Africa

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Registration For SCI Convention Opens

September 19, 2022 by

The registration for the 2023 Safari Club International Convention is now open. The even will be held February 22nd through 25th in Nashville at the Music City Center. This is the convention center where the NRA has held their annual meetings in the past.

This will be the first SCI Convention to be held outside of Nevada since 1993. In their earliest years, they held some conventions in cities like Atlanta and Orlando. However, they were not a great success when compared to Las Vegas and Reno. I am hoping this year will be prove to be different.

The 2022 convention was fun in Las Vegas and we split our time between it and the SHOT Show. I enjoyed the exhibits as well as attending some of the seminars. Not wanting to be tempted, I skipped the auctions and banquets. All of that said, I’m excited that it will be held in a location to which I can easily drive and where I know my way around. I also like the timing of it as it won’t make the month of January jam-packed with events.

More information on the convention is below in their press release:

SCI’s preferred hotels for the 2023 Convention include Grand Hyatt Downtown, Hilton Nashville Downtown, Hyatt Place Downtown, JW Marriott Nashville, The Westin Nashville, Renaissance Nashville, and Omni Nashville. Please mention “SCI2023” or “Safari Club room block” when booking hotels over the phone to receive discounted pricing. 

The Convention will showcase unique hunting opportunities on six continents, world-class taxidermy and art, and give manufacturers their first opportunity to demonstrate new products directly to consumers. Considered the “Ultimate Sportsmen’s Market,” the Convention also plays host to dozens of topical seminars presented by subject matter experts. Several hundred hunts, fishing trips, firearms, works of art, jewelry, and other items and services are offered at live and silent auctions, helping SCI raise hunter advocacy and conservation funds. Finally, you won’t want to miss out on the nightly banquets and world-class entertainment starring country music celebrities, hunting superstars, and much more!  

Whether attendees are looking to book their dream hunt, scope out the latest firearms and gear, or find taxidermy inspiration, the SCI Annual Convention will impress with many exhibits and something for everyone! 

To register for the 2023 SCI Annual Convention, visit https://showsci.org. To contact a registration agent, please dial 520-620-1220 or call toll-free at 888-746-9724.

UPDATE: I came across this teaser video on the 2023 SCI Convention. It is definitely well done.

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The Wisdom Of Robert Ruark

September 7, 2022 by 2 Comments

Robert Ruark, a native North Carolinian, was a journalist, columnist, outdoor writer, and author. He fought in WWII as a Navy gunnery officer during the Battle of the Atlantic. Ruark was also a hunter who took multiple hunting safaris to Africa. For my generation and generations after mine, his hunting trips and the books he wrote about them are his enduring legacy.

I came across this quote from on Facebook which was posted by Gunsite Academy. Given I’ve never been into jewelry for myself, never owned a yacht, and am a one-woman man, I would agree with his statement.

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They Call This A Protest?

February 6, 2022 by 3 Comments

The Complementary Spouse and I were able to attend a couple of days at the Safari Club International Convention in Las Vegas. It coincided with the SHOT Show which really worked out well for us.

Just like with those who push gun prohibition, the hunt prohibitionists are divided between the well-funded astroturf groups and the wannabe players like Compassion Works International. The former would include well-funded organizations like PETA, the Humane Society of the US, and the Center for Biological Diversity. I would liken the latter to groups like the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (sic). In other words, they put on “protests” with lots of advance fanfare that draw little more than a dozen protestors.

Frankly, I would not have even known of CWI if I hadn’t seen a mobile billboard like this one on Saturday, January 22nd, as we were leaving the Mandalay Bay complex.

After doing a bit of online sleuthing, I found their website and their social media pages. They call themselves “animal advocates” and “activists”. As part of their mission statement they say:

CWI is  committed to ending speciesism and fostering a compassionate, vegan world that shows respect for the autonomy of all beings.

Ye gads!

They say that they participated in protests every night of the SCI Convention as part of the Worldwide Rally Against Trophy Hunting (WRATH). They say that they had people standing in solidarity with animals who braved the cold of Las Vegas to make their voices heard. The cold of Las Vegas? If I remember correctly the evening temperatures were in the 50s.

Here is a picture from one of their protests that I found on their Facebook page. I count all of 16 participants.

May be an image of 6 people, people standing and outdoors

By contrast, the auctions and events held at the Safari Club International Convention raised over $15 million for wildife conservation and advocacy. I sincerely doubt that these protestors have ever considered funding anti-poaching efforts in Africa or even the United States.

While I am sure some of these protestors are well-intentioned, they fail to recognize their own neocolonialism and cultural imperialism. They believe that THEY – upper middle-class Americans – know what is best for Africans and not the scientists and wildlife conservationists on the ground in countries like Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia (among many others). These and other African countries use a model of wildlife conservation where the wildlife policy is governed by science, that animals are considered a public resource, and that it is a shared resource that must not be wasted.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am a member of both the Dallas Safari Club and SCI. Also in the interest of full disclosure, I have treated the anti-hunting movement with disdain long before I learned of DSC and SCI.

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Tips For First Time African Hunters

January 19, 2022 by 2 Comments

One of the projects I set for myself when I attended the Dallas Safari Club Convention was to seek tips and advice for those hunting Africa for the first time. I spoke to professional hunters (PHs) and other experts for their advice. My question to them was what would be the one tip that you would give a person planning to hunt Africa for the first time.

Here is what I got in no particular order.

Dylan Love – Huntershill Safaris, South Africa, and the PH Journal Podcast. (He has a must listen to podcast)

  • Do your research on potential outfitters and especially check out their social media. It will be the most up to date.
  • Let the outfitters handle the finer details.

Craig Boddington – author, hunter, and TV show host.

  • Listen to your PH!

Rob Lurie – Zimbabwe Professional Hunters and Game Association. They have the toughest standards for licensing in Africa.

  • Do your homework!
  • Ponder all you options.
  • Ask for recent references.

Japsie Blaauw – Dzombo Hunting Safaris, Namibia and Botswana.

  • Practice shooting off of sticks.

Marius Goesen – KMG Safaris, South Africa

  • Trust your PH
  • Don’t overpack. You won’t need more than 3 sets of clothes as you have daily laundry.

Philip Weyer- Henderson – Muller Hunting and Safaris, South Africa

  • Take good, broken-in boots

Russ Field – Russ Field Safaris, South Africa

  • Go for at least 10 days
  • Pack light
  • Use the camp rental guns. Your own guns will just be a hassle.

Alex Oelofse – Jan Oelofse Hunting Safaris, Namibia

  • Plan a few extra days to see wildlife like elephants and lions if not on the hunting property
  • Ask the outfitter whether you will be hunting all on one block of property or will you travel to another block. If another block, ask how far.
  • Be wary of outfitters and PHs “overselling” size of the animals.

I think these are all good tips. I probably would have gotten more tips from more outfitters if I always remembered to ask when I visiting a booth. My bad.

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South Africa Is Not Happy

December 3, 2021 by 6 Comments

The countries in southern Africa are not especially pleased with the rest of the world. This is due to the travel bans being put in place restricting travel to and from a number of southern African nations as a result of the Omicron variant of COVID-19.

Probably no country is as pissed off as South Africa. President Cyril Ramaphosa was especially angry calling the travel restrictions “unjustified and discriminatory.” He went on to add:

“The prohibition of travel is not informed by science, nor will it be effective in preventing the spread of this variant. The only thing the prohibition on travel will do is to further damage the economies of the affected countries and undermine their ability to respond to, and recover from, the pandemic,” Ramaphosa said on Sunday.

Travel and tourism were finally getting back on their feet in South Africa after being crushed by COVID-19 in 2020. This is especially true for the safari industry. For example, with the US ban on visitors from South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique among others, outfitters and safari companies will not be able to send representatives to major conventions in January such as those of the Dallas Safari Club and Safari Club International.

Spike.T, who is a regular on the Africahunting.com forums and who lives in Zambia, posted this somewhat satirical account of the Omicron variant and the world’s reaction.

“In just 48hrs everything just went upside down, looking at all the updates and social media posts I could not help but write the below outlining the absurd response from the countries. Maybe some of them will realize what has actually transpired.”

South Africa: Hey guys, look what we discovered in our labs while researching Covid19 variants and mutations

World: What??

SA: It’s a new variant of Covid19, seems to be different than others, lets work together and study it further.

World: What? You have a new variant of Covid19?!?!

SA: No, we just found a way to ‘identify’ a new variant, it seems it has also already been detected in Hong Kong, Israel and Botswana.

UK: Hey guys, no offence but we already have 45,000 cases a day, don’t wear a mask everywhere, allow large gathering however we cannot risk getting a new variant.

SA: But we just identified it and showed you guys how to check for this variant, it did not originate here. We have advanced labs because we do research on AIDS, TB and other communicable diseases.

UK: Thank you for the research, however a complete travel ban to you and your 5 neighbors.

Netherlands: We heard UK banned flights to you because you have the new variant, we are also imposing a ban to you and your neighbors!

Namibia: WTF! What did we do? We have less than 20 new cases a day since a month now!

EU: Guys, we have a situation in our hands.

Namibia: The situation where Germany has had 76,000 cases a day and Other countries are breaking daily records for cases?

EU: No, not that situation.

Lesotho: Is it that UK still has 40,000+ cases a day and doesn’t seem to have it under control?

EU: No, UK isn’t a part of us anymore, not our concern.

Malawi: We hear Poland has some serious rise in cases and hospitalizations

EU: Really?! We have no idea, we must look into it. But not what we are talking about.

Eswatini: What situation then?

EU: We heard that South Africa has a new variant, their numbers are rising rapidly and since some of you are next to them, we need to close travel to the region with immediate effect!

SA: Dude, we just identified it! We only have a few cases in the region. Especially when compared to what you guys have. What’s with the knee-jerk reaction?

Namibia: Knee-jerk, that’s the word we were looking for.

UAE: We are closing flights to Southern Africa, we don’t want to risk it. Sorry guys.

USA: We are looking into this and studying the variant, we wont ban flights yet.

SA: Thank you USA, finally a voice of reason!

Mauritius: Sorry SA and the variant group, I saw some other countries refer to you as that, we are friends and all but we are concerned about our tourism and economy, so we will also ban you guys for now until we know further.

SA: We thought you were family. Goes to show how money is more important!

Belgium: We already have 1 new case of the new variant, thanks a lot SA.

SA: We literally just showed you how to identify it.

UK: Thanks a lot SA, now we also have 2 cases of it.

SA: What about our vaccinated people?

World: Nope, we need to run tests first and figure out what this virus can do and how effective the vaccination is against it.

WHO: Hey guys, a quick question. The next Greek alphabet is ‘Xi’. What do we do? China? Are you here?

China: Don’t you dare! Leave us and our president out of it. Call it something else. And we don’t allow anyone in anyway, so the variant is not our concern.

WHO: We got it boss. It’s now called Omicron.

WHO: Sorry we meant Sir. China isn’t our boss.

SA: It’s true what they say, no good deed goes unpunished. The next time we won’t tell you guys about the next mutations or variants we find.

World: Sorry can’t hear you, too busy dealing with the outbreak that you caused. How about we talk about this later?

Namibia: It’s the weekend, lets braai & go camping and let the world figure this one out themselves, we are still open to everyone. And if you wish to travel here, ask your leaders to start thinking before making decisions.

To be continued…..

Written by Nrupesh Soni.

I know there is great fear about COVID-19. While I am neither a scientist nor an epidemiologist, it seems that this strain may be more transmissible but on the ground reports indicate that the symptoms tend to be less severe. We shall see but I really hope that we don’t head into another round of lockdowns or even Australian-style concentration camps.

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Bill Wilson’s Favorite Hunting Rifle

October 7, 2021 by

As proof that not everything I post has to do with the NRA, I present this discussion between Ken Hackathorn and Bill Wilson on Bill’s favorite hunting rifle. It is a Ruger Model 77 in 9.3×62 which he has taken to Africa a number of times.

Why I was really interested in it is because I am seriously thinking of having a Remington Sportsman 78 .30-06 aka a poor man’s Remington 700 ADL rebored to 9.3×62. I could replace the barrel but I think it would be just as cost effective to have it rebored. It is a wonderful caliber to use on tough African plains game and is potentially allowed to be used on dangerous game. The latter depends on the country. Some have the .375 H&H or Ruger as the minimum while others that were under German colonial control often allow its use.

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Today I Learned…

June 26, 2021 by 6 Comments

Today I learned, by reading academic literature, that by engaging in trophy hunting or merely desiring to do so, I am:

  • Engaging in male supremacy by seeking a trophy of my “conquest”
  • Taking part in an ongoing rehearsal of Western imperialist history
  • Seeking to subjugate and conquer “subhuman” (their words) indigenous peoples
  • Partaking in perpetuating the racist and sexual norms of oppression and social exclusion
  • A human supremacist
  • Not a conservationist
  • Alarming and social reprehensible
  • Violating the dignity of nonhuman animals
  • Entrenching my Western narrative of supremacy which is underpinned by my chauvinistic, colonialist and crudely utilitarian anthropocentric attitude.

​Who would have thought I was “guilty” of all of that just for wanting to go on a once-in-a-lifetime hunting trip to Africa.

Evidently, that is the opinion of Dr. Chelsea Batavia, a postdoc fellow in the Dept of Forest Ecosystems and Society, at Oregon State University

The paper, The Elephant (Head) in the Room, can be found here.

This same lead author also thinks tsetse fly eradication is not ethically justified. This is despite almost 70 million Africans who are at risk for sleeping sickness. The disease, by the way, is fatal without treatment.

Batavia was also one of the star’s of the anti-hunting Humane Society of the US’s YouTube diatribe on trophy hunting.

At Academia.edu, I subscribe to be notified of articles about wildlife conservation, Africa, and trophy hunting. Most articles are much different but I do find it instructive to know what is going on in academia as they are teaching (supposedly) the next generation of wildlife biologists.

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Trophy Hunting Helps African Animal Populations

June 2, 2021 by 1 Comment

The British publication The Economist just produced a very interesting video on trophy hunting in Namibia. It makes the point that hunters and their money pays for conservation, provides meat to local communities, and provides an economic incentive to stop poaching and overgrazing.

You may not agree with trophy hunting and that is your right. However, bans on trophy imports, public shaming of hunters, and calls for banning it outright will eventually lead to the extinction of many species. Putting an economic value on wild animals, regulated hunting, and hunter-funded anti-poaching efforts have been shown to work.

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Dallas Safari Club Celebrates 40 Years

May 21, 2021 by 1 Comment

The Dallas Safari Club will be celebrating their 40th anniversary in January with the DSC Convention. The convention will be held January 6-9 at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center.

In preparation for this event, they have released a short video showing their progress since 1982.

I have never been to a convention like this and hope to attend in January. My dream is to do a plains game hunt in either Namibia or South Africa in 2023. I grew up reading Hemingway and Ruark. While a two month safari in Kenya aka British East Africa is a thing of the past, a plains game hunt is not and actually can be cheaper than an elk hunt in Colorado.

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Safari Club International Adopts Policy On Captive Bred Lion Hunting

February 5, 2018 by 1 Comment

The Safari Club International is one of the leading organizations concerned with wildlife conservation in Africa. They work closely with both African governments and game managers on issue related to the conservation of big game on the Dark Continent. Thus, when they adopt a policy concerning the hunting of captive bred lions, it is news.

Their policy, in short, is that they oppose hunting captive bred lions. SCI conventions, other gatherings, and their magazine are perhaps the biggest way that African outfitters reach American hunters. Given this, SCI’s refusal to let those who promote the hunting of captive bred lions to participate in those events is a big stick.

From SCI’s release:

Considering
that the practice of the captive breeding of lions for the purpose of
hunting has doubtful value to the conservation of lions in the wild, and
considering that such hunting is not consistent with SCI’s criteria for
estate hunting, the SCI Board has adopted the following policy:
  • SCI opposes the hunting of African lions bred in captivity.
  • This
    policy takes effect on February 4, 2018 and applies to hunts taking
    place after adoption of this policy and to any Record Book entry related
    to such hunts.
  • SCI
    will not accept advertising from any operator for any such hunts, nor
    will SCI allow operators to sell hunts for lions bred in captivity at
    the SCI Annual Hunters’ Convention.