TWC – 2007 Welcome Letter
It is a new year with new challenges. I know it is hard to believe but we are already in June and the 2007 Tanzanian hunting season is around the corner. Because of the Tanzanian rainy seasons the hunting season starts the 1st of July and runs through to 31 December. At present we are in the process of getting our camps ready to receive our first hunting clients in early July.
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In weather patterns the El Nino phenomenon occurs every couple of years. This occurrence normally means dry conditions for Southern Africa but extremely wet conditions for East Africa. The rains started very early at the end of last year’s hunting season and we were chased out of camp in the Selous by late October. In Maasailand the dry cycle of the past years have hopefully been broken with extremely good rains during “Vuli”, the short rainy season in November and December and average rains during “Masika”, the long rainy season running from February to May. The late rains in the Selous made the early hunts difficult in 2006. This year have been very wet all over so we will have to see how it is going to affect the early hunting but in the long run the game will benefit from the conditions and that is what we need at present.
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TWC is very fortunate to have the addition of Amy Martin at our marketing company Tanzania Adventures who booked us up with a bumper season. All the indications are there that with the TAI marketing team and good conservation principles in Tanzania we will be able to sell the majority of our quota by 2008 or latest 2009.
After all the teething problems we went through last year and the difficulties with bureaucracies we are more than ready for this year’s clients. We have received additional equipment ordered in time and have all our equipment out in the field ready for the camp building and upcoming season.TWC has upgraded the U3 and LU4 camps in the Selous to the same top quality as our other camps last year. We have also invested in a semi-permanent camp as a second camp in the Lake Natron area. )
This will give us the luxury of hunting the plains animals from a camp a lot closer to the plains as well as utilizing this camp for the annual wet season migration when we can do photo safaris in this area.
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In addition to the 3 new camps TWC has invested in double cabin hunting vehicles for family groups and air conditioned vehicles in Lake Natron when the dust gets quite bad towards the end of the season. At some stage during the 2006 season we had endless problems with the Thuraya satellite email system and we have decide to change to the more reliable and better Inmarsat RBGAN system in 2007 to ensure satellite internet for our clients in an era where people needs to stay in touch with the outside world.
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In keeping up with our conservation principles the Tembo Foundation’s anti-poaching teams have been very busy and fortunately very successful in combating poaching during the 2006/07 off-season. Seeing that no anti-poaching activities has taken place in our areas of operation in the past it came as a big surprise to a lot of poachers when they thought they were going to have Carte Blanche in our areas during this past off-season. We would like to thank those who have made donations and made it possible for us to have these teams in place and ensure that our hunting areas will be some of the best in the near future.
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Apart from anti-poaching our people were busy during this off-season in scouting areas never touched in the past. We were fortunate to find a very healthy population of Chandler’s Mountain Reedbuck in our Lake Natron area as well as a second population of buffalo to enable us to utilize more of our buffalo quota. Our seasonal drivers were retrained in driving skills, GPS use etc. Butlers were trained to replace the old system of waiters and tent attendants. This should take more care the client’s individual needs and tastes. Our cooks attended more training to give them an even bigger choice of recipes and dishes. In addition to this our butlers and drivers were offered an English course to enable them to communicate better with you our valuable clients. This training and re-training will be a continuous exercise to enable us at TWC to offer safaris of the best possible standards.
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This past off-season also gave us the opportunity to restructure our organization and make it more streamline and cost affective. Staff that did not meet our high standards were re-trenched and we are happy to offer an even better service with fewer staff.
Thanks to our very successful lion monitoring initiative during the 2006 season we are able to sell lion hunts in all our areas this year and can give the client peace of mind that if he was sold a lion hunt the chances are very good of getting a trophy to be proud of. 2007 will also be the first season to sell exploratory elephant hunts.
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By tracking elephant and spending more time hunting them we should by the end of this season have a lot better idea of the huntable elephant population in our Selous areas. )
These Selous areas were famous for the excellent quality elephant trophies that it produced in the past.
Together with the new equipment we acquired we also invested in photographic safari vehicles and are happy to start offering photographic safaris to our clients during the season as well as the off-season. This coming season will see some of our clients using this opportunity to see Tanzania’s wonderful wildlife and National Parks before or after their hunting safaris.
I would like to welcome our new staff for the season. We are very happy with the addition of Nigel Theisen to our group of professional hunters. 
The Tembo Foundation under the management of Julie Wolhuter and 2 anti-poaching coordinators Robert Bryden and Grant Burden will also assist us in reestablishing our hunting areas to its former glory as some of the best in the country.
I would like to thank the clients booked for this season for their support and would like to guarantee you a “safari of a lifetime”. To those prospective clients please continue following our progress and we would like to spoil you in the future.
Happy hunting,
Leon Lamprecht
Managing Director
Tanzania Wildlife Company
