So where were we?
I was fascinated to realize that the “South African hunting” we enjoy is as much about farming and agriculture.
In much of African hunting country, with the exception of those critters I mentioned to whom eight-foot fences are irrelevant, wildlife lives on game farms ranging from 75 to 100,000 acres of natural savanna habitat. This habitat varies from open grassland to thorn thickets you would not enter. The wildlife is owned by the farmer. Some farms are specifically designed as hunting concessions, but most farmers – while they may encourage occasional hunting – are raising animals for meat, which is competitive at the market with the beef, goat, mutton, pork or chicken which they also stock.
The farmer may designate animals to be hunted by an outfitter, who will then charge some hunter a trophy fee of $200 to $50,000 or more (depending on the rarity or popularity of the critter). The hunt will be with a PH (a licensed professional hunter) on the concession. Once the animal is taken, the outfitter will pay the landowner an agreed upon fee and will own it. The meat may go quickly to market, or to a village or family for food. The hunter will keep parts for a mount, or skull/horns, hide for leather or a rug, or whatever. Generally, a portion of the meat becomes table fare for the hunter, outfitter, PH and other staff.
The hunts are rarely simple or easy, even on a small concession. Case in point: our pursuit of two large blue wildebeest bulls on a 75-acre concession. Richard and I had talked about hunting a couple critters I thought might be challenging, but I was mostly coming to spend time with them and learn more about the lives of them and their Afrikaner friends and the other Africans with whom they worked and interacted. The day I arrived, Richard told me that one of his friends, Bertus, had the two bulls to be removed from one of his concessions so that he could start a herd of much more valuable golden wildebeest. Richard would get them for a cull – meat – price and I could have one of them for a fraction of the normal trophy fee of nearly $2000. Not on my list, but was I interested in what could be an interesting hunt in some typical thorn and clearing habitat in an area roughly ¼ mile by ½ mile? How could I say no? It took us from late morning until dark to find, stalk, lose, re-find, sneak and take both bulls. As Richard put it, they were both “monsters,” and it was, indeed, an interesting hunt.
How many ways do hunting and agriculture intertwine here in our country? Over half a century, I have taken a couple dozen elk, antelope and deer off farms and ranches where they were unable to resist raiding domestic haypiles, alfalfa fields or grain bins. My search for a big boar warthog – the equivalent of the very big sow I took in 2011 – took us to two feedlots. The first was a huge cattle-feeding operation, with an owner fed up with hogs raiding the grain and ensilage he put out for the cattle. It was a breezy and cool evening, meaning that few pigs would venture out, but we had a fine couple hours watching two young pigs demonstrate how skittish they can be. Two days later, neighbor Marko and I took a long armed walk through the bush in a concession with cape buffalo – and too many warthogs. After stalking a sow and a couple youngsters, we retired to a tree about a hundred yards from a supplemental grain feeding station for the buffalo. Each warthog arriving was bigger than the last, until a very nice boar appeared, ready to ingest his part of the buffalo’s grain. After some debate, I passed on the boar – and on warthogs for this trip.
Marko and I headed back at dusk for my post-dinner night-time adventure with Richard and the nocturnal bushpigs (Africa’s wild boar). A different sort of adventure. Richard got the pigs close enough, but my mistakes in the blind left me pigless. Another unforgettable African moment.
When we go to Wyoming on our annual deer and antelope safaris, we hunt much the same as in South Africa. We have a central camp. Each evening we consider the day’s hunting and decide which ranch or public piece we might hunt the next day. One ranch may have more of this or that, less hunting pressure or better odds of finding what we wanted, than another “concession.” The land may have a different handle, and the trespass fee (or none) will vary from the animal price in South Africa, but day to day hunting experiences are surprisingly similar. Even the weather; right now those Limpopo days are just about what we will experience in our fall hunting here – near freezing mornings and shirtsleeve afternoons.
That legal hassle over the gate with the neighbor? As so often here, the judge wondered how it ever got to court and strongly urged a settlement agreement. They agreed on the proposal Richard offered when the issue was first raised – and each was left many thousands of Rand poorer.
In so many ways, going to South Africa is like dropping in on family. And it’s good to be home.
