I notice 2007 buffalo trophy fees bounced up over 30% compared to 2006 with some outfitters. That's going to be hard to swallow. The only reason I ever change outfits is price. There are a lot of good people out there. I don't feel like being held-up at gun point price-wise.

Amen,to that! The oil companies have me over the barrel nothing to do but grin an bear it. But I'm the one with contol over what I am willing to spend on trophy fees. Like you said Kensco "there are alot of good people out there".

We have a special on buff in Moz right now, $675 per day plus $2K for buffalo incl. govt fee, also sable, croc and hippo on sale "while they last".

Russ,

My next safari will be 2008. 675 + 2 sounds good for a 2006 special. I haven't caught a cancellation hunt since 2002.

I'm always a afraid to wait and see what comes up. Maybe nothing will. I'll try to book 2008 before the end of the year. In a perfect world I want buffalo and sable. I may settle for buffalo only. Other PG doesn't do it for me.

I was told the other day that the outfitter doesn't set the trophy fee, in the case of Zimbabwe the "government" does. Any truth to that? Seems to me that would mean all outfitters would have the same trophy fee list and just vary the daily rate depending on how aggressive they want to be.

I understand that in TZ the gov't gets the trophy fee for each animal on quota, whether the animal is killed or not (or even hunted). The trophy fee is at a gov't listed rate.

Trophy fees paid by clients can differ significantly for a variety of reasons...eg's: 1) good ol' capitalism (ie. mark-up), 2) addition of things like anti-poaching fees and community development fees, etc, to the basic trophy fee, or 3) an outfitter not hunting the full quota in order to maximize trophy quality over the long term, and amortizing the fees for the unharvest quota over the harvested animals (or some system like that).

If anyone knows differently, please share.

Cheers,
Canuck

quote:

Originally posted by Canuck:
I understand that in TZ the gov't gets the trophy fee for each animal on quota, whether the animal is killed or not (or even hunted). The trophy fee is at a gov't listed rate

Not true. The government gets the trophy fee money only if the animal is killed or wounded.

quote:

I was told the other day that the outfitter doesn't set the trophy fee, in the case of Zimbabwe the "government" does. Any truth to that? Seems to me that would mean all outfitters would have the same trophy fee list and just vary the daily rate depending on how aggressive they want to be.

Canuck answered this one pretty well.

The government in Tanzania gets $750 for your first Buffalo shot whether you paid the operator $825, or $10,000.

Everyone structures their profit differently. Most use a combination of increased trophy fees and daily rate to make their profit. Some will use only a high daily rate and use the Government trophy fees only.

Some operators must charge a higher trophy fee schedule that is paid to the actual owner of the concession and they may not make anything off the increased trophy fee. Then the owner pays the actual government rate to the government.

A lot of my Tanzania hunts use the actual government trophy fees on the vast majority of the animals.

So many different combinations, it is always best to just look at the bottom line when pricing a hunt. Don't be fooled by low day rates or for that matter, low trophy fees. Look at the big picture. Add everything together and see what the bottom line is.