Editorial
Trophy Shipping - Know your Facts

With the sun setting slowing on this year’s African season which, by all accounts, has been just what we needed, attention moves to the trophies.

How is the processing and mounting getting along? Then, it’s getting them shipped back home. Though some hunters will be fortunate to have their trophies already back home, the majority are “in the system” and should be ready to be shipped within 12 months or so of the hunt.

At AHG Trophy Shipping, our operation has one objective: To save YOU money. The reason - so you can hunt more! Shipping is a grudge purchase, and if you can save just $500, well that is another animal to hunt.

After the effort, time and money spent hunting, having the trophies finished here, (or dip & packed here for mounting back home), the last thing you need are costs that can be reduced, or better still, avoided.

The magazine and newsletter, African Hunting Gazette focuses on promoting hunting in Africa and if there are unnecessary obstacles in the way of this objective, we want to do something about it.  

We started AHG Trophy Shipping a few years back.

And since Covid – well the costs have gone mad.

As we all become more mindful of where we spend our money, and the options available, I felt the importance of shipping costs needed mentioning and your attention – and more importantly, thinking about, next time you come hunting.

AHG is independent. We want more of you hunters to spread the word and come hunt in Africa. We work with all taxidermists, actually advertise, market and have promoted many over the years. Each issue of this AHG Monthly we profile at no charge, one organization just to help them because so much of their work is spectacular. Besides, I really love this side of the industry.

That said, if there is anything we can do to help you, please shout and y’all have a great October.

Regards,

Richard  [email protected]

Congratulations
 

After a 6-month drive, the waiting was over.

A big thank you to Rigby, to the existing and new Life Members that signed up and well done to our winner.

Letter from an African Hunting Gazette Reader

Dear Mr Ledger,

Thank you for the article you published in the Summer 2021 Issue of the African Hunting Gazette. (Africans Fight Back in the War on Hunting, Dr John Ledger, P18)

Most of us care a great deal about wildlife, conservation and the continuing survival of each species, habitat and the people that are caretakers of them. We become upset when people lie to destroy that which they do not understand. Or they do understand, and wish distruction all the same.

I am a hunter that understands the importance of the dollars I spend to continue the survival of the animals I hunt, and the countless other species that share the same habitat and benefit because they are a wonderful part of the whole.

Those that try to destroy Africa’s conservation success story do not know the full compliment of beneficiaries that win because the wildlife has a value (hunters dollars), when often before... true value could not be seen by those close by.

I was able to find the Connecticut HB-5104, and it appears have just begun.

I do not know how many wonderful success stories are available that have occurred throughout Africa because of hunters and the dollars that pay to conserve wildlife and the citizens that greatly benefit from them, in so many wonderful ways.

I do know that you have such records that tell about lives changed and habitats restoried because of these success stories that happened again and again, by countless individuals who labored with sweat to made dreams into realities. They should be heros to us all!

It is my belief that those politicians in Connecticut need to hear about them. They need to know what the true story is. The United States Federal and State governments are now going through a dark period. All real Americans here will continue to fight them tooth and nail, to stop their ongoing destruction of the world around us.

Our only hope can be that you know that like minded conservationists are here, listening, understanding, and fighting for those things and people that often may not have a voice.

The place I know as Africa, I have only seen but a part. The fauna, flora, and features of the land are beyond beautiful, as are the people (all the races). You have taken a part of the world and made it into something truely spectacular. I have never seen a more resilient population. If we can save Africa, we may learn to save ourselves.

Best Regards,

Norm McLaury, Alaska

Wildlife column

The Covid-19 pandemic provided anti-use activists and lobbyists with a platform to attack trade in wildlife, on the grounds that this is a potential channel for diseases to be transmitted to humans from wild animals. The assumption was made that Covid-19 originally infected bats, and from there was transmitted to humans, perhaps via some other animal species that enhanced the virulence of the disease. In fact, the true reservoir of Covid-19 has not yet been unequivocally identified.

Hunt hippo in Africa

Somehow, the African hippopotamus Hippopotamus amphibious, has gained a reputation of being a roly-poly friendly gray animal that is sometimes seen on the big screen wearing a pink tutu.  The reality is something really quite different.  The African hippo has the reputation in African countries of being one of the most dangerous animals and biggest killers of people.  The older African hippos get, the meaner they get.

Hunters Heart Taxidermy

Hunters Heart Taxidermy founder and CEO Ruan Viljoen is an avid hunter and conservationist with a passion for securing the sustainability of hunting in South Africa. Ruan has been a professional in the industry for many years, hunting his first African Buffalo at the young age of 13, and growing up admiring his father’s impressive collection of over 66 trophies.
 

Dark Nights in the Kopjie

A DreamWorks storyline is the best way to describe this Midwestern kid’s hunting fantasies while lying back, reading a book,and picturing himself in the jungle, spotting and stalking the great cats of the world.  Sixty years later, the clouds clear – and finding spoor, hanging baits, building hides and crafting a plan with your PH is just as you pictured it.I had made four previous trips to the Dark Continent without feline success – a few mistakes, bad luck and no excuses. 

Hunting with the Ellements...

I was a 30-year-old cop when I first went to Zimbabwe in 1998 with a five-year-old daughter and a one-year-old son.
Once all was said and done, I spent about half of my yearly cop salary on that 12-day buffalo/plains-game hunt with the late, great Mark Ellement. I was so blown away. There were no African hunting shows back then, so besides the few books I’d read and watching Discovery channel, I had little idea of what I was in for. I was hooked from Day One. Ellement walked my ass off! 

Mike Currie - Tell us about your first Bongo

 In the gallery forests of the CAR there were lots of tsetse flies! If you ever want to know where the good Lord created the mosquito, sweat bee and the tsetse fly, go to CAR – that’s where they are. The way we hunted bongo there in the early days might not have been the right way to do it, but the bongo regularly came into salt licks at night, and that’s where we shot them. We didn’t use a spotlight, we were high tech, we had night vision.

Book Review: Death in the Long Grass

For many baby boomers, Peter Hathaway Capstick’s Death in the Long Grass was our introduction to literature that described the excitement, and danger, of hunting Africa. In fact, this may well be the most popular African hunting book of all time.Born in New Jersey, Capstick gave up his career in Wall Street finance to pursue a dream of becoming a professional hunter.

Bergzicht Game Lodge

Bergzicht Game Lodge offers guided hunting safaris on our exquisite game ranch just south of Windhoek, Namibia, with 25 species of plains game on 60,000 acres of privately owned land.
 

eZulu Adventures

Exclusive, five-star, and tailor-made: Our fifth-generation family-run safaris offer an exceptional African hunting experience in three biodiverse areas that teem with large herds of a great variety of species. 

Mashambanzou Safaris

“The name Mashambanzou comes from the Shona words ‘kushamba’ (to wash) and ‘nzou’ (elephant). Elephants are known to bathe in the wee hours of the morning, and this ritual is known to represent the dawn of a new day”

Omujeve Hunting Safaris

If your lifelong dream is to take part in the perfect African Hunting Safari, you’ve come to the right place. Trophy hunting is our speciality, and we’ll make sure that you bag the species of your choice, be it a predator, plains game or any of the Big Five.