I don't mean to offend anyone, but there seems to be a few pat answers here and as with most things in Africa, it ain't quite as simple as first appears and easy pat answers are not usually particularly accurate.

Trophy fees depend on a lot of factors. In some countries and with many companies some and often all of the fee goes to the Government or Game Dept, in others is divided between them and sometimes it all goes to the landowner or leaseholder. Sometimes the animals are bought in from game auctions and sometimes they all occur naturally. As a rule of thumb, pretty much all areas in SA and many in some other southern African countries are fenced and in most of these areas, a percentage of the most popular species at least are bought in from time to time.

As with most things in recent times, game auction prices are going up with the ever rising price of fuel, (game capture operations have always been ultra expensive and very fuel dependent)

so that could be one reason for the high price. Another reason could be that the outfitter is virtually giving the hunt away because it was a donated hunt and he needs to find a way to make a profit or at least, not to make a loss on the hunt, and has increased the price of some popular species. Yet another reason might be that he doesn't have many of that species and has so increased the price to put hunters off of shooting too many of them over the season because they'll be expensive to replace.

Whatever the reason, my guess is that if you looked at the overall costs of supplying the hunt, he won't be making an unreasonable profit on the deal - he might not be making a profit at all. Can you negotiate? well, I guess you can try, but don't be suprised if he politely tells you to either shoot the animal and pay the cost or if you don't want to pay the cost, simply don't shoot the animal.

Hope that helps.......