Game ranch vs. open land prices

[Savage Hunter]

after hearing your offer, I suddenly hate high fence hunting too. I'll take that dare from you.....but I'll have to wait til I get back from this year's hunt. lol.

I am inviting you to Kwalata for a week, come and hunt with me...if your feelings are the same it's free, if I have converted you, I will be charging brochure rates available on our website, and paying you a small commission for sending all your friends my way.....

This is the only way for us to prove our point.... (Make sure to bring two pairs of well broken in hunting boots)

I don't believe your statements to be fair and by no means represent the entire industry.

My best always

 

[Torqued]

Where do the game animals come from on high fence properties?

 

[bluey]

Where do the game animals come from on high fence properties?

My understanding of this is some are bought at auction ,and freed .
While others are born and bred on the properties

 

[enysse]

Where do the game animals come from on high fence properties?

Sometimes auctions, other times neighboring properties....just remember leopards and other predators respect no property lines, the animals are wired to escape. They know where to escape. You should see baboons move through a piece of land...they move like the wind. Last time I was there 5 monster warthogs gave me the slip. I saw them in the distance, put a stalk on, but they disappear and many options to escape. Impala that would watch me like hawk and run in the opposite direction I stalked. They made whitetail hunting a very boring affair.

 

[sestoppelman]

Lest we forget the game was there before the fences. And yes, properties are stocked with whatever species the owners want to sell, but many had game on them even when and if they were primarily cattle ranches.

 

[BRICKBURN]

Lest we forget the game was there before the fences. .......

It sure was in a lot of cases.

In self sustaining populations the game is actually born on the property after the fence goes up.

As, has been noted earlier game animals can go under and over fences with regularity.

A acquaintance of mine "stocked" his small high fence property with Kudu. He does this at little cost, never goes to an auction and only provides some water, salt and of course lucerne when the grass is poor.

He never hunts a Kudu cow. They come and go through the property as they like, eating, drinking and licking salt. He waits for a rutting Bull to jump the high fence to tend the cows on his side.
When they come past his bow blind; Biltong!

 

[enysse]

Nice Brickburn!

Last time in Africa, I was on a free range property that had a hot kudu cow, well a 52" kudu from a 12' fence (neighboring property) had to check her out. Fatal love!

 

[BRICKBURN]

Nice Brickburn!

Last time in Africa, I was on a free range property that had a hot kudu cow, well a 52" kudu from a 12' fence (neighboring property) had to check her out. Fatal love!

It did engender a lot of respect for his hunting ability.

The fence also did not stop the Caracal from entering his property through the fence and eating his Impala.

Some you win, some you lose.

 

[Norwegianwoods]

Where do the game animals come from on high fence properties?

I can give you an example from a high fence property in Northern Cape I hunted in 2011.
Many of the animals was already there when the fence was put up.
Some crossed the fence in different ways in and out as they wanted.
The other species was introduced by the owner. Sable, Rowan and Rhino are examples of species he introduced.
The owner only introduced(put) animals into his property if he wanted to have a new specie there. Never to stock up again after hunting.
Then that specie was off limit for some years till they had bred so much that it was sustainable to hunt them.

You hunted animals that had been born and lived their whole live on the property.
Not once was I even close to have the fence to be in play when it came to the hunting.
The animals acted very wild as they were hunted hard. They were more cautious and got easier scared than what I have seen on low or no-fence areas where the animals don't encounter hunters very often.
The property had many biltong hunters coming there to shoot non-trophy animals to keep the animal numbers down so they could be self sustainable.

 

[Primo661]

The point I was making with fences, landowners are putting in lot of money to develop water, food, cover...let animals grow old. Yes, some animals come and go through the fence but they maintain a viable hunting property. Where would all the animals could go if they could go anywhere, what would prevent them from be poached, shot undescriminately.

I agree completely. I am all for hunting high fence concessions or conservancies. The fact is, they and the hunters that fund them have done more for conservation than almost anything else in South Africa and the vast majority are facilitate fair chase hunts in my mind. The point I was making was fences or no fences does not a free range property make. Like I say, I could guide a foreign client on the property I mentioned and have him shoot trophy reedbuck, nyala and impala and he wouldn't feel like the hunt was a fair chase hunt that the original poster describes even though it was if you go by the book.

Having said that, I do appreciate the concerns that our visiting hunters have for high fenced properties with all the fuss that has been made about canned hunting and populations bred and fed specifically to be hunted and their numbers bumped back up at the yearly game auction gives the impression that these properties may be little more than cattle ranches set up like a production line, which they are not.

Regardless of what one feels about game ranches, there's no denying the positive impact these enterprises have had on preserving game animals. Others can probably quote with authority the increase in game animals in RSA due to traditional ranching operations being converted to game ranches.

That following is off the top of my head so correct me if I am wrong. I believe that prior to South Africa changing its laws in the 1960's and 1970's to make the type of hunting properties we see today legal, there was a head count just shy of 500 000 game animals in South Africa. Current estimates place that number at 10 million animals on 20.5 million ha(16% of the total land area of South Arica), 5000km2 is being converted to wildlife habitat each year and currently around 70% of the game and wildlife habitat in South Africa is privately owned. The lions share of this is probably in high fenced hunting areas.