Report by: Leon Lamprecht
Date: 18 July 2006
Report on the First Year of Operating as Tanzania Wildlife Company
We are at the end of our first year of operation in Tanzania as Tanzania Wildlife Company and it has certainly been a great success in all areas. We were thrown in the deep end by only signing the deal with the previous Management during the SCI, Reno convention in January 2006. The US staff and ourselves had to put marketing material together at very short notice and finding booth space at the conventions turned out to be a nightmare. Fortunately in the end we managed to do enough bookings to keep us happy for the season. It is with great appreciation that we thank some of our colleagues in the Tanzanian hunting industry that assisted us with all our preparations and passing some clients in our direction that they could not handle at the time.
The marketing however was just the beginning of a long year with lots of surprises and a couple of steep hills to climb. Purchasing all the necessary equipment to run a first class operation takes some time and getting everything delivered in time for the commencement of the season turned out to be an even bigger challenge. We donated all old equipment inherited with the company to our anti-poaching operations and furnished the whole operation with brand new state of the art equipment. Most of the ideas implemented this year came from experience in the industry or borrowed from our friends and competitors in the industry. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel but nothing wrong with bettering it. We have tried some new ideas, some of them with a lot more success than others, but we live and learn and we are in the process of fine tuning some of our ideas that were not a hundred percent up to scratch yet.
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( PHOTO’s : CAMPS, SAMIL TRUCKS WITH ROLLBACK SYSTEM, CRUISERS )
Tanzania Wildlife Corporation (TAWICO) was established by the Tanzanian Government to control all wildlife utilization in Tanzania. After the fall of communism and various subsequent changes around the world, the Tanzanian Government decided to privatize some of its parental organizations. It so happened in 1999 that TAWICO was privatized and management taken over by a Tanzanian hunting company, by 2005 the owner of TAWICO was not happy with the way the company was being managed and decided to look for an investor to take over the management of the company. The equipment was in a bad state, the areas have been abused but had potential, especially the fact that some of these areas used to be some of the best Tanzania had to offer.
We took over the full compliment of the staff and created-with some fine tuning and good equipment-one of the best companies in Tanzania. The staff was eager to learn and in most cases very cooperative and keen to please the new management. The style of management was different than what the guys were used to and certain practices of the previous regime were frowned upon. Thanks to the quality of the staff and their hard work the first year ended with great success.
While taking over the company we heard horror stories of abusive hunting practices in the past and did not know what to expect, other than the areas used to be some of the best. We were very conservative in our marketing for the 2006 season. Due to circumstances we could not visit any of the areas before we started our marketing. The Tanzanian authorities require 40% of hunting quota to be utilized in order for a company to retain its hunting concessions. With this in mind we sold the bare minimum and did not sell any lion or elephant hunts-specific hunts
Pleasant was our surprise at the quality of trophies taken this year! One of best investments this year was in the automatic Cuddeback Trail cameras. We baited cats where possible and as soon as we had a cat on bait we would set up camera to get more data on what is happening in our areas population and quality wise.
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Conditions made hunting more difficult this year, the rains in the Selous Game Reserve even though not more than normal were very late, and with the abundance of water the buffalo and elephant movement into the areas were almost non-existing. The quality of the buffalo taken, however, exceeded our expectations for the Selous. We had to retrain our gun bearers to hunt the buffalo by tracking, as this was not a common practice in the past management regime. We mainly tracked the old bachelor “dugga boys”. The average buffalo size for the Selous was in the high 30 inches with client Tom Bulloch from Colorado and PH Pete Barnard taking a magnificent buffalo of 43”.
In the Ikili area of the Rungwa Game Reserve it was exceptionally dry this year due to a lack of rains. This area has been known to produce very good buffalo and lion in the past. It was in this area that well known American hunter Jack Brittingham of “Jack Brittingham’s World of Hunting Adventure” fame took his exceptional lion with bow and arrow. The buffalo in the area showed good potential with lots of younger bulls spotted of exceptional quality but that need another year or two to carry on their genes. PH Barnard and client Diana Rupp ended up taking a 46” buffalo in this area in September.
Thanks to an annual wet season migration the Lake Natron South GCA in Northern Tanzania has always produced some exceptional trophies. Clients Jack Brittingham and Neil Summers were able to collect some of the more difficult to get East African species with bow and arrow. Gibb Lewis from Texas and PH Alistair James took a 47” buffalo on an adventure hunt on Kitumbeine Mountain, and client Tom Waller with PH John Greeff took a Lesser Kudu of 32” in this area.
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As conservation is our primary goal, we assisted in various community and area conservation and development projects this past year and will continue doing so in future. With the drought in some areas and human population expansion, poaching is becoming a problem in most African countries. Through community projects and educating the people we hope to combat these challenges. In some areas it is necessary to have full-time anti-poaching teams. We have employed area managers in all our areas to liaise with the local authorities to make this possible. We have added a conservation fee to the Government Trophy fee and all this money is being put to good use in the communities surrounding the areas. We are also in the process of setting up a foundation where clients and organizations can donate money and get tax benefits from this donation to enable us to do a better job of protecting the future of these great areas.
In 2007 we will be able to hunt more quota than this past year thanks to good feedback from our area managers and some research in our areas. The population of old male animals past their breading prime is on the increase and hopefully within the next 4 years we will be able to utilize our full potential. Despite this and the obvious strain on cash flow we are increasing the operation with more investments in good vehicles and hunting camps. Hunting companies are now allowed to conduct photographic safaris in their areas during the off-season. The only area where the rainy season will not prevent us from doing this is in Maasailand. We are in the process of building a semi-permanent camp at the foot of Mount Kitumbeine overlooking the plains and escarpment of East Africa’s Great Rift Valley. This camp provides a spectacular view of Ol Doinyo Lengai, the Maasai’s “Mountain of God” and the only active volcano in East Africa that has erupted again in April of this year. This camp will also offer guests the opportunity of experiencing the annual wet season migration of water dependant plains game species that moves through this area.
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In life, as it is in the bush, I think it is a matter of the survival of the fittest. We had some setbacks in getting the new company established and some people and organizations went out of their way to make it as difficult as possible for us to get established. The start of the season saw us with limited supplies, because most of our new equipment was kept sitting in a harbor shipment yard for months while responsible people dragged their feet. Thanks to this we have a few more gray hairs but the year went past extremely fast and we have a solid platform to build 2007 marketing and future hunting on.
I would like to thank all our clients, our staff and our investor who has made this past year the success that it turned out to be. We are looking forward to a new year and the successes and many happy clients that it will bring. You can meet many of our Tanzania Wildlife Company managers and PH’s at the following Marketing Conventions in the US in January 2007 in the Tanzania Adventures, Inc booths:
| Dallas | 11-14 January | Booth# 142 - 146 |
| Houston | 18-21 January | Booth# 313 – 315 |
| Reno | 24-27 January | Booth# 850+ |
Asante Sana,
Leon Lamprecht
Managing Director
Tanzania Wildlife Company
Arusha, Tanzania
