That article left out a lot of costs.

For a guy in the safari travel business he is either:

1. Really bad at math.

2. Intentionally not showing readers all the costs associated with running a safari camp or how much money flows back to the local people in the way of salaries and tips.

Actually, he is just trying to justify the fact that photo safaris will never generate that level of $$$ to local communities...

This bullshit article has more holes than Swiss cheese.What a joke by a group with a biased view point.

An old saying comes to mine: "figures don't lie but liars figure."

Shit like that! Leon is great PH and a damn good man.

Here is the deal. If you Google [elephant hunting in Botswana] every article you find is anti hunting or how elephant hunting is bad for elephants or its people or some BS.

You will not find a single article with facts or figures from our side of the coin. So if you were a member of the public and had no clue or bias either for or against hunting. What is going to be your impression after reading numerous articles, be it that they are untrue???

But our hunting orgs are very good at preaching to the quire! Zero outreach.

quote:

Originally posted by reddy375:
Here is the deal. If you Google [elephant hunting in Botswana] every article you find is anti hunting or how elephant hunting is bad for elephants or its people or some BS.

You will not find a single article with facts or figures from our side of the coin. So if you were a member of the public and had no clue or bias either for or against hunting. What is going to be your impression after reading numerous articles, be it that they are untrue???

But our hunting orgs are very good at preaching to the quire! Zero outreach.

Bingo!

quote:

Originally posted by reddy375:
Here is the deal. If you Google [elephant hunting in Botswana] every article you find is anti hunting or how elephant hunting is bad for elephants or its people or some BS.

You will not find a single article with facts or figures from our side of the coin. So if you were a member of the public and had no clue or bias either for or against hunting. What is going to be your impression after reading numerous articles, be it that they are untrue???

But our hunting orgs are very good at preaching to the quire! Zero outreach.

100%. And why I posted the article. It came to me, I didn’t even have to look for it. It’s what The Algorithm served me…

I am passionate about conservation and how hunting funds the protection of animals and wild lands in Africa. I read the hit pieces on Leon in the national and international media shortly after the “tusker” as they referred to the big elephant was taken. I was so infuriated that I decided to book a elephant hunt for the same date one year later and do a deep dive into the investment made to create an operational hunting concession and the benefits to the villagers and so forth! I did just that! I feel exhausted reading this article! Yes it is misleading and full of half truths and ommisioms but what is new! Look at the media in the United States! Every issue that comes on my phone or television is political spin and propaganda! The same as in this article on NG 13! I want to fight! I want a platform to tell the truth and convince people of the benefits of trophy hunting but I feel like the forces aligned against us so powerful and the public swallows the propaganda they put out without doing any research to find the truth! I will add one more thing. I was not in agreement with some of the individuals on this site who commented on this big elephant in a previous series of posts. What I disagree with is those of you with lots of experience and who I respect said that the big elephant should not have been harvested. The comments were based on the assumption that more harm came to hunting because if it and it just was not worth the damage to hunters reputations. I beg to differ. If you guys think that by blacking out your faces in your trophy photos or only hunting plains game and Buffalo is going to satisfy the antis and keep them from coming after hunters and hunting you are sadly mistaken! You must stand up for hunting and preach the gospel of its virtues and be proud of what you stand for! In the end ne I’m not saying we can win but we can know what we did was right!

THIS!!^^^^

quote:

Originally posted by jerry c meacham:

quote:

Originally posted by jerry c meacham:
I am passionate about conservation and how hunting funds the protection of animals and wild lands in Africa. I read the hit pieces on Leon in the national and international media shortly after the “tusker” as they referred to the big elephant was taken. I was so infuriated that I decided to book a elephant hunt for the same date one year later and do a deep dive into the investment made to create an operational hunting concession and the benefits to the villagers and so forth! I did just that! I feel exhausted reading this article! Yes it is misleading and full of half truths and ommisioms but what is new! Look at the media in the United States! Every issue that comes on my phone or television is political spin and propaganda! The same as in this article on NG 13! I want to fight! I want a platform to tell the truth and convince people of the benefits of trophy hunting but I feel like the forces aligned against us so powerful and the public swallows the propaganda they put out without doing any research to find the truth! I will add one more thing. I was embarrassed for some of the individuals on this site who commented on this big elephant in a previous series of posts. What I disagree with is those of you with lots of experience and who I respect said that the big elephant should not have been harvested. The comments were based on the assumption that more harm came to hunting because if it and it just was not worth the damage to hunters reputations. I beg to differ. If you guys think that by blacking out your faces in your trophy photos or only hunting plains game and Buffalo is going to satisfy the antis and keep them from coming after hunters and hunting you are sadly mistaken! You must stand up for hunting and preach the gospel of its virtues and be proud of what you stand for! In the end ne I’m not saying we can win but we can know what we did was right!

Well said and I have always maintained that we all should be proud of our passion, take pics and not be afraid to show them because pine cone eaters will always be against any hunting no matter what as they are just friggin veggie heads and as dense as cauliflower

I didn't read the whole article, but I read enough to read their biased take that the hunting operator had zero investment in the area. I don't know about NG13, but I just hunted a different area and I know the operator invested a LOT of money into the area that directly benefits not only elephant, but all the other species as well.


The area was new, when I was there in April they had one bore hole finished and pumping. When I was back in July they had 2 finished, and 2 more in the works. Which represents a substantial investment into the area. I wish I knew how much they'd spent on these bore holes, but I was afraid to ask as it's really none of my business.

quote:

Originally posted by jerry c meacham:
I am passionate about conservation and how hunting funds the protection of animals and wild lands in Africa. I read the hit pieces on Leon in the national and international media shortly after the “tusker” as they referred to the big elephant was taken. I was so infuriated that I decided to book a elephant hunt for the same date one year later and do a deep dive into the investment made to create an operational hunting concession and the benefits to the villagers and so forth! I did just that! I feel exhausted reading this article! Yes it is misleading and full of half truths and ommisioms but what is new! Look at the media in the United States! Every issue that comes on my phone or television is political spin and propaganda! The same as in this article on NG 13! I want to fight! I want a platform to tell the truth and convince people of the benefits of trophy hunting but I feel like the forces aligned against us so powerful and the public swallows the propaganda they put out without doing any research to find the truth! I will add one more thing. I was not in agreement with some of the individuals on this site who commented on this big elephant in a previous series of posts. What I disagree with is those of you with lots of experience and who I respect said that the big elephant should not have been harvested. The comments were based on the assumption that more harm came to hunting because if it and it just was not worth the damage to hunters reputations. I beg to differ. If you guys think that by blacking out your faces in your trophy photos or only hunting plains game and Buffalo is going to satisfy the antis and keep them from coming after hunters and hunting you are sadly mistaken! You must stand up for hunting and preach the gospel of its virtues and be proud of what you stand for! In the end ne I’m not saying we can win but we can know what we did was right!

I am 100% for standing up for hunting and preaching the gospel. Now, where do I find the gospel?

My point is that hunting is an incredibly complicated and esoteric Activity - rife with incomprehensible and inexplicable experiences. Visually, it is reduced to a dead animal and a hunter (sometimes with his face covered up). Until those who are willing to share the pictures are also willing to tell the complete, complicated stories in a way that people outside the community will be willing to read, we simply hand over more fodder for emotional, angry responses that ARE used against hunting.

I’ve said it before: either we tell our story, or they will tell it for us. It takes very little effort to know who is telling our stories these days.

And I am NOT talking about a org like Meateater. While I disagree with them commodifying hunting to sell products, they at least tell stories in a way that reaches outside the circle. African hunting is FAR more complex.

For the record I think worrying about antis directly is futile. But they have a lot more influence on the undecided than we would probably like to admit - and that is something to keep in mind.

A big problem with our ability to get the truth out there is a complete lack of control with regards to the social media platforms and how they are moderated. If what we post is not in line with the agenda being pushed by the social media site, our posts quickly disappear.

With other types of media, our submissions are simply rejected. So how do we get stand alone articles or rebuttal pieces out there? Preaching to the choir occurs because it is only in hunter "friendly" forms of media that our submissions are published, and they are not reaching the target audience.

It is a very rare occurrence for a submission telling "our story" to be accepted and published where the masses can read it.

quote:

Originally posted by Skyline:
A big problem with our ability to get the truth out there is a complete lack of control with regards to the social media platforms and how they are moderated. If what we post is not in line with the agenda being pushed by the social media site, our posts quickly disappear.

With other types of media, our submissions are simply rejected. So how do we get stand alone articles or rebuttal pieces out there? Preaching to the choir occurs because it is only in hunter "friendly" forms of media that our submissions are published, and they are not reaching the target audience.

It is a very rare occurrence for a submission telling "our story" to be accepted and published where the masses can read it.

I think a problem with getting the truth out is that it cannot be reductively told - which is not true for the other side.

That and to tell a complicated story like this probably requires more transparency than most will want to give, and more writing talent than most hunters have.

Thus, nothing will change…

Except in relation to your last sentence… there is an old story Hemingway told about how a competing journalist overseas kept snooping on him and cabling the story back to his paper, preempting Hemingway’s own work. When Hemingway figured out what was happening he said he simply stopped writing and let the bastard starve himself to death for lack of anything to cable.

I think too often we are careless about feeding the beast that wants to devour us.

This thread started with a post of the infuriating article insinuating the villagers expecting to benefit from the hunting concession created in NG 13 were bamboozled by the evil and greedy concession holder. The pictures shown on the original hit pieces; and this article as well, are of the massive hundred pounder referred to as a “Tusker” in many of the articles. Obviously, the picture is meant to illicit vitriol in the viewer and in the end, it is all about castigating the hunter and ending tourist hunting as well as raising money for anti-hunting groups and NGO’s. I get it that some of my fellow hunters here on AR would take the knee jerk reaction and say, why the hell did they put that picture out on social media? That will do us more harm than good! We should just keep our heads down and continue on with our hunting… blacking out our faces and hiding our names so as not to engender an attack from the “mob”. I could not disagree more!
First let address the premise of this article. The writer claims to have a copy of the community plan and compares the money going to the community to what is charged for an elephant hunt and then the reader is supposed to violently recoil and say, “Oh my gosh!”; “the local tribes are getting screwed!” It is not my place to give facts and figures of what I learned while at this concession asking questions and doing my research about the cost in time and money of creating a concession and operating it. I looked into this matter for nearly a month while hunting NG 13 this past April. I wanted to get the truth about hunt and the concession that was described in all the negative media I had read. There were many negative articles along with Robbie Kroger’s “Blood Origins podcast interview which was not biased. Robbie interviewed the PH of the concession about the taking of this big elephant and the charges about the benefits to the villages and the finances of the operation without taking sides. Most of the blow up in the media occurred in May and June of 2022 from what I saw. This article mentioned in this thread doesn’t talk about the cost of employing huge number of employees, the road building, the anti-poaching, the three bore holes, the expensive cost of creating a camp and all of the infrastructure involved, the heavy machinery like articulating front end loaders and tractors, and safari vehicles...We still have not gotten to marketing, fuel, transporting drinking water non-stop and the unbelievable expense of just operating in such a remote area! are you kidding me! What about not even being able to hunt the quota for one season but paying the community for it anyway! All of this and more conveniently omitted from the article. I feel myself getting defensive, wordy, and angry so I will stop here…. But one last thing the author fails to state that is most important! The biggest problem in Africa is corruption! Trying to get the benefits all the way from the hand of the money paid by tourist hunter to the end of the line poverty-stricken villager is difficult! Trust me! The leak in that pipe is not on the safari companies’ side but it is in the community trust side through which that money has to pass to be allocated to projects that benefit the common village member. I will add one note, there is press releases of at least one article I have seen in the local Botswana news concerning the corruption involved in this trust. This should be in NO WAY construed with the safari company or with the PH. This situation is no different that the U.S. trying to send aid to Haiti after the big earthquake… It is a tremendous challenge to get the benefits through the political system and into the hands of ones in need.
Back to my opinion on promoting how hunting funds conservation. I realize this subject is complicated. For instance, I was on a plane in 2022 with a CEO from Texas and he was on his was to his 13th trophy bull Botswanna hunt. I was naively going off on him about how I thought it was horrible that American hunters hid their faces in trophy pictures especially with the iconic African animals. He staggered me when instead of agreeing he said, “Jerry, I am the CEO of a major company…. If I were to go kill and elephant and plaster my face all over social media with the kill; what would be the result?” He said, “untold numbers of people who had invested in the stock of my company could lose the security of their retirement portfolios,401K’s, or what not, because of my actions! That would be quite selfish of me he said. He said, “Jerry, my actions would affect others!” Well, there you go! Good point! On the other hand, let’s take Phillip Glass for instance who was featured in the movie, “Trophy”. When we spoke to me on this subject he said, “Jerry, people said to me your crazy Phillip for taking a film crew with you on your hunt for the big five!” Phillip said, “yeah but anytime I can speak out for conservation and someone is willing to listen; I will!” Then he said, “look, I’m a rancher and I self-employed. What can they really do to me! So, I will admit your personal situation and who will be affected for your taking a stand on conservation has to be considered. In the end you must decide for yourself. That leads me to my last point… Do you remember the Sandy hook massacre? It was young school kids as I recall killed with an “assault rifle” as the media like to call the semi-automatic firearm which was used. Anyway, Myself and untold others were all exhibitors in Harrisburg at the big outdoor show. Biggest in the country at the time! Progressive insurance was the big sponsor and had been for as long as I had been exhibiting my hunting lodge at that Expo. Anyway, Progressive laid down the law… NO exhibitors having anything to do with large capacity magazines or AR style rifles would be allowed to exhibit! I am making an analogy here…. Follow me… What should we have done… Said, OH well… Who really needs an AR style rifle…. Let’s just keep quiet and surely, they won’t come for our shotguns or our deer rifles…. Maybe you think that! There was a lot to lose after all. Some of the vendors would lose everything and go broke if they did not do that show! Little funnel cake vendors, arts and crafts vendors, etc.… These folks had planned all year for this nine-day show with over a million attendees and without it their business would be insolvent for the year. Well, we didn’t cave! We decided; with Jim Shockey leading the charge as I recall, that it was all for one and one for all! I am telling you if you give an inch to the antis and become ashamed of your hunting, they will only take more ground. If you cave on defending the hunting of iconic Africa animals like lion and elephant, giraffe and rhino, thinking they won’t come for buffalo and your antelope hunting; I think you are mistaken! That’s what happens in politics right? Kids in cages… You saw the pictures! How about the Border patrol whipping the migrants at the river crossing? Remember? Were these photos really showing what the media said they were? No! So, the point is the media will find a photo to use against us! They will create one! They will fabricate a story! That is their record! Whatever you decide to do personally is your business but can we agree not disparage a PH, Concession holder, or fellow hunter who puts a tastefully posed photo of a legal hunted animal out on social media! Remember this! There is no plains game on quota in this huge area. How do you add value to wildlife and protect remote areas like this in Africa with no value for photo tourism etc. You hunt what you can hunt sustainably and use that revenue to fund the concession. In the case of concessions like this one the revenue from the hunting of just five elephants and two leopards can provide the protection of nearly a million acres! Not to mention all the additional benefits like employment, anti-poaching, and community develop, and the learning of useful skills gained by the employees that can be used elsewhere.
Criag Boddington came to visit me at my lodge a couple of weeks ago. We discussed how I could get the word out about the benefits of hunting for conservation in Africa. He suggested that social media would have to be my platform. Recently I have been talking with Sue Tidwell the author of “the cries of the savannah”. She has written a wonderful book on the benefits that regulated hunting has for conservation in Africa. Robbie Kruger’s Blood Origin podcast does a great job getting the word out on conservation and hunting. All of us can do what we can to get the word out. Some have a platform and many of us do not. I just hope we can all agree not to disparage those that choose to stand up for hunting.