Table of contents for Huntinamibia 2019 (English) in Huntinamibia

Twenty years ago, when I presented the idea of an independent, but dedicated hunting magazine for Namibia to the 1998 Exco of NAPHA, I did not imagine for one moment how important this unwavering trailblazer would become for hunting in Namibia. Little did I know that the world, to which that first Exco introduced me, would be so fascinating yet complex, so challenging yet sincere. And how involved Venture Media would become in all aspects of the world of hunting and the journey through two decades. For me who grew up on a farm, but never held a rifle, it has been a steep learning curve to judge the content of the hunting stories we received for publication. When NAPHA was founded in 1974 there were only a small number…

It was a time when there were still many lions in the Namib at the lower course of the Omaruru River. Old maps show an Omaruru River Game Reserve there. In the riverbed in the middle of that former reserve is a spring which does not even dry up in years of drought. In years of good rains a small stream of wonderful water seeps through the sand below the spring for a distance of several kilometres, sustaining lush vegetation on the riverbanks. This area was lion country. Right into the 1970s lions occurred there permanently, and repeatedly made forays onto farms. In 1968 a large male lion had been causing trouble on the farm Omandumba for weeks. He had already helped himself to twelve of my grandfather’s cattle. As…

Paul van Schalkwyk Paul van Schalkwyk Helge Denker Hennie Victor DEFINITIONS Indigenous – where the species occurs naturally without any human intervention. This refers to the species’ actual distribution, not the countries where it occurs. For example, Waterbuck and Lechwe are indigenous to the wetland systems of NE Namibia – they are not indigenous to the whole of Namibia. Similarly, Hartmann’s Mountain Zebra are indigenous to the western escarpment and central plateau of Namibia, but not to the Kalahari. Endemic – where an indigenous species has a naturally restricted range. Thus, a Namibian endemic means that the species occurs naturally only in Namibia. We therefore have a special responsibility for its conservation. A Southern African endemic means that the natural global distribution of a species is confined to south of…

Most farmers are not able to survive financially with a large lion population because livestock farming and lions are not really compatible. The only place where farming and lions are compatible to some extent is in large open systems where people move around with their livestock and where lion density is relatively low. In the northwest of the country, for example, part of the lion population lives in such low rainfall areas that people seldom go there with their livestock. That gives the lions some protection. Some of the farmers in that area are also more tolerant of lions than in other places in the world. They are prepared to live with lions at a reasonable population density. When the lion population gets too large or when the wildlife numbers…

Piet van Rooyen It soon became apparent that Jorge Del Rosel’s granddaughter Carolina was a naturally good shot who also listened enthusiastically to instructions at the rifle range. She immediately grasped the importance of trigger squeeze and impressed me (and her grandfather) by placing three shots grouped within an inch of each other, just above the target’s bull’s eye at 1:5 inches high, with her .30/06 rifle shooting 180 grain Barnes X soft nose bullets. A good start! Carolina was particularly interested in a nice old kudu bull. It had to be ‘old’ she insisted. Preferably past breeding. I agreed with her arguments. Deon Swartz, at that time the manager of Gamsberg Ranch – a skilled professional hunter and a good judge of game animals in his own right –…

The horns and tusks of game animals are not trophies to the animals themselves. Quite contrary, they are weapons (and to a lesser extent tools) designed to serve a very distinct purpose. This purpose is mainly to enable the carrier to fight for dominance within the same species; largely for mating rights or territories related to mating rights. To a lesser extent these horns and tusks are used to defend the individual or the herd against enemies and, in tuskcarrying species, for digging and debarking of trees. The growth and development of horns and tusks of the animals into a fully functional weapon and tool is closely related to the physical development of the animal into sexual maturity and full physical capacity in reaching the prime stage of the animals’…

Born in Nairobi in 1923, Fred Bartlett – in the picture above left with Alberto Bailleres – grew up on a farm in Kenya. He joined the army during WWII, and then Kenya’s Game Department as a Game Control Officer responsible for the Mount Kenya area and the northern Aberdare Range in 1949. In 1957 he became a professional hunter, a profession which took him to Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa and Namibia. After an eventful and adventurous life, Fred Bartlett, who can justly be described as one the great hunters in Africa passed away in Kasane, Botswana, in April 2012. The second generation hunter, Pete Kibble, was born in Kenya in 1945. He learnt the old school ethics of hunting at an early age under the watchful eye of…

21.2.1960 – 7.6.2018 Frank Heger was killed in a tragic traffic accident on June 7th, 2018 on the road between Windhoek and Okahandja after attending a two-day executive meeting of NAU, the Namibia Agricultural Union. Not only was Frank a respected colleague, he selflessly dedicated his life’s work to hunting, to tourism, agriculture and to his home country, Namibia. He became an exemplary mentor to many of those who walked with him part of his way. Frank was elected to the NAPHA Board of Directors in 1996. The following year he already served as Vice-President and chaired the Disciplinary Committee. He was at the helm of NAPHA from 1998 to 2005, first as President and later as Executive President, and led the association confidently and extremely successfully in line with…

since 1995 25 years ago NAPHA introduced the Conservationist of the Year Award to acknowledge a person who has played a significant role in any field of conservation. The first recipient was Hanno Rumpf, the first Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Environment and Tourism who later became Namibia’s Ambassador to Germany. He played a significant role in making sure that this newly independent country’s status as an ethical hunting destination was upheld. More than a decade later, in 2003, Ben Beytell, then Director of Parks & Nature Conservation in the Ministry, received the honour. Frank Heger, at that time President of NAPHA, officially declared that selective hunting played a big and ongoing role in wildlife conservation around the globe and that it should be considered to be a conservation…

Namibia has more wildlife today than at any given time in the past 100 years, increasing from about 0.5 million in the 1960s to about 3 million today because of the enabling environment that our policies and legislation have provided, principally through the recognition of the rights that rural people and landowners have to wildlife. From near extinction in the 1960s, Namibia now has the largest free ranging population of black rhino in the world. We also have the largest cheetah population in the world, the largest leopard population in Africa, the largest giraffe population, and our elephant population has more than doubled from a mere 7,500 in 1995 to over 22,000 to date. And we have an increasing free-roaming lion population outside national parks, the only country where lions…

Government takes the reigns for the future The first and very effective move from Government’s side to stand up to international pressure after the Cecil incident in Zimbabwe, was to declare that “Namibia bans all bans on hunting”, showing the world how strong the Namibian government’s support of the hunting sector is. Following that gesture, Cabinet gave MET a mandate to reposition hunting in order to safeguard the industry and the practice of hunting, acknowledging that hunting is part of our cultural heritage, and that it is fundamental to nature conservation in terms of the use of land in communal conservancies and on commercial farmland. Importantly, agreement was reached to move away from the emphasis on trophies by rebranding hunting in Namibia as conservation hunting, not trophy hunting. The mandate…

The Namibia Professional Hunting Association marked 45 years of existence in 2018, while this HuntiNamibia issue celebrates the magazine’s 20 years in circulation. It is an achievement to be proud of. I know of no other African hunting association or hunting magazine that has reached such a significant milestone. In human terms, turning 20 puts you on the threshold of adulthood. No birthday has ever left me feeling different than the day before, but I remember my 21st birthday installing a sense of “freedom” in me. Though it also came with more responsibilities and choices to be made. NAPHA’s milestone is important because it speaks of our history, reminds us why we live the way we do and why we are where we are. It also reminds us to learn…

INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL FOR GAME AND WILDLIFE CONSERVATION (CIC): PRESIDENT GEORGE AMAN For decades, Namibia has been demonstrating the successes of hunting as an integral part of nature conservation and human development. The country recognised early-on that wildlife is one of its greatest resources. As a result, through community-based hunting management programs, communities have been able to harvest wildlife and through it also sustain their livelihoods. As a testament to the successes of community-led nature conservation efforts in Namibia, the country has some of the healthiest trends in lion, rhino and elephant population growth in Africa. There are certainly a number of paths that wildlife conservation has been taking over the years. Different dogmas, ideologies and practices all aiming ultimately at conserving wildlife. Many of the proposed approaches contradict each other.…