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Freischuetz,

An interesting post and I'll reply to your points in the order you raised them:

Yes, Selous hunting blocks were reduced in size a while ago, but (IMO) it hasn't done any harm at all.....they're still pretty big. The area we use is not the largest by any means and it totals 2250 square kilometres........pretty big by anyone's standards. The Selous Reserve is the biggest Reserve in the world at 5 MILLION acres plus it's various buffer zones. Also there are no human settlements whatsoever allowed in any Tanzanian reserve, (only in the buffer zones) and that includes the Selous. In fact even the hunting and photographic camps have to be totally removed and cleared of any trace of human settlement at the end of every hunting season. Inspections are carried out afterwards and the penalties for not doing a good job are pretty severe. Although it's not very likely that a concession holder might lose the concession for infringment of this requirement it is possible.

Our current Lion & Leopard quota is 4 of each and we can usually get another 2 of each if we apply...... but populations are so high we hear Lion pretty much every night around camp and are still able to take our full quota of Leopard out of one tree alone if we want to.....so frankly I reckon quotas could easily be increased dramatically without any long term damage to the populations.

You're quite right that Tanzania has poaching problems, but where in Africa does not? From my experiences Mozambique has far more of a poaching problem than TZ. Poaching in TZ used to be considerably worse than it is now. Immediatly after independance the Elephant poaching was especially bad, but this was slowed considerably by the CITES ivory trade ban and later when poaching had been bought under control the new size & weight restrictions on hunted ivory also helped considerably. (This might be a pain in the ass for us PHs, but it is very successful for the Elephant populations).

The poaching situation decreased dramatically when the Tanzanian government introduced a shoot to kill policy on poachers some years ago.(1980s if I remember correctly) This might sound harsh, but I'm sure that no-one could argue that the policy did not work. As poaching reduced, this policy was relaxed..... but not withdrawn, and nowadays poachers are much more likely to be arrested rather than shot. (unless they stand and fight) Now what poaching there is, is mostly subsistance driven rather than financially motivated..... and the vast majority of it is restricted to the buffer zones....and let's face it, we all have to live. Personally, I try to alleviate the situation by dropping off any excess meat at any nearby buffer zone village if I'm in a suitable area. If they have meat from the international hunters they won't poach....... the Zim campfire project proved that.

IMO Mozambique could be a great hunting destination, but not until the game populations recover, hunting camps get more comfortable, poaching is bought under control and government get considerably more organised in allocating hunting blocks......the last time I was there I was driving down an Elephant path in the Zambezi Valley and met another hunting vehicle coming the other way.....turned out an area had been allocated twice to seperate companies....that's never happened to me in TZ in the 8 or 10 years I've been hunting there. I've even stayed in Mozambican hunting camps that didn't have doors on the client accommodations......not a great idea when there are big predators in the area......to say nothing of a central ablution/toilet block rather than en suite bathrooms which means the clients have to wander round camp in the middle of the night if they need a piss.

I don't know a hell of a lot about the Delta as I don't like the wetness of the area and from my very limited experience it's too open for my tastes. I like to do my hunting as up close as possible and preferably only wet with sweat rather than up to my ass in mud, water, mosquitos, tsetses & bilharzia....... I've also got to say that the Zambezi Valley is the worst place by far I've ever been to for mosquito's & tsetse flies.

As far as Buffalo populations are concerned. TZ has regular game counts by the Frankfurt Zoological Society who tell us that the Selous has the largest Buff populations in Africa by far and certainly in our part of the Selous we sometimes see herds in excess of 1000 at the peak of the season.....I don't think I've ever even seen a herd much over 100 in Mozambique, (certainly not standing still) let alone 1000. Also the hunting pressure is considerably less in TZ. When our herds see us they stop and look, whereas from my experiences in Mozambique they run like hell as soon as the hear a noise let alone see anyone or anything. Last time I hunted Mozambique, I found myself walking and running after Buffalo.....all day every day. And boy, does it get hot in the Zambezi Valley..... The beginning of the season is fine, but the later parts......phew!! they don't call it The Months Of The Sun for nothing. I live in Africa, and if it's hot for me think what it's like for someone from the UK or the colder parts of the US & Canada.

As to other species, I don't know figures, so it's hard to be precise, but I do know that we regularly see herds of Eland that number well in excess of 100 and herds of wildebeest that cause us to stop for fully 10 - 15 minutes as they run across the road......I would guess they number in thousands, but I've never tried to count them.....again I've never seen anything like that in Mozambique or elsewhere.

Nyala don't occur in Tanzania, but the rest do, and can be hunted considerably easier than in Mozambique. You have great croc's there and plenty of them, but so does Tanzania and in fact I can't think of a single species that occur in both areas that can't be hunted easier in TZ than it can in Mozambique. Perhaps the only one might be Elephant, but only because TZ has a strict size & weight limitation where Mozambique does not..... but let's be honest, if a client wants a really big Elephant you would not hunt either of the countries we're discussing you would hunt Botswana instead.

TZ also has excellent fishing (including tigers) and wingshooting...although IMO Mozambique beaches are some of the best to be had anywhere, but we're discussing hunting and not diving. Both places have excellent shark & marlin fishing.

I agree with you that Mozambique is moving in the right direction, but having hunted both countries I can honestly say that Mozambique is at least 10 years behind Tanzania, almost as expensive in most places and even more expensive in some. And it will ALWAYS be much tougher hunting than Tanzania simply because of the terrain and heat. I believe that clients are not simply booking a hunt they are booking an adventure holiday..... that's 2 words. They want an adventure and they also want a holiday..... not a SAS selection course.

I also agree with your comment about Zim. I'm sure that the next year or two will see an increasing number of hunters coming home disappointed, and sooner or later someone is going to get badly burned... but that's another subject.

I truly hope Mozambique does improve. Especially as it's right on my doorstep and would be much easier for me to access, but currently (IMO) it's not a patch on TZ. And if any concession holder wanted to get me interested they would have to offer me one hell of a deal and one hell of a great concession to get me sufficiently interested.

If you have any info, then please feel free to e-mail it to me, but don't hold your breath whilst waiting for me to pitch up with clients........... I'd first have to come up on my own and check the operation out in it's entirety.....and believe me. I have VERY high standards.

At the end of the day, the product and market forces dictate which areas are the best and most popular, and TZ has the well earned reputation of being quite simply the very best in Africa for a general bag of Dangerous Game species. In the years I've hunted Tanzania I've always had 100% success on all DG species except 1 Elephant hunt last year. Even then, we only had 5 days of looking for Mr Bigears and although we couldn't find any shootable ones we did look hard at over 100 bulls. Had it been Mozambique (with no size restriction) we could have shot over half of them.

With the best will in the world I can't see Mozambique ever taking over that particular title.

--------------------
Steve "Shakari" Robinson
Kuduland Safaris (Africa) Ltd
info@kuduland.com
www.kuduland.com

Edited by shakari (11/04/04 05:34 AM)