Yes, but the PH and the trackers usually come as a package deal when a hunt is booked from overseas. I'd take the tracker I had over the PH any day but he can't book hunts and he doesn't have the connections that the PH has. I've read a lot of books on and by early African hunters and they admitted some pretty bad errors in their early years. Several of these guys talked at length about their relationships with certain trackers; some relationships lasting decades. It was obvious that the professional elephant hunters took great store in certain black men and considered them far more than just employees. I got the sense that they considered some of these men to be the backbone of their business.
And another thing, Mpofu, bushcraft here in the states is almost nonexistent. Most of the guys who book hunts for over there are really pitiful outdoorsmen and need all the help they can get. They are hunting off the top of a fat wallet and have very little knowledge of wild animals or animals in general for that matter. I listem to them talk about this trophy or that trophy, what it measured, what it weighed.... but honest appreciation of the hunt or the life and death relationship bond between the hunter and the prey blows right by them. I hope we're staying on topic but some of those guys need a PH that can save their ass because they sure couldn't. It is at the next level of knowledge or wisdom or skill that you as the hunter begin to be concerned about what you could do to your PH and the risk you could put him into through your own actions and ignorance.