Hi all,

I'm curious to hear what all the African based hunters feel about the differences in hunting for themselves at home in comparison to hunting with guests from abroad.

I've noticed here that we hunt in a much more blase manner when alone because the outcome is not quite so important and the investment is small.

When a client takes the effort to fly into a new country to hunt, incurs local accommodation and transport costs, plus incidentals the basis of the hunt changes and the cost of the hunting itself also pales into insignificance.

In Southafrica we have modularised the hunts for our clients in an attempt to make a bespoke service in the same way that the local outfitters do. I have realised that in fact the cost of the hunting itself is a minor part of the overall bottom line. This experience was also very visible in the UK for the basic animals.

Things change of course if you are dealing with big ticket animals but I think this is a smaller part of the over all market.

I'm not talking about profit in any of this but just the base costs involved in setting up an African safari for a visiting client.

I know here I can walk out of my house and be hunting in half an hour. 2-3 hours later I can either be hanging a couple of deer in the chiller and having dinner with my wife or I can be home without a deer and it is of no real concern.

Africa has a very two tier system for loocals and foreign hunters that often comes under attack and I'm interested in peoples perceptions of this from the point of view of both local hunters and visitors.

Rgds,
Kiri

sadly in the Zimbabwe of today a local isn't going to get alot of change out of US$ 10,000 for a buffalo hunt any more than a visitor will.

We used to have a two price system and areas set aside for locals, but no longer. We also used to be able to buy non trophy hunts on many ranches at a reasonable fee eg ...mature Kudu under 48" was about US$100, over 50" was 500...imature was US$500 also , so locals would make an effort to take off the worst of the breeding population as the visitors took off the top trophies...that went with the ranches.

25 years ago lion, leopard and cheetah were problem animals that farmers paid to have shot, and impala and warthog were often given away to young hunters or friends. I paid for my first car when I was 15 with 'bounty' money from shooting predators and my dad shot at least 50 lion and 40+ elephants on our place that I can remember. Stangely enough, I don't shoot them as problem animals anymore

What you must also remember is that most locals ,when they do hunt will outfit and cater their own camps. They are not required by law to have a PH with them so this further lowers the rate/costs. Most locals will use their own vehicles and as Ganyana said, wont take Trophy animals. It still adds up to an expensive exercise though and out of the reach of Most locals in Zim now.

The sad reality for us Africans is that apart from the smaller more common plainsgame species in South Africa not much else is affordable as we have to pay the Forex rates just like everyone else does. When you compare salaries you quickly see that is only the incredibly wealthy Africans that can afford a "proper" safari or mixed bag hunt - even just Kudu, Zebra, Gemsbuck etc.

I think local hunters in the US and UK have far more opportunity to hunt than Africans, both at home and abroad due to the strength of their currencies and the local opportunities that exist.

Apart from the Zim guys who generally get opportunities to hunt their own DG when appies, very few of the young PH's now days have ever had the opportunity to do much hunting for themselves. There are exceptions but even guys who grow up on farms are not shooting as much due to the opportunity cost.

So to answer your original question when it comes to proper hunting (not culling, vermin control etc) we take it just as seriously with or without guests as it is just as exciting and important when the opportunity arises!

Fallow Buck,

Your posting is just screaming for a good reply. But right now my dear wife is also screaming fo me to come and have dinner. Guess who is going to have my undevided attention very soon. I will reply, either as PM or direct e-mail or even a posting if I think that others wish to hear what I have to say on this subject!

Meantime, off to dinner by candlelight - no, not romantic, bloody power failure! A very regular thing as South Africa goes down the drain under black majority misgovernmemt, just like Zimbabwe! And many other countries! Laptop battarty low. Bye!

In good hunting.

Andrew McLaren

Privatised wildlife in SA did wonders for shear wildlife numbers.

Unfortunately as a result access to wildlife is heavily gentrified, any way you look at it.
Unless you are well healed enough, you need friends and 'contacts' or you won't be hunting much.

I realise that's how it is and I am a proponent of the economic incentive model. Anyway SA has literally no public wildife land where one can do low cost unguided hunts, even as a citizen and it hurts locals who want to hunt, but can't afford it.

I fear for a conservation ethic in SA when large portions of the population can barely afford to look at wildlife, let alone hunt...

In the case of government "concessions" in Zim such as Cherowe, Omay and the like, are they open to Zim nationals? Can a local get a "hunting license" drive into government land like the Omay, set up a camp and do his own thing?

in s-africa, more than 90% of heads of game are taken by local venison hunters. this comes down to more than 80% of all hunting revenue generated in SA. this has been the result of research from two different university's. local hunters know very little about the trends and the ideas of foreign hunters. the locals couldn't care less. one would find that local hunters tend to look down upon foreign hunters. local hunters seems to think of foreign hunters as dependent hunters, due to the fact that they need ph's and a team of camping staff. local hunters feel that this is their land and they have been hunting it for generations.

TWL..No As a zimbabwean, I must approach the concession Holder (in Omy's case Martin Pieters) and uy the quota and camping rights off him. The only diffference between your costs and mine are if I use my own truck and don't use the services of one of his PH's - that will save me US$ 250 per day. BUT the operator will have promised his regular PH's as many days work as he can get them, and he will not want a lcal bumbling around when he has clients...so effectivly, IF he has left over quota in december he will sell it to who ever can make a plan.

We used to hve 'citizen only' areas - Rifa, Charara , makuti etc, but no longer. The only Camps open to Zimbabweans are the Zambeizi vally Auction camps (Auction was yesterday) and I think 10 locals bought camps at around US$ 11,000 for a 10 day camp with a buff and a smattering of plains game on the bag.On top of that you still have to out fit and feed yourself and staff etc. It is, actually cheaper to buy a hunt of many operators...like Martin

Thanks, Ganyanna.

quote:

Originally posted by wart-hog:
in s-africa, more than 90% of heads of game are taken by local venison hunters. this comes down to more than 80% of all hunting revenue generated in SA. this has been the result of research from two different university's. local hunters know very little about the trends and the ideas of foreign hunters. the locals couldn't care less. one would find that local hunters tend to look down upon foreign hunters. local hunters seems to think of foreign hunters as dependent hunters, due to the fact that they need ph's and a team of camping staff. local hunters feel that this is their land and they have been hunting it for generations.

Wart Hog,

We saw a similar attitude when we organised the AHT Challenge Hunt last year. The social aspect was excellent and I think the local hunters were really surprsed at the skills the foreign hunters showed in their ability to shoot all disciplines. The RSA teams who were there had worked really hard to make their places on the three man teams and on the ranges we stepped up and held our own accross all disciplines while they were all specialist teams.

By the end of the week we had all learnt a lot from eachother about hunting and shooting skills.

K

quote:

Originally posted by Fallow Buck:
I've noticed here that we hunt in a much more blase manner when alone because the outcome is not quite so important and the investment is small.

Hunting is becoming very expensive for South African hunters.

As a city-based hunter, the few times that I can afford to hunt during the year are taken very seriously; hunt from dusk to dawn, with a hour (at most) lunch break.

I guess that if I was to hunt more frequently, I might take a two hour lunch break.