Hi Folks,

I rarely wander away from the African Hunting Forum, but in a discussion at another website some guy said "In my 20 years of conservation I have not encountered (and yes I am a hunter myself) NOT one good sustainable trophy hunting project in Europe and Asia"

I'm sure that's BS, but I don't have any facts since I don't know much about Europe. Can anyone give me a few examples to counter his comment?

Thanks.

Sorry I don't have a specific website to suggest,but take alook at hunting in Switzerland. It is by no means cheap. The Swiss are famous for precision, and their fish and game laws certainly take sustainable harvest into account.

Perhaps the history of roe trophies as have been taken consistently out of the uk should about sum it up...

Trophy hunting in Europe is not as ingrained as it is in the USA as we don't have the limits on number of animals we can take. When you get one tag a year then you may only want to use it on the biggest buck possible while if you have to control numbers the considerations are different.

K

True Kiri, but they are not projects, just what's generally accepted as good practice and a little restraint and selection at culling.

Whatever, it works and there's a regular crop of medal winning trophies in the UK every year, many taken by guest hunters.

UK Deer numbers are still trending slightly upwards and culling may need to get a bit more agressive if the number of RTA's continue to increase.
http://www.deercollisions.co.uk/ftp/July08shtnew.pdf

Getting a license out of Natural England to shoot out of Season or at Night is still a lot more difficult than it should be.

I wonder if "that guy" was from Texas? They use a lot of different methods to encourage trophy size, from nutritional supplements to specific forage crops and culling non-desireable trophies. I fail to see how any of that is "sustainable trophy production."

I think sustainable hunting stems from conservation practices that provide good habitat for animals, rather than encouraging unnatural antler size through human intervention.

Canadian deer have much larger antlers on average than the States and that's a matter of natural factors, not hunt farm management.

The simple fact that there is so much good hunting in a place as grossly overpopulated as western Europe is clear proof of excellent long term, widespread game management.

Dean

Very little throphy hunting is done here in sweden most hunters hunt for meat and a thophy is just a bonus. Selection of the game animals is made by biological reasons.
Some care of thophy aninmals of roe and reddeer is made in southern sweden.

Do you class Australia as Asia ?

Their are a few projects here that are sustainable and good trophy hunting of Wild Fallow deer which includes severe culling over the last few years as well to keep numbers down during the drought.