Brooks

I agreed with you that to some extent we do have it good now.

Firstly, we will never see the huge herd sof bison in the plains of North American, the over-population of deer in NZ, the huge herd of antelope in South Africa, Tigers and Lions as pests to be shot on sight, or have a way to make a fortune or die trying was to hunt the "inexhaustible" elephant herds.

But for the sporting hunter put it this way. A lot of hunters in yesteryear who travelled consisted of two main groups.

One group was the rich leisure hunter. He or she would usually not really have a "job" and woudl follow pursuits. They could afford to spend a month on a steamer travelling to Africa or elsewhere (and back again another month), and spend three to six months hunting, wining and dining and partying. This is the origin of how the White and now Professional Hunter and Outfitters got established.

The second group was the adverturer or fortune seeker. They may have had some money or may have been dirt poor. They travelled to Africa (or wherever eg Australia) to become farmers, miners, ivory hunters etc. Some were literate and lived through disease and danger and wrote books which we read today. Others died of malaria, snake bite or got squashed or eaten. Some stayed and others returned to their home countries.

So back to the point, todays sportsman can enjoy a seven day hunt in Africa. Can take ten days off their work, which may be a working class job where they save up for it and then hunt in quite luxurious surroundings and camps. Where not long ago to hunt Africa, Asia, North American, Australia and Europe may have taken several years worth of accumulated travel time which no job can spare you from, today we can jump on a plane and be there usually in no more tha 48 hours instead of 48 days.

The gap in incomes in relative times, is also less. Even if daily safari rates have increased considerably, I wonder what the comparison or percentage to an average working wage would be now compared to 70 years ago? Of course back then the industry probably wasn't protected by endless regulation and people didn't have to be "nannied" to protect them from self-harm. ie one could buy a licence and hunt public lands without endless "hand holders".