Why are Tsessebe so expensive and who is hunting them?

I just don't get it . I look and these things are 2 to 3x the price of a Gemsbok(not the Gemsbok they are to me some of the most beautiful that's the point) and so much
uglier. I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder and even the warthog has it's charm but
at a way lower price. We all can agree certain things are ugly like a three dollar whore or a
Ford Edsel. Just wondering if this is some kind of inside African joke? Sort of like the good ole
snipe hunt?


thanks-Jerry

You cant hunt them everywhere. I got mine in Zim in '96, a good one too. I think there is a pic in my photo gallery.

There is a limited quota on them. They are special to hunt. I hunted one in 2009, it's a treasured memory.

Originally Posted by zenbear

I just don't get it . I look and these things are 2 to 3x the price of a Gemsbok(not the Gemsbok they are to me some of the most beautiful that's the point) and so much
uglier. I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder and even the warthog has it's charm but
at a way lower price. We all can agree certain things are ugly like a three dollar whore or a
Ford Edsel. Just wondering if this is some kind of inside African joke? Sort of like the good ole
snipe hunt?


thanks-Jerry

In South Africa they occur in very limited areas. They also do not breed well . Again it is about supply and demand .

Happy Hunting !!!

So seeing a bunch of them last trip (which was also my first) was a bit of a fluke?

If you look at how many are exported from RSA in a year, it's less than 50 and most of the time less than 25. It requires a special TOPS permit.
I wish they grew like leaves on a tree, I would love to take another one.

We were seeing them every day. The PH never let on they were anything special. The price there is $2300.00 I don't even know if that is very good. They don't seem particularly attractive.I looked them up on google and they are not endangered . In fact their consevation status is "least concern". I do see them on the TOPS list so I imagine it must be a wild / ranch thing. So is it hard to get a TOPS permit? A strange animal and a strange situation.

I am in the Limpopo and specifically in the old Potgietersrus , currently Mokopane area where the biggest government owned breeding herds are or were situated. In the last couple years the distribution spread a lot more . Remember that you might have seen quite a few but how many shootable bulls were there ? The females are not very good mothers in general and in a lot of areas they struggle to gain numbers.

Originally Posted by zenbear

We were seeing them every day. The PH never let on they were anything special. The price there is $2300.00 I don't even know if that is very good. They don't seem particularly attractive.I looked them up on google and they are not endangered . In fact their consevation status is "least concern". I do see them on the TOPS list so I imagine it must be a wild / ranch thing. So is it hard to get a TOPS permit? A strange animal and a strange situation.

That is a really good price on them ..... They are a TOPS listed specie in South Africa.

Richard Agreed $2300 is a good deal for sure.....

My best always.

I hunted a nice bill in 2009 and got him for we'll under $2k in RSA. We saw two bulls that were shoot able and we stalked up on them late one afternoon while we were out looking for warthog along the river the Matlabas River... My PH rang the owners asked if they were hunting them, quick yes, off we went.

I'm a huge fan of the Damaliscus genus and the various species of hartebeest; such genetic diversity seemingly based on nothing more than geographic isolation is an amazing example of evolution, perhaps a bit like Darwin's finches.

Quite keen on bringing home a few over the years having already hunted red hartebeest, tsessebe, bontebok and blesbok. All good fun.

Good question Jerry, and I agree . . . . it seems Tsessebe are "over-glamourized" . . . used to shoot them for rations in Zimbabwe as recent as the nineties . . . TSESSEBE - Zimbabwe.jpg

Originally Posted by Anbessa Gedai

Good question Jerry, and I agree . . . . it seems Tsessebe are "over-glamourized" . . . used to shoot them for rations in Zimbabwe as recent as the nineties . . . TSESSEBE - Zimbabwe.jpg

I remember the days when tsessebe used to fairly cheap to hunt, try finding a cheap tsessebe hunt in Zim now? Just like everything else, times are a changing.