Are there any kind of fiqures on what percentage of photo safaris take place outside of the national parks?

I don’t think Photo safaris would be too successful if done outside the parks. The reason I say that is the animals would act naturally and would tend to hide. The fact that the animals in the parks act the way they do is they become used to vehicles and will actually move closer rather fleeing! That fact is the reason many folks tend to think hunting is nothing more than driving up to an animal and shooting him, the same way they take pictures.

Picture safaris will be the end of many endangered species because of this mindset! Most camera bugs who want to film wildlife do little past the money spent in the parks to support wildlife management. Because of their skewed opinion of the difficulty of hunting tend to speak against all hunting. This is unforttunate because hunting protects not only the populations of game animals but helps all wildlife by preserving habatat, not to mention the funds to the game departments, to control a renewable resource. The game viewing parks are the death knell for wildlife if you want my opinion.

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Here is a link to a recent RSA news article that breakdown the financial impact of hunting in RSA. It also discusses a bit of the eco tourism impact as well.

Be sure to also read the two additional articles listed in the upper right hand corner under the heading "Related Articles".

Financial Mail - 5 Apr 2012

I know there not very succesfull outside the parks. I was just thinking it might be usefull information in the debate. To show someone that while photo and eco turisom work inside the park hunting works outside and provides more funds.
A good statistic from the above articles: The average hunter spends 14 times more money than other turist visiting RSA.

They could be just as successful if they wanted to be. If we as hunters can get 12 yards from an elephant why not a photo person? Take them on a true stalk for TRULY wild game and other wildlife, not habituated animals in a park!