Management Hunt trips in South Africa

Management hunts are used as an effective tool to reduce animal numbers and balance the sex ratios, normally on high fenced properties where management is more critical to prevent over utilisation than an unfenced property. During a drought year, even unfenced territory owners will reduce game numbers. Generally, the majority of animals taken on these hunts are females as both trophy and meat hunters tend to shoot the bigger-bodied and trophy males during the greater part of the hunting season. Also, for the most part of the year the females are pregnant, lactating and still feeding their young so are only hunted for a very short season compared to the males. Management hunts normally comprise of the more common game species, such as Impala, Blesbok, Springbuck, Wildebeest, Warthog and even locally abundant species like Mountain Reedbuck in the Eastern Cape. For the majority of the hunters, who don’t usually have an opportunity to harvest more than one or two animals during the regular hunting season, management hunts provide an affordable option to hunt multiple animals during the course of one hunt, hone their marksmanship, and sharpen their hunting skills. A management hunt may also work for a hunter who is more interested in the hunting experience, than the horn lengths of the harvested animals.