Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Sport hunting with no mounts?

I think you enjoy being a PITA. I'm out.......

I've been managing this business for almost 25 years now. In the early years 100% of hunters took 100% of the trophy parts home plus flat skins and curios.

Over the last 10 years that has dropped considerably. Somewhere along the line the cost of a PG safari on your wall at home exceeded the cost of the trip itself. Today about 1 in 3 bring everything home. 1in 3 bring nothing home and the remainder bring home selected items. Actually in some seasons for us now over 1/2 the people bring home nothing.

I have multiple hunters come many times and bring nothing back. Saying I'm a hunter not a collector. " I can hunt much more often not spending the money on taxidermy."

JGRaider,

Ah, yes, as soon as I saw who started this thread I got an overwhelming sense of deja vu. Of course, the Campfire in general can provide that on any given day.

But when somebody basically posts exactly the same thing as they did once before, in order to re-recite their discerning tastes and ethics (and how many mounts they can cram inside their museum) it's not a question like ".280 vs. .280 Ackley Improved," but a mission statement.

Interesting topic.

If one doesn't want to take a trophy home then why not just go on a photo safari or at the very least take home horns and skull caps and do horn mounts? Cabela's sells antler mount kits for a song that are do it yourself and easy to assemble. Why the need to kill an animal and just leave it? I know some will say nothing goes to waste in Africa if you leave it but that seems to me to be nothing more than rationalization of disrespectful behavior and poor sporting ethics. I know guys who refuse to kill game animals they can't take home and put in the freezer, a view which I may find a bit extreme but can certainly respect, killing animals just for a photograph, not so much.

Rather than hijack somebodies thread, I figured I'd start this as its own thread.

I would like to know this forums feelings about going to Africa, whacking a few animals and leaving everything behind.

Further, using those savings of not dipping, shipping, mounting everything to go back sooner?

Steve

I think this quote sums up your question:


Death is essential because without it there is no authentic hunting… The hunter seeks this death because it is no less than the sign of reality for the whole hunting process. To sum up, one does not hunt in order to kill; on the contrary, one kills in order to have hunted.

At least, anyhow, for me.

Rather than hijack somebodies thread, I figured I'd start this as its own thread.

I would like to know this forums feelings about going to Africa, whacking a few animals and leaving everything behind.

Further, using those savings of not dipping, shipping, mounting everything to go back sooner?

Steve

This highlighted portion or your response is really my entire point. The killing in my view, isn't the end of the process. I feel it's my responsibility to see the process through in its entirety. Skipping big portions, simply to return to kill more stuff somehow seems cavalier.

Unless you have your own museum or equivilent, eventually everyone runs out of wall space. At that point you get to decide if you are going to move, build on or otherwise let your taxidermy run your life. A couple of friends with homes planned around their taxidermy work have had an abrubt change of heart and claim that if they had it to do over again they wont have kept anything.

Leaving trophies is a mental hurdle. On some level people seek to turn a "profit" on hunting. A true meat hunter can't comprehend how someone can leave meat, even after it is explained that it gets used. A trophy hunter can't understand why everyone doesn't have scraps of hide and bone scattered around his cave. Still others have realized that they were just hunting for the experience and memories all along and don't need anything.

Ever ask a PH how many heads are hanging in his own home? Most have a few, but really just a tiny percentage of what they have taken in their life. Its interesting to hear the excuses, err "thought out reasons" why they don't keep everything they've ever shot, because its the same list reasons given by clients that are leaving or thinking about leaving theirs.

I've noticed that everyone involved in the trophy care and shipping biz believes that they have you over a barrel. Permits appear out of nowhere, shipping rates are whatever they want them to be, and the experience is somewhat like a hostage recovery. (Send the money or you'll never see the kud-alo again. Nice antel-phant, be a shame if something happened to it.)Then some are lost or ruined anyway.

Theres a liberating feeling in knowing that when you leave that you have spent the last nickel on that hunt.

Hanging heads on your wall doesn't make you a better person. It doesn't make you a worse person either. Its just a choice in momentos, or a choice in decorating at best. Should every hunter quit hunting when his walls are full? Should only trophy quality animals worth mounting be taken? Is the hunting experience solely judged on inches of bone? When viewing hunting as a whole only a tiny fraction of animals taken are ever mounted, or even had the slightest chance of being considered for mounting.

I believe that going to Africa or anywhere for that matter and NOT taking home your trophies, defines you as a killer rather than a hunter. My reason is that the cycle is not complete, the circle is not closed until the mount, whether euro, shoulder, full, whatever is in its final resting spot.

The taxidermy is a fundamental part of the process, from which, in my opinion you cannot hide. If you Safari in Africa, anywhere in Africa and merely take a few snapshots and leave the rest there, you are devaluing the lives of these animals to a few megapixels on some SD card.

Is that who we really are as sportsmen? If this is representative of the demographic, perhaps the antis have a point.

If you go to Africa, take in the sights, the sounds and kill some stuff, take a few shots and walk away from the balance of your responsibility, you are in my opinion a killer only. Going on Safari, killing and walking away is no different than paying a woman for her services and throwing a few hundred bucks at her on your way out the door.