Any advice on night vision mono or binoculars for looking for animals at night. Have heard of some using $25k ones for leopard hunts ( much too expensive for me). More for spotting. Any particular brand. Mostly for night drives or watching waterholes from camp.

it is basically illegal to take night vision devices into Africa. you might not get caught but if you do, the results will not be pleasant. this applies even to basic Gen 1 equipment. if someone is using them to hunt leopard, it is a huge legal problem. i am not saying it hasn't been done but that doesn't mean you want to get caught with such a device

Illegal to have night vision??

Easy to buy them in SA and advertised openly in many publications! Have seen them used by PH's in SA, Zim and Zambia......

I took night vision glasses to Africa and had a blast with them. Upon my return I discovered that was not permitted by the US government and labeled a "tool of war" by Zimbabwe government. This was pre TSA and I actually had a customs 4457 form for them. Pretty good chance today they would be confiscated somewhere along the line.

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Originally posted by jdollar:
it is basically illegal to take night vision devices into Africa. you might not get caught but if you do, the results will not be pleasant. this applies even to basic Gen 1 equipment. if someone is using them to hunt leopard, it is a huge legal problem. i am not saying it hasn't been done but that doesn't mean you want to get caught with such a device

JD

Hope you won't mind me correcting you slightly there...... Individual African countries have their own laws on pretty much everything, including this. Some allow NV equipment & some do not.

The illegality is a U.S. export issue, and yes, it is illegal to take night vision devices out of the U.S. without proper export permits. Don't want them falling into the hands of terrorists. As to individual african country restrictions, I have no idea but presume they also have import restrictions.

Leave your NVGs at home; transporting them outside the U.S. will only bring you grief if caught

that's what i meant to say- sorry for my poor wording. hell, optics dealers are not even allowed to ship rifle scopes overseas.

Thanks useful to know about legality

Buy them in country then resell them in country? PITA maybe make a deal with the outfitter

I dont know about Africa, but in Russia we use night vision a lot. And I can tell that modern thermal vision monoculars much better than best night vision optics.

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that's what i meant to say- sorry for my poor wording. hell, optics dealers are not even allowed to ship rifle scopes overseas

Correct, and now we can not get them to Mexico either, Dealers are not allowed to ship to Mexico.