Hi there hb,

Thank you for the kind words.

Yes, we do not have government concession areas in South Africa, even though Nature Conservation now hands out tenders for very controlled hunting in some game parks. This is very strictly controlled and a very limited amount of species are awarded. The farms are self contained, meaning that it is quite big areas where the game are free to roam. It is however fenced with high game fences and the ecology needs to be well managed so that you do not get to many of one species or to many animals for the stretch of land that you own. The size of these farms differ. Some are as small as 400 hectares but can go up to 5000 hectares or even bigger. I prefer to hunt on not less than 1500 hectares. On the smaller farms, you obviously would not find a huge variety of species and much less game.

There is no standard price, although there seem to be a norm where game farmers would compare their prices with the other farmers in the area. The prices of species also differ from area to area. Where a certain species occur naturally, you would obviously find the best trophies as well as a cheaper price e.g. in the Northern Cape, Springbok would be less costly than in the Northern Freestate OR Nyala, less costly in Northern Kwa Zulu Natal than in the Limpopo Province. Game auction prices also affects the market somewhat. On a well managed gamefarm, the owner would take off his trophy animals, which is in most cases the males and bring in "new blood", bought at game auctions. The prices of species increases every year. It is not measure by this but do affect the general game prices. Since you put in "new blood" it will take about 3 to 5 years before you will get good trophies again, from your initial stock. So,yes, prices do differ according to area.

I would say that trophy quality has decreased a bit, but hunting in general has increased. There are more and more livestock farmers converting to game farming in South Africa. One of the reasons are that they get a bigger income from this, even though hunting as an income is mostly seasonal. They do not have the cover cost as with livestock, like dipping and innoculation etc. Game tend to be more drought resistant than livestock and less prone to disease. Regarding general hunting in Africa; I would say the same but since there are mostly concession areas, the picture changes a bit. Due to civil war and turmoil in a lot of African countries, the hunting in those countries has suffered a bit. War and economic strugle in the rest of the world also affects the hunting bussines and tourism as a whole.

I would say that in South Africa, certain species are more on the increase due to conservation and game farming. Not all game farms in South Africa go for hunting, some only go for eco tourism and due to this, a lot of species are introduced to areas where they have been wiped out. In Africa, in general, I can not say what process they use to determane the species count. They do however have some form of control on species; just a certain quota on certain species are awarded for hunting per year. If my memory serves me correctly, I think that Lion hunting is closed in Botswana at the moment. This shows that there is some form of determaning game numbers. They have made mistakes in the past though, one African countrey stopped Elephant hunting for a number of years and only realised their mistake when the damage has been done. The Elephant population has increased so much that they devestated some of the forested parts of the countrey.

Yes, as I said, it would be very unlikely to take a trophy that would reach the number 1 or 2 Rowland Ward record. This is not impossible though. The hunting areas in Africa are huge and, with a lot of luck, you might still find that exceptional trophy. I would say that the decrease in trophy size is also due to hunting and poaching. There were so many hunter that passed through Africa through the years that the game do not reach their ripe old age before they are hunted and therefore the trophy size decreases. This is just my opinion and should not be taken as a rule of thumb. These are things that I have experienced and seen with all my travellings through Southern Africa.

I would conclude in saying that hunting is alive and well in Africa and that there is still a very good future for hunting and conservation on our continent.