South African buffalo sells for record $3.8 million
8:28 AM Wednesday Sep 5, 2012

A young buffalo bull with massive bowed horns sold at auction for a record 26 million rand (NZ$3.8 million), the South African Stud Breeders' Association said today

Owner Jacques Malan said the 4 years and 10-month-old bull called Horizon has horns measuring 1.3 metres long and a boss, or horn base, nearly 41 centimetres wide - a South African record for an animal that age.

"My main purpose is to breed back the old giants of the bush of Africa which have been hunted out over past centuries," Malan told The Associated Press from his Lumarie Game Farm in Bela Bela, north of the administrative capital of Pretoria.

Malan said he applies a knowledge of genetics garnered from his father since childhood and uses the same method in producing flowers. "Genetics (selection) stay the same, the principles stay the same, and I have applied it to wildlife as well as cattle and the flowers I produce," he said.

Horizon, who will be used for breeding, is a disease-free stud and so can also be used on a cattle farm without threat of contamination. The new owner

The association, which did not identify the new owner, said the buffalo is the most expensive wild animal ever sold in South Africa, the leading breeder on the continent.

Horizon was sold at a weekend auction, fetching 8 million rand ($1 million) more than the buffalo Senatla, which was sold last year.

"We knew that it's a special, special buffalo bull and we believed that it should have been the new record, price-wise. But you never know, so we are very delighted at this outcome," Malan said.