Cull or Management Hunts in Namibia
Here below is some insight on the Cull or Management Hunts in Namibia that I received from Rainer Ling, former NAPHA DC (Disciplinary Committee) Chairman. I wish to thank Rainer for taking the time to shed some light on this matter and for letting me to publish his correspondence to me on AH.
Dear AH-forum readers,
Please find a few lines and thoughts to put the issue of the management hunts in Namibia in perspective.
This grey zone or rather uncertainty with potential hunting clients is not conducive to create trust-nothing is worse in an industry than uncertainty!
The answer that Almut from the NAPHA office provided to the AH-forum somewhere in last year is still valid: NAPHA is not the governmental institution, therefore she does neither have the capacity nor the authority, to provide the forum with a final, satisfactory answer about what the legal situation is. She tried to facilitate such a final answer by repeatedly copying our MET to supply the forum with the factual regulation. Therefore I want to assist Almut that this "unanswered" issue is not her fault at all.
Let me give you some back ground:
As you know we do have a whole series of different game utilization methods, each subject to their own required utilization permits- biltong permit ( 12 small game or three big game or a combination thereof )- shoot & sell, catch & keep and sell of game- big cat permits-night culling permits- trophy hunting permits .
In practice it occurred that farm owners/lessees in Namibia could apply for biltong hunting permits and hunt meat with anyone, mainly South African meat hunters but this permit would not exclude any other foreign hunters. In the beginning the SA hunters even exported some of their trophies on such a biltong permit. When this loop hole was closed, the unregistered farmer, could still legally guide foreign hunters with a biltong permit and by means of the gift letter the hunters were even in the position to export these trophies. This action threatened the organized trophy hunting sector.
On a NAPHA AGM some years ago, a resolution was adopted by majority vote, after intensive debate whether management hunts were in competition with trophy hunts or not, to initialize a further permit category with the name of Management hunt permit. The reasoning was that the ever increasing wild life numbers necessitate other utilization methods than only trophy hunting. The proceeds from the harvested game on a management hunt would be much higher than if the farmer himself would shoot this game and deliver the meat to a butcher. However two criteria were the bottom line: No trophies derived from such a MM-hunt could be exported and that the guide had to be a fully registered hunting professional with MET ( to maintain a satisfactory professional service level and to meet/honor the legal requirements of liability insurances, first aid certificate etc.). Another argument was that such a MM-hunt permit would provide the GRN with additional permit fee income and that this type of utilization would then be put on a organized /controlled level rather than to be a grey zone.
This request landed on the desk of MET and NAPHA obtained the answer that this issue would be integrated in the new Namibian Wildlife Bill. The official recommendation/ interim ruling made MET on the NAPHA AGM was that the registered hunting operators could use the shoot & sell permit for that purpose with the condition that the foreign hunters name had to be entered on that permit. This is the status quo as it is practiced right up to this moment- therefore the answer should be that yes, it is official to harvest more than 2 animals/species on a management hunt. The core business of NAPHA however is the trophy hunting sector, in this case the governmental regulations clearly stipulate that only two animals per specie may be hunted on a trophy hunting permit.
MET inspects the game numbers on every farm, even in the game fenced areas, before they issue such a shoot & sell permit.
