Rifle Hunting
Handgun Hunting
Wing Shooting
Bow Hunting

Rifle Hunting: By Koos Barnard

Man has been a hunter/gatherer since the dawn of time. Before planting crops and keeping livestock, he lived off the veld and had to harvest whatever was available. That meant that he also had to hunt animals for their meat and skins.
Unfortunately for wildlife, man has become the most successful living being and as his numbers soared he progressively took over the land that once mainly belonged to wild animals. In an effort to make space for, and sustain his herds of cattle, sheep and crops, etc, man desperately tried to tame the world but went overboard and almost cleared it of wildlife. To feed our mouths, factories and our greed for comfort and luxury we have cultivated the world, scarred nature and confined what was left to very small wildlife sanctuaries. Yes, we have interfered with nature to such an extent that it has become necessary to manage it very carefully. Enter the hunter. Many of our kind long for the times gone by - the "need" to hunt is still deeply embedded in our souls. Hunters realised that the only way to ensure the survival of our game is to put a monetary value on animals. In the modern world only those things that earn their keep are allowed to stay.
The result was the game farming/hunting industry and today South Africa alone have over 9000 game farms and far more game than 100 years ago. To prevent over grazing of the veld animals need to be "harvested" regularly and that is the hunter's job. Revenue earned from hunting allows the farmer to keep game and stock his property with a variety of species. Hunting is more profitable than eco tourism, especially for game farmers in remote areas. They can easily sell all their hunting but few city dwellers are prepared to travel to say Putsonderwater on an eco tour to see springbuck and gemsbuck in their natural habitat. The sad thing is that many so-called nature lovers are only interested in the Big Five and other "glamorous" species. And these they preferably want to view within easy reach of luxury lodges where airconditioning, Jacuzzis, fancy restaurants and beauty parlours can soothe body and soul after a "rough" two-hour game drive. Hunters can rightly claim that they are responsible for restocking South Africa's game fields.
Due to the crude weapons that homo sapiens initially used, hunting was difficult, time consuming and often dangerous. It was thus natural that man would try to develop more efficient weapons. Hunting rifles as we know them today were initially developed for military use, not hunting but hunters, embraced them because they were far more effective than swords, spears and the bow and arrow. Current day hunting rifles are, for all practical purposes, nothing but "customised" versions of the military rifles developed in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Modern semi- and full-automatic military rifles are not suitable for hunting, ordinary citizens are not allowed to own them in many countries and they have been banned from the hunting fields in most countries.
Although most South Africans hunt for meat, a fair number of locals are both trophy and meat hunters. The most popular species among meat hunters are springbuck, impala, blesbuck, warthog, blue wildebeest, kudu and gemsbuck. A meat hunter might occasionally turn "trophy hunter" due to the fact that he thoroughly enjoyed hunting a particular animal. He will either mount only the horns of that animal or have it shoulder mounted by a taxidermist. Trophy animals are more expensive than meat animals and outfitters usually allow local trophy hunters to keep the meat without paying extra for it. Obviously, visiting overseas hunters cannot take meat with them but contrary to what some believe, none of that meat is wasted. The farmer uses the carcasses for rations for his labourers or sells it to a butcher or pet food butcher. And yes, even rhino and zebra, to name only two "inedible" species, get sold. Many game farmers prefer overseas hunters to locals due to the fact that they can sell the trophy and get additional income from the carcasses. However, outfitters need locals to cull their herds from time to time because trophy hunters do not take off enough animals and only the big males. The meat hunter is the game farmer's bread and butter and thousands of venues are available to those who want to shoot something for the pot or for biltong.
Hunting with rifles is basically done in three ways; walk-and-stalk, ambush (voorsit) and shooting off a vehicle. The latter is not hunting, but merely meat collecting. When it's not management culling, shooting animals off vehicles is regarded unethical. It is illegal in some provinces (KZN for instance, where hunters must be at least 200m from a vehicle before they may pull the trigger) and will in all probability become illegal soon in all provinces (unless special permission is granted). Shooting animals at salt licks or ambushing them at waterholes is also regarded as unethical and should not be encouraged.