Is culling more of a job than hunting?

Allow me to describe a Zim cull. In 1993 my wife and I were in Zim on our third hunt with Tshabezi Safaris. The owner/operator of the safari company had tendered for a 3500 impala cull. The cull was to take place on three Cold Storage ranches (Chumfuqwe, Mzingwani and Dubane. The area comprised approximately 225,000ac, and the impala were too numerous and had to be reduced by 20%.

Since we were there, and I was available, I was one of the "shooters."
Just at dusk, you prepare for the evening foray. Two Toyota Land Cruisers...each with two shooters, two spot lighters, and two skinners. In those days, state of the art spot lights were Q beams. Each shooter had a 12 ga and an ample supply of SSG shot shells. Plus, each carried a multi-battery "torch."

The cruisers separated, and each went to their selected areas to begin the evening work. You drive slowly along the back roads searching for the tell-tale green eyes reflected in the spot lights. Impala are gregarious, and quite often there will be as many as two dozen of them in one spot. As soon as the spotters make contact with the impala, they maintain a steady light on the group, and ever so slowly the vehicle is driven toward the impala until they begin to appear nervous. The vehicle stops, the shooters exit either side, and remain outside the light provided by the Q beam. The shooters move in slowly. sometimes within twenty feet of the impala, and the killing begins. If possible, there will be no survivors. Young, old, male, female, makes no difference. The object is to eliminate as many as possible, as quickly as possible. Head shots are a must,, so as not to ruin the meat. After the shooting, each animal is gutted, recovered, and stacked in the back of the Cruiser. As soon as the back is full, the load is taken to a drop point, then to be processed for shipping to a meat packing facility.

This operation continues until dawn. In ten nights, the four of us shot one thousand nine hundred and eighty seven impala.

And that was how it was done, back in the day.
 
That's 50 animals per night per person!
 
Is culling more of a job than hunting?
Or is it still the normal stalking type?

Culling is a job.
If you are taking one or two animals "culls" it can feel like hunting.
I was invited to "help" clean out various portions/paddocks of a large ranch. Simply put, they wanted/needed all Wildebeest and Gemsbok gone from an area they wanted to put cattle in. They do not mix, disease wise.
After you fill a truck or two with carcasses, the shine wears off rather quickly. It is not hunting.
 
I think your question is a little broad, in what country & what species of animals, we used to run cull hunts in the Aussie outback & on Islands, it was a job for me "Guiding" but I'm not sure what the clients thought, I must say I tried to be at some other camp if I could be !

Im working as a Culler right now & there is a lot of hunting involved with the killing, on foot in rough country & in the day light .
 
I have never done it, but know folks who have and they had nothing good to say about it. It was hard work apparently, and a chore. One famous culler who was with Parks culling elephant said after a while you just fire above their heads to chase the remnant, you cant take any more of it. Another man said when his father was taking eight or nine buffalo for meat for sale in the early days it was hard and dangerous work that nobody looked forward to.
 
I checked my notes, and realized the year I quoted was in fact, 1990. Not 1993 as I stated.

Some may be curious as to why we culled only ten nights. It was the dark of the moon. As the moon brightened, the Q beams had less and less effect on "holding" the impala in place. Success dwindled with the advent of the brighter moon phase.

The tender was to be completed in a twelve month period. The remaining fifteen hundred impala were taken in the months that followed, and was completed during the allotted tender timeframe which was 30 Sep 1990 to 30 Sep 1991.

September of 1991 I was back in Zim, and picked up right where I left off...culling impala. There were several hundred remaining to be taken off prior to the end of the month. After all was said and done, I reckon I've shot close to six hundred impala. That fact makes me sad.

From 1988 until 2017, I made twenty-two trips to Zim. From the end of the cull in September of '91, until the final day I spent in Zim, I never shot another impala.
 
Strausser, there is a difference between culling and management hunting maybe this answer will give you a better explanation.

Culling, Is killing of game at any means possible that is legal to kill as many as possible in the shortest time frame. A lot of people who are hunters will not enjoy it.

Management of game which a lot of outfitters sell as a package in Namibia and South Africa is were excess numbers are taken off to level off the numbers. In other words if the ratio of male and female animals are not correct or there is just too many head of game in a certain area with specific carrying capacity. (I see a lot of Cull packages advertised but are actually managemnt packages)

Then alloted numbers of certain species and sex will be targeted to be taken off during a season and that can be done as normal hunting like you would for a trophy but instead of paying full rates you will pay a discounted rate for the experience.
 
I undertook a management hunt in South Africa. I've sometimes misleadingly written cull hunt.
I wanted the African hunt experience on a budget and I don't collect trophies.
The animals taken were taken for the meat nothing was wasted and staff were engaged in the timeframe.
In Australia some properties get tags to cull kangaroos on a shoot and leave permit. The requirements are they are to be humanely dispatched but the carcass is not to be sold. These can be shot day or night. This might be done due to drought, lack of feed or because a professional shooter is not available.

Please note Kangaroos are protected and numbers are monitored with allocations set for harvesting. But the primary industry is grazing so Kangaroo numbers are controlled and they are still numerous.

Proffessional Kangaroo shooters operate at night using a spotlight and dressing carcasses as they go. To deliver them to a buyer's chiller box around daylight. A plastic tag is attached to each carcass to prove its origin and shooter.

I've. Culled Roos and I shoot pest animals. Not sure of it makes me a hunter or a shooter. I've known a proffessional kangaroo shooter who was an accomplished hunter who had hunted various species locally and internationally.

Culling is necessary at times and each individual may feel differently about it but it still takes skill and knowledge of the prey to be good at it. Often government staff are used in Culling operations. Some are hunters and some just do it as they are deemed competent but they lack prior experience or knowledge of the hunter who learns from hunting.
 
I should have worded it better,I meant like @CBH Australia and @Frederik wrote.
I used the word cull as that is what I’ve found on every outfitters website.
Since in don’t collect trophies I don’t see the point in paying for it.

I have done some rabbit and deer culling before.
 
In my opinion, culling is definitely not hunting. It does afford, when done with a rifle, valuable experience that can be applied to hunting. Shot placement, bullet, caliber and optics performance ect...
Culling is a management technique no different than that employed in cattle ranching. Those that find it distasteful most likely do not know where their food comes from.
 
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Culling elephant, buffalo and even impala is a lot off work unless you mean shooting a few cull animals as part of a hunting trip.....
 
1631352531835.jpeg

This is management hunting, trying to find these old bull that are struggling to survive this never ending drought that we in the Eastern Cape are experiencing and put them out of their misery.
 
View attachment 423801
This is management hunting, trying to find these old bull that are struggling to survive this never ending drought that we in the Eastern Cape are experiencing and put them out of their misery.
He looks pretty poorly
Something s have to be done and some are willing to do it.
 
What an absolutely insightful and thoughtful thread. Planning my first safari and this answered many of the questions I had and many I was too inexperienced to know to ask!
 
What an absolutely insightful and thoughtful thread. Planning my first safari and this answered many of the questions I had and many I was too inexperienced to know to ask!
Posted this in the wrong thread whoops! Still a great thread but this was meant for a thread regarding relationships with PHs as clients!
 
Culling is a process….. sometimes easy, sometimes not. If strategic, then it is & had to be very accurate & methodical. Depending upon the species, it might be just mowing them down, other times, it is delicately picking apart. Definitely not a one size fits all.
 
When it comes to culling whitetail doe it can become work; state sent 50 tags to be filled for a 7,000acre (2,800hectare) ranch I hunt in Oklahoma.

No high fences on the ranch and shooting from vehicle or at night is strictly prohibited + we only have Nov 20th - December 31st to kill that many.

We also have to cut out 1 side of each deers lower jaw bone and send it off to the state wildlife biologist.
 

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