Cost Breakdown - Niassa Special Reserve, Mozambique to Monarch Taxidermy, Montana

[Ontario Hunter]

I think this will hurt the business of hunting Africa significantly, especially the lower end "middle class" operations. As hunting in North America becomes increasingly overrun and with opportunities diminishing daily, Africa has a huge opportunity opening up to cash in. But this raking off by middlemen is to the point where it makes no sense to bring trophies home. Many of us who hunted Africa when retreiving trophies was reasonably affordable may still return because we have experienced the other attractants: wonderful people, spectacular scenery, abundant and incredible variety of game. But I think it will become a very hard sell for the new once-in-a-lifetime prospective clients to consider paying out their life savings to hunt Africa and then leave their trophies behind. Other more affordable options for "conventional" trophy hunting are out there. I'm looking at northern Canada, Central Asia, and South America for next year.

It's a damn shame. I would hate to see my current lodge and PHs suffer. And finally I've found a taxidermist over there who I can rely on. I don't want to see them hurt either. The best thing we can do to help is exactly what we are doing: tell the horror stories. Prospective clients need to know what they're getting into. Also, the middlemen will never fix the problem unless forced to and market forces are the best forces. Some of them may get hurt but hopefully things will get better in the end. The answer for this industry is not for the hunting consumers to simply say "Oh well" and keep writing cheques. The answer is to keep complaining where we can be heard.

 

[Puddle]

My brother called me up out of the blue to tell me his neighbor got the final tally for getting his 2 Zim buff mounts in hand. He said he called just to say, "I finally understand why you only take pics".

 

[Ontario Hunter]

At some point, cubic space, financial resources, or actuary tables catch up with all of us.

With respect to the first two, we can quit hunting or we need to do something different to memorialize those adventures. I'll come to the latter in a minute. One of the rationalizations that has worked for me, is to think of my trophy space as a reflection of my passion - not its sum total.

I now know three or four people who went to Africa, had life changing experiences, and yet will never return because they have no more room for trophies. That strikes me as a definition of insanity or perhaps self-inflicted injury.

For instance, I have taken probably a dozen oryx over the years. I enjoy hunting them. I have one shoulder mount and one Euro of that dozen. I did not enjoy any less the hunting of the ten whose horns did not end up in the storage room somewhere. The two that are mounted are a perfect segue to any discussion with guests on hunting Oryx or a safari in Namibia without having all 12 in formation on a wall.

I do religiously build photo journals of my hunts and international adventures my spouse and I so much enjoy. Some have become the basis for articles in publications such as "African Hunting Gazette." All of them are fun ways to return to a hot afternoon in Mozambique or a freezing morning in Namibia - in many ways they are far more fulfilling than staring at a mounted trophy.

Which also brings us to those actuary tables. None of us are getting out of this alive. No matter how much a grandchild may listen with rapt attention to our tales of high adventure pursuing a buffalo in the Caprivi, it is very unlikely they will want to decorate an apartment with him. If they become hunters as well, they likely will be trying to figure out what to do with their own acquisitions.

Disposing of them is also an issue. The trophies themselves have very little monetary value. Our heirs will get pennies on the dollar on that investment.

Photos and journals, on the other hand, are something that might very well interest an heir twenty years after we are in the grave. I know I would love to have something like that about my grandfather.

Red Leg, for once we are on the same page. I live in a very small old house and have limited space (my living room has one couch, my late wife's piano, and antique hutch for entertainment center). I have one pedestal mount muley for my daughter's taxidermy business. That's it. Everything else is euro or cap mounts and more of them than I have space for. But I still don't want to stop hunting Africa (soon to take off for my fourth trip).

I have one fine whitetail buck set of antlers above me as I write this. Dad shot it in 1955 I think. Must have been. Seeing that buck hang in a garage is one of my earliest memories. Perhaps it's what set me on the hunting path. But Dad is gone and I know nothing about how that hunt played out for him. So it's just some bones to remind me of him. It would mean so much more if I had the story to go with them. Now I record the stories for each adventure. My daughter once bought me a fancy leather journal but I gave up on it quickly. My veteran's disability is to my right hand and writing physically does not come easy. However, I can type up to 80 wpm. So I construct my recollections on computer. It is a wonderful tool! I build the stories with WordPerfect and convert to pdf. WordPerfect works much better than Word for inserting images. The pdf files can also be converted to jpg pages, although I find the quality of images after conversion is not great. With the right settings changes, pages in WP can be set up for binding offset and double sided paper. The finished product can go straight to a book bindery. Here's a page from my last trip.

Usually a header is added to each page with year and place. Not sure why that didn't come through.

I agree with Red Leg: something written like this is what will keep a trophy alive ... after I'm gone as well as for others to appreciate while I'm still here. A great way to generate interaction while I can still interact. Lesson learned from the whitetail rack hanging overhead. It has a story to tell ... but no way to speak.

I think having the physical trophies to go with the stories is most desirable. But I'm not a huge fan of fur and glass eyes. Takes up too much room and too high maintenance. Also difficult to hand off to the next generation. Skulls are much more manageable. Skulls with a booklet of the story is even better. I have mixed feelings about video productions. Some good points ... and some bad ones. Writing about the stalk and shot is more "tasteful" than showing an animal in its death throws. On the other hand, it is difficult to put that very special environment into words.

Unfortunately, even for euro skulls the cost of bringing back trophies has become absurd. One freight outfit tried to blame it on the airline. It's NOT the airline (though their rates have gone up). It's the forwarder who charged me $1200 to pick up the shipment and take it to the airport. The only way that jerk got away with it was because the taxidermist turned it over to him before I/we had a quote. Then I had no option but pay what he demanded.

 

[Osama Mahdi]

Because Turkish Airlines can get away with it. I had the same issue w them, but my bill was $1200 in storage fees.

That is insane

 

[IronRanger]

Overall, the cost of my first hunt will be less then the cost to get 9 trophys on the wall. Mix of ero's n mounts. Next trip (??), I'll not be brining anything home but photos. videos n memories. Easier to pass onto the next gen... but into of sad as well.


Next trip will be DSC, hope we see people there.. heard most years had a dinner?