dsweber
AH member
I am hoping to get some advice on what people think is the right response and course of action with my issues.
First a little background...
- Hunt took place 1st week of July 2010, Limpopo, SA
- My father and I intended to bring back 9 trophies (all plains game, no swine/cites)
- This was my 3rd trip to Africa, 1st to SA
Issues......
- All speicies were to be dip/packed except 4 were to be tanned (2 zebra and 2 wildebeest flat skins), Only 1 zebra tanned, 1 WB caped?, 1 zebra/1 WB lost
- 2 species of my fathers are missing (zebra/wildebeest above), Taxidermist says they did not receive from outfitter
- Price taxidermist is charging for dip/pack is 50% higher than brochure that we received from outfitter
- First communication from outfitter was this week (almost 11 months)
- Communication from outfitter has been super sparse, he has answered 2 of my 10 emails asking for updates since February
- Now that I know we are missing trophies and there is a mixup on instructions, no word from outfitter even though they have been copied on the email correspondence with the taxidermist.
Questions:
- Should I be worried about the raw preps with this amount of time passed?
- Even if they can find my father's trophies, I suspect they will be replacements and not original. So, should I just consider them lost? Wildebeest was a large trophy.
- What to do about the outfitter? They have been very bad at communication over the whole process so I do not believe they are away on vacation. Advice form a the hired PH is to keep escalating to the outfitter (behind the acenes). This PH does not really want to get involved as they have broken off and started their own operation.
- What about the price? I feel as I am being ripped off. The issue here is that the outfitter has tried to get me to have the mounts done at his taxidermist in SA and then when I said no he tried to steer me towrds one in the US that is very far from my home. Now it seems he doesn't care. Is it customary that outfitters have a financial arrangement with taxidermists? It seems like I am getting no help due to some sort of financial considerations.
Your comments are appreicated!
First a little background...
- Hunt took place 1st week of July 2010, Limpopo, SA
- My father and I intended to bring back 9 trophies (all plains game, no swine/cites)
- This was my 3rd trip to Africa, 1st to SA
Issues......
- All speicies were to be dip/packed except 4 were to be tanned (2 zebra and 2 wildebeest flat skins), Only 1 zebra tanned, 1 WB caped?, 1 zebra/1 WB lost
- 2 species of my fathers are missing (zebra/wildebeest above), Taxidermist says they did not receive from outfitter
- Price taxidermist is charging for dip/pack is 50% higher than brochure that we received from outfitter
- First communication from outfitter was this week (almost 11 months)
- Communication from outfitter has been super sparse, he has answered 2 of my 10 emails asking for updates since February
- Now that I know we are missing trophies and there is a mixup on instructions, no word from outfitter even though they have been copied on the email correspondence with the taxidermist.
Questions:
- Should I be worried about the raw preps with this amount of time passed?
- Even if they can find my father's trophies, I suspect they will be replacements and not original. So, should I just consider them lost? Wildebeest was a large trophy.
- What to do about the outfitter? They have been very bad at communication over the whole process so I do not believe they are away on vacation. Advice form a the hired PH is to keep escalating to the outfitter (behind the acenes). This PH does not really want to get involved as they have broken off and started their own operation.
- What about the price? I feel as I am being ripped off. The issue here is that the outfitter has tried to get me to have the mounts done at his taxidermist in SA and then when I said no he tried to steer me towrds one in the US that is very far from my home. Now it seems he doesn't care. Is it customary that outfitters have a financial arrangement with taxidermists? It seems like I am getting no help due to some sort of financial considerations.
Your comments are appreicated!