Your thoughts

[BlueFlyer]

I watched this video last night.

While I appreciate that the client was very compromised with their mobility, it looks like any method justified the means. It appears to me, that the client was positioned in a good location and then the helicopters were used to drive the buffalo to the client.
This is not what I would consider as a legitimate hunt. It is a driven cull at best, no doubt the client paid by the number of heads. This a totally different concept to a fenced hunt.
What are your thoughts?

 

[Miletic]

Without intending to offend the hunters who practice this kind of hunting, this is extermination for me. Chase animals with a helicopter.... Although this grandfather is very nice to me, it seems that he hasn't caught enough wild animals so far.... I also think that he uses an insufficiently powerful caliber.

 

[grand veneur]

I was always a bit skeptical about buffalo hunting in Australia. I hope this video represents an exception, but cull hunts in Australia with the opportunities to shoot many buffalo in a short time are regularly offered. It still makes me consider about the buffalo hunting procedure there. On the other side in Africa, the practice of buffalo cows cull hunting seems to be slowly becoming established as well.

 

[BIG COUNTRY SAFARIS AUSTRALIA]

Thanks for your concern gentleman. The first part of the video is actually not a cull hunt but 3 trophy bullock buffalo being hunted. 2 of those 3 animals are top ten record book animals. To give some context a helicopter is needed to spot and access these animals. They are on a large wet floodplain (100,000 odd acres) no fences as you can see in the video and thick with salt water crocodiles. It is only way to access them. Potential animals must be spotted and the hunter placed ahead of the animal on hopefully a dry island on the floodplain in the direction one may think it could move. This is often unsuccessful and the helicopter has to pick us up multiple times during the day and move us to another area for another chance at spotting the animal or a different animal on the ground and hunting it. From there it is up to the hunter the helicopter takes off. It is often the case that the helicopter can be heard in the background as it takes off or looks for somewhere nearby to land where it is not wet and shutdown whilst we try and hunt the animal. You will notice there is no helicopter involved in the third bullock hunt as it was hunted on dry ground and timberland.

To give some further context these bullock buffalo hunts make up about 2 percent of our hunting season. They are extremely expensive these animals are all record book.

We also run large cull hunts and our normal trophy buffalo bull hunts across millions of acres of exclusive concessions we hold where there is no helicopters involved this is our core business. There are many members on here who have hunted with us and can attest to this and our top class free range wilderness safaris we run.

However make no mistake if you want a driven cull hunt I will make that happen and we have conducted these before. There is plenty of big bore rifle enthusiasts around the world who love the rush of large bovine running directly at them and potentially over them! But this is not going to be cheap! We offer big game culling opportunities that are not available anywhere else in the world. If you have the money I will take you to areas of our vast concessions that can only be reached by helicopter to hunt on foot, areas that have never been hunted before. You just need to have the money to pay for it! This is international hunting there is different hunting options for all budgets and we take pride in being offer top class safaris to all budgets on some of the biggest and most remote hunting concessions in the world.

I should also add a little about this hunter in the video. This is man has hunted just about every species you can think of in the world including 2 species of markor and multiple asian sheep and capra species in the last two years alone at age 83. His pure grit and determination to hunt is something to be admired.

Happy New Year, I wish you all a safe and prosperous 2026

 

[grand veneur]

I am not convinced of that. If the hunts are so difficult that one need helicopters, you should not use an old, infirm hunter as the main character in the video. Once again, the buffalo hunts in Australia don't convince me.

 

[Miletic]

Dear Sir,thank you for the detailed explanation. I absolutely believe you and understand that the space is huge and that it is difficult to reach the trophy. As a person who greatly appreciates and respects animals, I felt the need to somehow defend them from us hunters. In any case, I am not a supporter of using hi tec equipment in hunting. That was primarily the reason for writing my comment, which was not meant to offend the hunter and the hunt organizer. Also, I don't have the trophy of the game that you recorded, so I would possibly think about hunting with you. I need the prices of all services and trophies. I have relatives in Aut, so maybe I would visit them. Thank you and I hope you fully understood me

 

[Bandera]

My impression from watching the video before reading other responses was that the terrain was pretty inaccessible.
Three ways to get into that place.
Helicopter
Maybe airboat
Swamp buggy

So it looks to be a legitimate way the hunt those Buffalo that hang around in that wet crap.

We took a 80 year old on our Safari in June. It was my buddies dad. His dad described it as his last great adventure. He has had cancer, had a stroke and lost vision in right eye a few months before the hunt and has COPD. To get to hunt with and have Bill finally hunt in Africa was a wonderful experience. He shot from the truck on every animal. I certainly didn’t think anything less of him for doing that.
If it takes a chopper to get a guy to a hunting area and have him experience a hunt then great.

Cull hunts, well they need to happen.

 

[Miletic]

I sincerely hope Billy is wrong. Maybe he has more great adventures ahead of him. I wish him that from the bottom of my heart. My father is 75 years old. At the moment he is alone on the mountain in our hunting lodge. Outside there is snow and -10 degrees Celsius. I hope that he will be able to enjoy the wilderness like this for a long time without help. I'm sitting in the city and in a warm room right now drinking beer (44years)
Big respect for older hunters (person)

 

[PaulT]

I can't see any of our laws being broken here.
What I can see is an outfitter providing a service for a client with some physical limitations.
Both parties appear to be willing participants.

I also see some hunting methods that I personally may not employ.
It wasn't my coin that was paying for this hunt either.

I suppose others may feel the same.
I guess, if that's how you feel, about the methods being employed,
it's not that hard to not engage in them.

While I was involved in providing hunts I had the opportunity to organise hunts with numerous hunters with varying degrees of limitations.
A good P.H will find a mutually agreeable, legal hunting method that suits his client.

 

[Flbt]

Was it legal? If so ok
We see driven big game hunts all the time on tv.
Dog hunting for big game usto be very popular
Still is in some places.

 

[grand veneur]

In my countries, game is primarily hunted using driven hunts. However, we do not glorify this type of hunting, but buffalo hunting in Australia is often compared with that in Africa, which it cannot be for many reasons. This is sometimes irritating, especially when you see outfitter's videos like these. But due to the increasing demand of buffalo hunts in Africa and accordingly the offer types that did not exist years ago, we will soon also reach a point in Africa where we are dealing more with feral cattle than with truly wild buffalo.