Namibian hunting quotas cut 80% due to drought

Namibian hunting quotas cut 80% due to drought




The past several years’ drought in Namibia has had a devastating impact on the country’s hunting industry, and in some areas hunting quotas had been cut between 70% and 80%. This was according to Tanya Dahl, CEO of the Namibia Professional Hunting Association (NAPHA).

She said communal conservancies had been particularly negatively affected. Hunting quotas, issued by the Namibian Ministry of Environment and Tourism, provided a valuable source of income for these areas.

“Game numbers nevertheless declined sharply all over Namibia since no part of the country was spared the dearth.


“Landowners tried to mitigate the effect of the drought by harvesting game for the game meat market before the animals became too emaciated,” she added.

Farmers also provided feed to game as long as possible in an effort to keep as many as possible alive. Dahl said the importance of farming indigenous, adapted game species became abundantly clear during the drought.

Imported species and so-called colour variants suffered tremendously during the drought. This meant that farmers whose financial situation had already been compromised had to incur even more costs to keep these animals.

An added challenge was to keep animals in fenced-off areas fed and watered. Dahl said it was vital that migration corridors were provided for local species to move between different areas in their quest to find grazing.

According to her, all game species suffered due to the drought, even elephants and hippos. However, the country’s warthogs were the worst affected, as they were the first to succumb to lean times, but they usually were the first to recuperate in times of plenty.

“It might be surprising to know that the humble warthog was the most sought-after species by local as well as international hunters. Warthog meat is considered a delicacy in our country,” Dahl added.

She urged outfitters to approach hunting with care this year and emphasised the fact that older animals past breeding age should be earmarked for culling. Younger animals needed to be conserved at all cost to safeguard core herds and their progeny for the future.

https://www.farmersweekly.co.za/agri-news/africa/namibian-hunting-quotas-cut-80-due-to-drought/

I know they have had rain but it will take time for the game to recover.

WOW!

Terrible news! Wow!!!

Sadly this may reduce some of our game taken this year in Namibia.

Good time for a massive cull of older animals to give younger ones a better chance at forage and survival.

Not good news but one had to expect this. The drought has gone on for too long. For years the animals have suffered. As did landowners. Sad news I hope things get better soon.

BRICKBURN said:

Namibian hunting quotas cut 80% due to drought
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New headline.


Namibian hunting quotas cut 95% due to hunters not being allowed in the country.

The Namibian conservancy with which I am most familiar has a great deal of hunting that will be difficult to control. The PH will certainly obey the law, but there are many locals and Govt officials hunting there. I fear it will be difficult to enforce any meaningful harvest reduction. Still, conservation always a worthwhile goal. Hoping this year's rainfall is the start of a better weather pattern for many years.....FWB

Eh, in any case, it looks like most of us aren't going anywhere this year, so the animals will have a lot of time to rest and will be ready for next year's season! The only thing I'll be hunting so far will be these flats for sale in Costa Blanca https://tranio.com/spain/costa_blanca/apartments/ Costa Blanca flats for my boss, but at least, that'll bring me the money I'll need to go to Namibia in 2021.

How was this recent rainy season levels?

Philip Glass said:

I know they have had rain but it will take time for the game to recover.

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You know, strangely, this terrible virus affecting so many will help the animals in Namibia recover, as long as poaching is controlled and the operators can sustain the long view.

I think food insecurity in Namibia will push people to poaching. Hope you are right, though..................FWB

Rick Cox said:

You know, strangely, this terrible virus affecting so many will help the animals in Namibia recover, as long as poaching is controlled and the operators can sustain the long view.

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It may put less pressure on trophies for this year. So next year may be a good year for Namibia. That is if everyone over there can make it financially after going through a 500 year drought and now much of hunting season cancelled for 2020.

The long term effects of the drought are more serious than some of the flippant comments here would suggest. "Next year" is way too fast to expect any significant improvement. It takes something like 10 years to grow a trophy antelope. Forage supplies have improved because of rains during the last month or three but that doesn't mean all is better now.
It is not a good time for a massive cull of older animals, that already happened over the last two years - both from selective hunting and because the drought killed off the old less fit animals first, along with the very young ones. When I was in NW Namibia in October, we observed almost no young animals from the previous year. And nearly every day we found old ones dead from drought. The local land managers explained the the females had mostly aborted their fetuses, so there would be almost no new crop of young born this year. We saw no warthogs at all in a lot of very good warthog country. It takes a long time to recover from that kind of stress.
There will still be interesting hunting opportunities, and the best land managers have seen some good results of their efforts. So Namibia is still a worthwhile destination for the coming years, but more as a place to appreciate by hunting very selectively, not a place where abundance is taken for granted.

Longwalker said:

The long term effects of the drought are more serious than some of the flippant comments here would suggest. "Next year" is way too fast to expect any significant improvement. It takes something like 10 years to grow a trophy antelope. Forage supplies have improved because of rains during the last month or three but that doesn't mean all is better now.
It is not a good time for a massive cull of older animals, that already happened over the last two years - both from selective hunting and because the drought killed off the old less fit animals first, along with the very young ones. When I was in NW Namibia in October, we observed almost no young animals from the previous year. And nearly every day we found old ones dead from drought. The local land managers explained the the females had mostly aborted their fetuses, so there would be almost no new crop of young born this year. We saw no warthogs at all in a lot of very good warthog country. It takes a long time to recover from that kind of stress.
There will still be interesting hunting opportunities, and the best land managers have seen some good results of their efforts. So Namibia is still a worthwhile destination for the coming years, but more as a place to appreciate by hunting very selectively, not a place where abundance is taken for granted.

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Well said. It will take years to recover there. It is so sad looking back to a trip in 2011 where it was paradise in much of Namibia.
The warthogs are one of he first to go in drought as they only eat grass and when it’s gone they are gone. The browsers can make it better than the grazers during drought.
Hoping for the best for all my friends in Namibia!
Philip