African Game Hunters

03/06/2024

Please note: Our email address has changed.
In future please use [email protected].
Reach out to us if you are looking for a new hunting adventure.

03/04/2024

Conveying the truth about hunting

21/12/2023

It's all about the right animal and the right companion. Hunting is not a sport - it truly is a passion and love for the outdoors.

28/02/2023

Sometimes you need to stop and notice the smaller things. Amazing patterns!

25/12/2022

Merry Christmas everyone🧑‍🎄

21/12/2022

We are giving 15 elephants away to anti-hunters, so they can demonstrate how to manage these animals without hunting!

SHARE - SHARE - SHARE

We have sent out the following open letter:

Would you like to adopt a family group of elephants?

You can have them for free – no strings attached!

Dear Mr. Goncalves,

A landowner in South Africa has kindly decided to donate an entire family group of approximately 15 wild elephants to anyone who can provide suitable long-term habitat and non-lethal management of the animals. The reason behind this donation is that the area where the elephants currently live has become overpopulated. There is not enough food in the area to sustain the current elephant population in the long run.

Why don't you show us your alternatives to hunting/culling? This is your chance!

The landowner is willing to give away the surplus family group of elephants (that is approximately 15 animals) to anyone who will:
1. Provide suitable habitat for the elephants where they can roam freely and live as wild elephants
2. Have the elephants professionally translocated by the end of May 2023 at your own cost
3. Be transparent about the future management of this particular group of elephants

And there are almost certainly more free elephants for anyone who comes up with a viable long-term solution. Probably thousands of them.

But let's start with this family group. You can have them. Do you want them?

If you are seriously interested in taking over this family group of elephants, we will put you in contact with the owner. We will not disclose the name of the owner nor the location of the elephants to anyone other than serious takers due to the obvious security risks involved. You can reach us at the following email:

[email protected]

Please spread the word. We are willing to donate these elephants to anyone who meets the above criteria. If you cannot care for these animals maybe somebody else in the animal rights community can.

If there are no takers, the elephant numbers will be reduced the proven way. And yes – that means that elephants will be shot and processed into meat for consumption.

Background

We've all heard that the African Bush Elephant is classified as an endangered species. In southern Africa, however, a lot of the habitat suitable for elephants is massively overpopulated. The development is decreasing the natural carrying capacity for many species – including the elephants – and will sooner or later lead to local mass die-offs in the wake of droughts or simple depletion of natural food resources. The overabundance of elephants is becoming an increasing threat to the functionality of local ecosystems.

It is widely acknowledged that elephant overpopulation leads to the degradation of natural habitats. Among many others the Humane Society of the United States – who strongly oppose hunting / culling of elephants - has publicly stated:

"Failure to control the reproduction of the species ... leads to a population that exceeds the carrying capacity of the reserve and to habitat degradation,"

However, controlling the reproduction of elephants in areas where the numbers have already exceeded the carrying capacity will not solve the problem.

The only sensible solution from a practical nature conservation perspective is to actively reduce the number of elephants to fit the carrying capacity of the areas holding them. Reductions of local elephant populations are achievable through either translocation, hunting / culling (killing the surplus elephants), or (with much slower results) birth control.

Unfortunately, translocation is not a real possibility as all suitable areas in southern Africa are either overpopulated or on their way to becoming so. Finding takers with the necessary habitat and willingness to pay for professional capture and translocation is nearly impossible.

Birth control is also a less-than-desirable solution. In the long term, it has the same effect on the future population as hunting / culling, but it is arguably much more stressful to the animals to dart them over and over than it is to shoot them. Furthermore, it is debatable whether populations managed with injections of birth control medications can genuinely be considered wild animals.

On top of that, birth control is a costly and unnatural procedure that keeps many landowners from wanting elephants on their land as the surplus animals will only cost a lot of money rather than bring an income. It also litters the habitat with non-biodegradable plastic and metal darts – flying syringes with sharp needles - one for each elephant cow darted every year.

Most importantly, birth control does not solve any immediate overpopulation problems. It will not reduce the population fast enough to prevent damage to ecosystems caused by current overpopulation.

Therefore, hunting/culling surplus animals is the best practice when numbers need to be reduced. For the same reason, we cull red deer in Scotland, wild boar in Germany, whitetail in the US, and just about any other wildlife population that breeds well and eventually approaches the natural carrying capacity of its habitat. It's not a big drama. On the contrary, it is a great conservation success story that elephants in southern Africa thrive so well that their numbers exceed the carrying capacity of the available habitat.

Hunting/culling surplus animals protect local biodiversity by protecting entire ecosystems. On top of that, it yields nutritional organic and fully sustainable wild meat, generates income for local communities, and therefore creates a strong financial incentive for landowners to set aside land for wildlife habitat.

Action speaks louder than words

We sincerely hope that you or someone else on the anti-hunting side of the nature Conservation community will adopt these and other surplus elephants. A lot of landowners, nature conservation professionals, and hunters, are looking forward to a real-life demonstration of the non-lethal management alternatives that all of you in the anti-hunting and animal welfare organizations claim you have.

Please adopt this family group of elephants and show us your alternatives. We need a viable long-term solution for tens of thousands of elephants in southern Africa – this is a good start.

Contact us no later than May 31st 2023 on:

[email protected]

Jens Ulrik Høgh
Nordic Safari Club - Conservation

We will send this open letter directly to the following people/organizations. Please help us to spread this as widely as possible. Let us see if anyone steps up and "saves" these elephants or if it is all just talk...

Sir Roger Gale
Will Travers / Born Free Foundation
Eduardo Goncalves
Carrie Johnson / Aspinall Foundation
Zac Goldsmith
Ricky Gervais
Peter Egan
Kevin Pietersen
Pierce Morgan
IFAW
Humane Society United States
PETA
Sir Ranulph Fiennes
Jane Goodall

06/10/2022

The neocolonial face of the EU parliament...

The white rhino of southern Africa is on of many species that have benefitted immensely from the influx of money from hunting tourism. If it hadn't been for hunting the white rhino would either be struggling to survive or it would have gone extinct. Most of the money poured into anti-poaching initiative to protect the animals from illegal hunting comes from legal hunting. Without these funds poaching will rapidly increase and the rhino population will plummet. The remaining rhinos will be riddled with bullet holes...

One would think that the MEPs of the EU parliament would be in favor of protecting these animals. That they would recognize the success of the hunting based conservation model that produce strong results on the ground. But no.

Yesterday the EU parliament voted in favor of a resolution to Ban the import of CITES listed hunting trophies into the EU. It is almost as if they really want to see species like the white rhino go extinct. And they are certainly not afraid of dictating management limitations to southern African range states who has a track record of practical nature conservation success.

The clowns are telling the brain surgeons how operate. It's a disgrace. It's neocolonialism deeply rooted in simple racism. I do not understand how identifying as an animal lover justifies hatred toward other human beings. And I find it downright scary that our EU lawmakers are either ignorant or indifferent to the faith of wildlife.

The text of the resolution:

"Urges the Commission and the Member States to take immediate effective action in the framework of its commitments outlined in the EU biodiversity strategy to ban the import of hunting trophies derived from CITES-listed species"

They should be ashamed of themselves. I will return with a list of the politicians who voted to destroy African wildlife.

Jens Ulrik Høgh
Nordic Safari Club - Conservation

18/07/2022

In the land of giants.

24/06/2022

Hunting has proved to be a successful tool for conservation time and time again.

Learn more about SCI's with the link below!
https://safariclub.org/BIG-FIVE-SERIES/

05/06/2022

Fantastic photographic trip and the end of a very successful hunt with our French friends

18/04/2022

Amazing textures in the wild.

09/02/2022

Wildlife Department Khyber Pakhtunkhwa distributed cheques in different communities of Chitral and Kohistan on account of the community share in the

07/02/2022

Good days hunting Buffalo in Mozambique.

15/01/2022

A hunting trophy import ban will NOT stop poaching

This lion was killed in a poacher's snare. A fate far more common than being killed by a so-called "trophy hunter".

Lions are best protected in hunting areas where there is income from hunting to fund rangers and hunters and PH's patrol the areas regularly. Stopping - or limiting - regulated trophy hunting will increase poaching (unregulated illegal hunting) and decimate wildlife populations. This has been demonstrated repeatedly.

In real life, working to ban "trophy hunting" is working to boost poaching and decimating wildlife. You heard me right. Anti-hunting organizations are enemies of wildlife.

Jens Ulrik Høgh
Nordic Safari Club - Conservation

01/01/2022

25/11/2021

21/11/2021

Dangerous Game Hunting!

10/11/2021

Four permits were auctioned for the markhor trophy hunting for year 2021-2022. Only 4. Not 40. 4.

The highest amount obtained for the trophy hunting permit was $160,250.

The auction of permits fetched Pakistan a record-high revenue of $575,500 in total.

The markhor population has now increased to 3,500-4,000 in the country as compared to 1,500-2,000 in 2001.

Under the trophy hunting program, the local communities receive 80% of the licence fee with the government keeping the rest. The amount varies as the licences are issued through a bidding process.

It seems so straight forward. Logical. Sustaining. So why so much push back against hunting?

27/10/2021

Give us a 👍 and share if you agree.

23/10/2021

BANS LEAD TO LOSS OF WILDLIFE AND LOCAL JOBS IN AFRICA!!!

A scientific assessment on the consequences of trophy import bans...

Here is what four nature conservation scientists have found about the probable consequences of trophy import bans in Western countries:

"It is concluded that trophy hunting and trade bans by some global north countries without an alternative global conservation framework that provides conservation incentives will likely reverse the gains in wildlife conservation and rural development in some global south countries where sustainable utilisation is an integral part of the wildlife conservation practice."

Or - as the headline states - in plain English:

BANS LEAD TO LOSS OF WILDLIFE AND LOCAL JOBS IN AFRICA!!!

See the entire assessment here:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2351989421003085

Jens Ulrik Høgh

Nordic Safari Club - Communication

Support our cause - join our association here: https://nscwildlifeconservation.com/

19/10/2021

Awesome Buffalo bull hunted in Limpopo,
South Africa!

17/10/2021

Posted •

For the next two weeks leading up to October 22nd we will turn our attention to the PROOF of what hunting is doing for South Africa.

Monetarily, hunting is an incredible source of GDP for the South African economy.

But have you thought beyond that?

Wildlife has gone from 500,000 to 26 million since the 1970’s and privatization of wildlife.

How many peoples lives have changed because of hunters and revenue from hunting?

How many people, families, communities have indirectly benefited?

What’s happening on October 22nd? A release of a film that shows the CONSEQUENCE of hunting 👊🏻

⌨️: Saayman et al. 2018. The Economic Impact of Trophy Hunting in the South African Wildlife Industry

14/09/2021

Looking forward to spend time around the camp fire with clients and friends.

26/08/2021

Once again a wonderful day at work!

29/07/2021

This piece first ran in the July 19th edition of The Hunting Wire as part of the Voices of Leadership Panel Series. The full edition can be found here.