A price on their head - How much hunters spend on killing our wildlife

The highest "income generators" last year were lion (R122.3 million), buffalo (R90.9 million), kudu (R62.5 million) and white rhino (R54.8 million).

Hunting tourists spent a conservatively estimated R1.072 billion in South Africa in 2013, an increase of 32% on last year’s R811 million, according to the latest statistics from the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA).

The DEA statistics show that 7 638 hunts by overseas hunters took place last year (2012: 8 387), during which 44 028 trophies (2012: 40 866) were taken.  Income from species fees (the fee a hunting outfitter pays a landowner to harvest an animal) amounted to R757.6 million (2012: R574.0 million) and income from daily rates (the fee a client pays a hunting outfitter) came to R314.4 million (2012: R237.0 million) for a total of R1.072 billion. 

The increase in foreign hunting revenue over last year was largely attributed to the strength of the dollar against the rand, an increase across the board in daily rates received and an increase in the total number of animals hunted. 

The calculations exclude traditional tourism spending such as food, transport, crafts and curios, and additional sight-seeing activities as well as other hunting expenses such as permits and licensing fees, clothing, ammunition, hunting accessories, taxidermy and trophy shipping fees. 

Research conducted by the North West University on the 2012 hunting season showed that when these additional expenses are factored in, the economic value of South Africa’s trophy hunting industry increased by more than 50% (from R811 million to R1.24 billion in that year).

Adri Kitshoff, chief executive of the Professional Hunters’ Association of South Africa (PHASA), said in a statement that South Africa has an estimated 20.5 million head of game (approximately 16 million on private land and the rest on state parks), meaning that "the off-take through trophy hunting in 2013 was a negligible 0.002% of South Africa’s total wildlife population". 

“It just goes to show how sustainable trophy hunting is in South Africa and how well our natural resources are being managed,” she said.

“Besides creating incentives for our people to look after our animals by negating our competition with wildlife for land, it also injects much-needed spending and creates job opportunities in remote areas not considered part of the mainstream tourism circuit,” she added. 

"Plains game" proved to be the most popular among hunting tourists with impala (5 697), warthog (3 849), kudu (3 519), common blesbok (3 354), springbok (2 954), blue wildebeest (2 694), gemsbok (2 585), Burchell’s zebra (2 492), nyala (1 503) and waterbok (1 380) making up the bulk of the trophies taken in 2013.

The highest income generators in 2013 were lion (R122.3 million), buffalo (R90.9 million), kudu (R62.5 million), white rhino (R54.8 million), sable (R47.8 million), gemsbok (R33.6 million), nyala (R32.8 million), Burchell’s zebra (R30.2 million), waterbok (R27.5 million) and blue wildebeest (R26.1 million).