US businessman charges $100,000 for hunting safari in Tanzania

THISDAY REPORTER
Dar es Salaam

WHILE tourist hunting companies are pressing the government hard to lower newly-announced hunting block and trophy fees, an American businessman is charging foreign hunters more than $100,000 (approx. 130m/-) each for safari expeditions to Tanzania.

According to a report in the Detroit Free Press newspaper filed from Arusha, businessman Thomas Newcomb of Morristown, Tennessee is taking groups of hunters to Tanzania through local (Tanzanian) company Game Frontiers.

’’Newcomb’s clients pay $105,000 each for a 24-day hunting safari, in which they can shoot lions, zebras, cape buffaloes, antelopes, gazelles, kudus and more,’’ said the media report.

In an interview in Arusha with a reporter from the US newspaper, Newcomb advises his clients to save a considerable amount of money for a hunting expedition to Tanzania.

He said in contrast to a photo safari which might cost a maximum of $500 (approx. 650,000/-) a day, it costs about $1,500 (approx. 2m/-) a day for a hunting safari in Tanzania.

Newcomb, a chiropractor who, himself has made more than 20 safari visits to Tanzania, attributed the higher fees to the costs of employing trackers, skinners and other helpers.

’’There also are all kinds of other fees and costs. For instance, the government announced in July that trophy fees would quadruple to $12,000 for a lion and $1,500 for a cape buffalo,’’ he said.

He said the best animal to hunt in Tanzania was the cape buffalo. ’’They are challenging and dangerous and sometimes they run at you. And there are a lot of them,’’ he noted.

Also speaking in the same interview, Cornelia Oelofse of the Arusha-based Game Tracker Safaris and Wengert Windrose Safaris said hunting in Tanzania is done in the wild, not inside reserves.

’’We hunt ethically, and we don’t hunt from vehicles,’’ said Oelofse.

The hunting season in Tanzania takes place between July 1 and December 31. After each safari, the captured horns and hides are quarantined for 45 days, and the raw skins are then sent to the United States.

Some major tourist hunting firms holding key hunting blocks in the country have been pressing the government to reverse its decision to hike various licences and fees related to the industry.

They claim the move, announced in June this year by the Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Prof. Jumanne Maghembe, was based on false facts and assumptions.

Prof. Maghembe has maintained that the hike in tourist hunting fees and licences was in line with prevailing rates in some other Southern African Development Community (SADC) member states.

Among other things, the major hunting firms have suggested that the fees increase will make Tanzania a less attractive destination for hunters.

But it appears that despite these complaints, some foreigners are making lucrative earnings from the tourist hunting business by charging clients up to $105,000 each for a three-week hunting safari in Tanzania.