Got this from a long time friend and PH in Namibia:

I have to tell you that our country Namibia is at the moment under a state of emergency because of the worst drought in the last 130 years. We had in our entire rainy season from January till end of April only 3and a half inches with no grass growing for all our herbivores. We already lost 42 head of cattle and various of our game animals and we still have another five months to go before the small rainy season ( if it ever happens). Now we use up all our reserves to buy fodder to help the remaining animals to survive. They call it “climate change”. All my attempts to get government going to go for the cloud seeding option failed because Namibia at the present moment has no money to invest in it???

Might no bode well for hunting there now, but might lead to some cull hunts to take out extra and stressed game.

I head over there the first of August, everything will defiantly be concentrated around the water holes. I hate it for the farmers but they go these cycles and droughts every so often.

I just got back from a 10 day hunt in the Kamanjab area of NW Namibia. The severe draught has burned out what used to be grassy plains into nearly bare dirt. Several of the PH's I know are offering price reductions to try to cull down the game animals and reduce losses due to lack of forage and grass. One PH offered a 50% price reduction on both Blue and Black Wildebeest bulls. We hunted on his ranch one afternoon, but only saw a herd of about 20 Black Wildebeests heading for the Botswana border.

Very sorry to hear this. I thought the rainy season of late '17 to '18 had been good and the crisis was averted. Guess not.

we were in Namibia 3 weeks and just got home last Friday. We hunted 2 different areas: Gobabis east of Windhoek and Otjandaue west of Windhoek. Both PH’s/owners are very concerned about the draught and have not yet fully recovered from the last one. We did our part to help. We killed a total of 17 beautiful beasts. All the animals were still fat, sleek and healthy. But it will be a rough winter.

Safe hunting
LL

We were in the Aroab area in the very south east last month and it was noticeably dry.

The farmer thanked us for taking some of the really thin gemsbok.

The two of us took 23 animals

I am heading over in two weeks for a tour / cull hunt in Kaokoland with Estreux safaris. I will give a report when I get back.

Very sad to hear. We were there in October '16 and the place was in the grips of drought then.

We pray for them.

Wish that we could give you some of ours. We had 101 inches last year. I watched my Father cry one time during one of the bad droughts we had in the early 80's. I was around 10 years old but I remember it like yesterday. He was on his knees digging in the ground trying to find any type of root life. We lost 1400 acres of grain and corn back to back those years. We had to sell over 1/2 of our cattle heard. Farming and ranching is hard enough with all of the other variables that come into play.
I hope they can get though this tough time with minimum losses.

quote:

Originally posted by Bud Meadows:
I just got back from a 10 day hunt in the Kamanjab area of NW Namibia. The severe draught has burned out what used to be grassy plains into nearly bare dirt. Several of the PH's I know are offering price reductions to try to cull down the game animals and reduce losses due to lack of forage and grass. One PH offered a 50% price reduction on both Blue and Black Wildebeest bulls. We hunted on his ranch one afternoon, but only saw a herd of about 20 Black Wildebeests heading for the Botswana border.

I don't think there is any free range Black Wildebeest in Namibia Bud, so I think the Game Fence will hold them ?

Very sad to hear of the drought, I have a good friend up there & hope he & his family are faring well !

I see Bud has just hunted with them & had a great hunt !

Situation is absolutly horrible and little hope at this point. We are in progress to cancel hunts for late season in Namibia as things will go downhill fast, I think.

quote:

Originally posted by Caracal:
Situation is absolutly horrible and little hope at this point. We are in progress to cancel hunts for late season in Namibia as things will go downhill fast, I think.

Very sad.

I've hunted on two places that have free range black wildebeest in Namibia , one up by Grootfontein and the other was south west of Windhoek.

The drought started in 2012 and this year in the Kunene has been the worst so far. We did have some rainfall late last year that did help the grasses and wildlife, but most of the grassland is now exhausted and game animals are moving out of the region. Hunting so far in the Concession lands has been good and the wildlife is in surprisingly good condition at the moment, but there will be little late season hunting.

Animals contained behind high fence are basically screwed. So there is a lot of culling going on and some folks are cutting fences in hopes of saving a few.

On a positive note, predator populations continue to explode and there is a lot of problem animals to cull on farmland especially around the southern Etosha fence line. Farmers need help protecting their breeder stock which is all they have left. The government is basically broke so there is little they can do to assist the farmers.

TIA

Amazing, must be feral herds from escapes or released animals if not enclosed/fenced ?

Unlike SA, only a very small portion of Namibia's wildlife is contained behind high fence. So most of the animals can and do move to better grasslands. Historically this has been Angola and the Caprivi Strip, but Angola is also seeing less rainfall this year.

We've seen large herds (150+) of Oryx moving out of the Namib Desert to grasslands in the North and East. Namibia's wildlife is amazingly resilient and the drought will end sooner or later. Things will get back to normal... for Namibia.

I think Sarg is talking about Bud's comment that black wildebeeste were heading for Botswana. I have hunted with Jan before and while he has great hunting for gemsbok, kudu, springbok, klipspringer, and steenbok on his unfenced land, pretty much everything else his clients hunt is on other ranches that are high fenced.

Like Sarg, I would be stunned if there are truly wild black wildebeeste in Namibia.

quote:

Originally posted by AnotherAZWriter:
I think Sarg is talking about Bud's comment that black wildebeeste were heading for Botswana. I have hunted with Jan before and while he has great hunting for gemsbok, kudu, springbok, klipspringer, and steenbok on his unfenced land, pretty much everything else his clients hunt is on other ranches that are high fenced.

Like Sarg, I would be stunned if there are truly wild black wildebeeste in Namibia.

Yes that is exactly what I meant, I have spent a fair amount of time in Namibia & I didn’t know there were any free ranging Whitetailed Gnu/Blackwilderbeest in that country as these only occur naturally in SA !

But who knows now days as alot of free ranging/escaped Nyala around the area I work in now !

Black Wildebeest were introduced in Namibia during the early 1900's in an effort to save the species. Prior to that, there were none naturally occuring in the region. So today, there are some "naturally" occuring (depends on one's definition) Black Wildebeest in Namibia, but the large proportion of them exist behind high fence. So if one sees a Black Wildebeest in the wild, it is either there by transplant or an escapee from a farm. While rare, we do see them from time to time in the Kunene.

Just a few days ago I saw and Nyala between Outjo and Kamanjab. Definitely AWOL from a farm.

The two places that I hunted black wildebeest they were introduced and have done very well, the areas are not high fenced so they could leave but seem to stay in the same general areas and have been there for many years.

We just returned from hunting a very large game and cattle farm about 3 hours south of Windhoek. Although always a dry area, it was totally grass-less and animals scarcer and scattered compared to when I hunted it in 2007. The owner has long-since sold the last of his cattle and encouraged us to shoot as much game as we would in order to further thin the herd to hopefully preserve some "seed stock" until rain comes. Species like oryx and springbok were still fairly abundant, but animals less well-adapted to the desert environment like the wildebeests, kudus, and impala were hurting. Surprisingly, his giraffe heard has grown from 40 animals to about 60 in the last decade. They seem to do just fine eating the tops out of the thorny brush. He has ample bore holes for water, so that's not the problem, it's a total lack of forage.

The owner has a just a couple of more hunters coming this year and says it will be his last year he will be able to offer hunts until conditions change tremendously. And this is on 54,000 hectares which normally produces 500 springbok annualy for the commercial market. Try telling people whose livelihoods depend on the weather that there is no such thing as climate change.

Of course there is climate change. There has always been climate change. There will always be climate change.
It’s just that CO2 from made made sources is so insignificant that it is farcical to suggest that is why the climate changes.

Will be in Namibia between Outjo and Kamanjab in mid-August.

Situation is as dire as painted in above posts. Our hosts started making pellets using acacia tops mixed with Lucerne, salt, oil, etc. last year but now have to buy in Lucerne as, apparently, zebra do not eat pellets and the farm has a large herd of Hartman's mountain zebra. The eland, however, prosper from pellets and have plenty of water due to solar pumps down in the acquifer. Expect I'll hunt eland...

Regards, Tim

I got back about a month ago from a tour and premium hunt with Anton Esterhuizen of Estreux Safaris in Orupembe conservancy in Kaokoveld. Below are some current photos and then a few older ones in the same are after a good rainy season. It is very dry.









On the drive there from the Skeleton Coast.


The following photos are the same area after a good rainy season.








I will hopefully get a full hunt report up by the end of this week.

Enough to break your heart.

Wow the difference rain makes.

George

Will be spending 3 weeks overlanding in NW Namibia over December including the Orupembe Conservancy.

Planning to drive a lot of the riverbed tracks which may be impossible with rains, seeing these pictures I will definitely not mind detouring via other tracks.

I heard that this is the worse drought since 1896 !!!

We've had incredibly strong August winds and they continue to blow. If you believe the Bushmen and oldtimers, these are good signs for early rains (October - November). We shall see.

One thing is for sure, the Kunene wildlife will not survive another year of drought.

I just got back from a hunt in Bushmanland.
It is fairing much better than areas I saw driving up from Windhoek.

I’ve hunted Namibia now 5 times and it’s definitely the driest I’ve seen.

I can confirm the strong winds as Opus said.

Again never experienced such winds ever. In fact a couple of nights some heavy clouds rolled in and looked like rain, but alas nothing.

My tent/ chalet nearly blew away one night!
Had to zip up the doors to keep the wind out!.

Hope the rain comes soon.

I am in the Northwest Province / Kalahari area of RSA right now.. same situation - no rain, extreme drought. They are losing animals - especially the ones that won’t come in to eat feed that is put out.. all the black wildebeest died as they would not come to the feed..


Very bad situation - pray for rain!

Not to take anything away from folks miseries down there.
I feel everyone should read the book:
"The Worst Hard Time".
That will educate you as to just how bad it can get.

Dust Bowl days of SE CO, Kans, Ok, Tex.

IF that don't make you cry you're just an unfeeling sob.

Good luck on getting some decent rains.

George