry, you can bet your bottom dollar that it has its roots in South Africa ! Look at whats happening in Namibia and Zimbabwe's hunting industry - most of the controversy involves DODGY SA OPERATORS AND OUTFITTERS. SA is fast becoming the laughing stock of the hunting industry - what a shame and an embarresment !

Half the crooks of the world are in the hunting industry, thank heavens not all in the hunting industry are crooks.

JohnHunt, I've never taken drugs, but I think you just showed us what happens when one gets ahold of bad drugs. That poor ele looks like the result of a bad acid trip!

Thank God that none of the people who've come up with pink springbok or green gnu have yet figured out how to turn a buffalo 'golden.'

Considering the fact that I work in the reproductive technology area as well as genetics, I find it interesting that the attitude of this post is unfounded in science.

There's no difference in selecting for or against any other trait, may it be Whitetails that have brow tines or more than eight points. How many of you have some sort of management plans for areas that you hunt???? By doing this you are infact changing the frequency of natural alleles in that population.

I don't see why people want to jump all over breeders/outfitters who wish to add another option to their hunting. SO it's ok for DEER hunters but not AFRICANS?

Let's not forget these guys are in business, guess what most companies try to create or enhance previous products every year...don't these guys deserve the same.

I find on this particular Forum, there are so many people who wish to target and break down hunting relationships.

We are all hunters, it should bind us, not tear us apart!

I

quote:

Considering the fact that I work in the reproductive technology area as well as genetics, I find it interesting that the attitude of this post is unfounded in science.

There's no difference in selecting for or against any other trait, may it be Whitetails that have brow tines or more than eight points. How many of you have some sort of management plans for areas that you hunt???? By doing this you are infact changing the frequency of natural alleles in that population.

I don't see why people want to jump all over breeders/outfitters who wish to add another option to their hunting. SO it's ok for DEER hunters but not AFRICANS?

Let's not forget these guys are in business, guess what most companies try to create or enhance previous products every year...don't these guys deserve the same.

I find on this particular Forum, there are so many people who wish to target and break down hunting relationships.

We are all hunters, it should bind us, not tear us apart!

Well said Oryxhunter 1983

There is more than enough species of game in Africa without resorting to breeding oddities. If a "game farmer" wants to breed something specific, then breed the rarities. There are enough of them.Of course the bio-diversity drivel, at least in South Africa, must disappear.
It might help if U S F&W would not allow the import of odd sods.

quote:

Originally posted by Scriptus:

It might help if U S F&W would not allow the import of odd sods.

WOW, if you believe that, well then, maybe we shouldn't import leopards, argalis, red stags, or HOW ABOUT ANGUS CATTLE???? OR even better the AFRICAN BOAR GOAT... yall sure didn't mind shipping those bastards over! Especially at a price of 20k per head...

You must be out to lunch suggesting that US F&W should increase there scrutiny of what should be imported because of color variance. I realize you live in RSA, but here's something you should seriously give some thought to...it will be a miracle if you can import any trophies from you country to the USA in the next 25 yrs at the rate USFW is going. Where the hell are your hunters going to come from then? and I'm sure you'll say, "ohh you americans, think that yall are the only ones on the planet." I've seen the stats, and I know what kind of money (200 million) gets poured into africa each year by USA hunters. SO you start messing with us, and we leave the table, all these farms/outfitters will go back to barely surviving.

As if we need anymore crap from USFW! You most surely haven't ever dealt with them.

SCRIPTUS are you going to define what's RARE??? Maybe, you should be more concerned about all the rape, murders, and robberies that are going to happen during the world cup than a couple of White blesboks, golden gnus, and black impalas. CAUSE thats really whats going to make some great headlines, that is if your Shady government allows the truth to be broadcast.


Settlers Safaris,
Thanks for your applause, I love all these "holy-er-than-thou" people on here..."oh they shouldn't be able to do this, but we should be able to do that". It's all crap...live and let live, just because you don't want to participate in something doesn't mean you should bash it. I've had this conversation with a couple of outfitters, that there's a bunch of people on this sight that are side line complainers who love to sit around and gripe vs. getting out there and really experiencing it! They have absolutely no understanding of genetics, zero, zilch, nada and yet they get on these boards and start throwing out terms like, "un-natural" and "polluting". Halarious!

Here's a thought, you don't like color phases "DON'T SHOOT ONE!"

Lastly, I thought this was too good to pass up? I find it interesting that some Safari Companies pro-rate all of their animals on their price list. So does anyone know how to define a super trophy record zebra, baboon, or jackal? vs. a representative one?

Let me know if anyone knows where I could blast one of these.....

Jeez Oryxhunter1983, get off your high horse before you bust something.Why shouldn't you import leopards, argali, red stag as long as they are not pink. Anyone who pays 20k for a Boer goat [I presume that is what you mean] should be committed.
Rare; lets start with Nubian and Walie ibex. How about Jentink's duiker, Ader' duiker, Ogilby's duiker, Cuvier's gazelle, Sand gazelle, Dama gazelle and Hunter,s hartebeest. That should be a start.There are lots more.
The crime situation in this country, I am well aware of, having suffered house burglary, motor vehicle theft and four attempts at the theft of my old Toyota Hi-lux. Not to say anything of many occasions of intruders in the yard at night, coupled with the theft of anything metal not buried in concrete. Headlines caused by crime might galvanise our "SHADY" government into doing something, although I doubt that would happen as most belong to the prison old boy's club.
As for "holier than thou" and getting out there and really experiencing it, I have been an active hunter for more than 46 years. On checking some of my old diaries, I see that I have spent between 35 and 75 days in the field per year.I have not hunted oddities, but if someone wants help in culling the things, I will even throw in the ammo.

quote:

We are all hunters, it should bind us, not tear us apart!

I don't think that is a reasonable expectation. Reasonable people with good intentions can take mutually exclusive positions with full faith and knowledge that they are correct and that the other side is not.

Hunting in the 21st century is largely about passion and biological drive, not need. In general, the people that hunt these days just don't feel right if they can't hunt, it is part of their identity. So with passion and self identity being carried into every discussion, heated arguments are going to be the norm in a diverse group.

There is a large diversity in the hunting community. There are a number of different hunting traditions in the world with very different attitudes about dogs, baiting, fences and darkness. Not all of these traditions are fully compatible.

The above is really just a long winded way of saying that I understand that I am in opposition to otherwise good people when I say that I hope this business practice of shooting pen raised, genetically manipulated livestock fails in the long run. At the very least it should be called shooting and not hunting. I find it distasteful whether it is driven waterfowl in Europe, game preserve boars in Alberta, selectively bred whitetails in Texas or Golden Gnu in SA. Hunting invloves self sustaining populations of wild animals. The above scenarios clearly fail at the first hurdle. Because of the money involved, they will continue, sheltering as best they can behind other hunting traditions. However they do seem to be a threat to what I consider hunting and that makes them a threat to something vital to me and my family.

Dean