Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa First shot on Elephant- where and w/ what bullet?

I haven't been on the computer for a while and I was amazed at the controversy concerning the hunting of elephants on a hunting forum. Everybody is certainly entitled to their own opinion and I don't mean to offend any of the posters, but I would expect "hunters" to be a little more knowledgeable and form opinions based on knowledge rather than emotionalism.

I know many of the posters stated that they have no problem with hunting elephants, but it's just something they are not interested in doing. I respect that.

When I was younger, I used to hunt and shoot anything that was legal. Now I don't hunt game birds (I was finding too many wounded birds) and I don't hunt prairie dogs or woodchucks because to me they're not worth the cost of the ammo. But for those who do, "good hunting".

Elephant hunting has been given a lot of bad press, thanks to "animal rights groups" like the WWF, etc. They make a big deal about how the elephant populations has fallen from "millions" to thousands. This is true to some extinct. Just as grizzlys once roamed from Kansas to California and from Mexico on up, they don't anymore due to the exploding human population. Elephants are the same way. They don't coexist with people very well, if they are hungary they will totally destroy your crops. Start getting in their way and they will destroy you and your home.

Still, just like there are grizzlys galore in certain areas (Alaska, etc.) There are places where elephants have seriously overpopulated their habitat. Hunting these areas and helping control the elephant population is a GOOD THING.

Although the heyday of the ivory trade resulted in some astounding numbers of elephants being killed by a single hunter, today there are modern control officers who have also killed literally thousands of elephants during culling operations. So sport hunting is a drop in the bucket as far as elephant killing is concerned.

In Zimbabwe, there is an estimated 80,000 resident elephants with another 15,000 that are transitory between Botswana and Zimbabwe. They generally allow "sport hunting" of 1% of the transitory numbers (or about 1500 elephants).

The income and meat from these hunts are both badly needed and appreciated in a country where people are struggling desperately to survive.

According to some sources, there are almost as many elephants in Africa, as there are elk in North America. But would WWF ever report that? No, because it is contrary to their objectives.

The biggest problems facing the long-term survival of wild african elephants is poaching and loss of habitat, both due to increasing human populations (who knows perhaps AIDs might turn out to be the factor that "saves" many species of African wildlife from extinction?)

For the record, the bull I shot had two other bullets in him. One was a full jacket military round and the other was a mushroomed softpoint that looked to be about 30 cal. He also had about 8 inches of his trunk missing due to a snare.
(The buffalo I shot on that trip, also had a big scar around his neck from a snare.)

Personally, I found getting to within a few yards of wild elephants while hunting them to be the most extremely exciting and challenging hunting I have ever experienced.

Shooting black bear, deer, and elk, while still a noble sport, just doesn't seem to have the same drawing power to me
anymore.

So if you are against elephant hunting based on some fuzzy notion of they are becoming extinct, you might want to do some research.


Sorry for the long-winded lecture. Good hunting to all.

...thanks...good, well-reasoned and balanced post....

JJ,

I'd really be interested if you have a picture of that elephant tusk through the skull and would post it. That would be really interesting to see.

Dontmiss

Very well said. I've come down with a case of elephant fever myself and hope to hunt them someday soon.

No one ever answered the question about how much it costs to take an Elephant. tom

Pumpgun: There are many variables to get you an exact cost, but here's ballpark: 1000-15000dollars/day for a minimum of 14 days ( 21 is prefrered). Throphy fee of around 10-12 thousand for an average ( 55lb) bull. jorge

I've looked at some cow elephant hunts that start at 10k.

Only solids are used on elephant.

Dontmiss,

I agree fully and I don't think anyone here denies what you say, I don't think anyone here even posted a concern regarding their population level or need to hunt them. All I did was make a post from some video I witnessed.

For $10k I wish them all the luck in the world and some advise ... Don't Miss <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

that is EXACTLY why EVERYBODY should be doing ALL their hunting and target shooting with an "assault rifle", instead of talking about how a lever, or bolt action is "good enough". We are seriously under threat of all guns being banned, they way they are in most countries, and our best chance of resisting big brother comes with the fighting rifles, used to cover our butts while we let the real killlers ruin Big Brother's ability to do much of anything. They are starvation, disease, fire, infighting, etc.