Reality Check, Sad News

[peras]

THE END IS GETTING CLOSER...

A message & reality check from a pioneer hunting family in Tanzania. A family that gave so much to the cause. This is a sad day for us all.

"I confirm that I surrendered all my hunting blocks of all my companies today.

My family has been the longest operating company in Tanzania- for more than 40 years.

We have been the biggest operator in Tanzania and all of Africa.

We have held the largest part of the Selous, with prime blocks, the same since 1978 which I finished surrendering all today.

We have gone from 126 safaris per year to a handful because of the closure of US elephant and lion trophy imports.

We cannot book enough 21 day safaris to make a profit or stay in business without lion and elephant imports into the US. Our losses are escalating so I have to stop.

When U.S. elephant and lion hunting imports were threatened we stepped up our anti-poaching to 2.4 million dollars in three years.

We by ourselves funded 100 Selous Game Scouts for many years. You saw our books and took copies of our ledger sheets for US authorities.

You saw the newspaper clippings of the vehicles and plane our foundation delivered.

You even attended the public ceremonies with the Minister remember the work done!!.

I know that Warden of the Selous wrote to the U.S. how important our presence was to control poaching in the Selous.

At the same time I have donated many full safaris to Shikar for auction to fund the $ 500,000 for lion studies and aging, work that was ignored by USFWS, perhaps because of Craig Packer, I do not know!!!

The efforts of Tanzania, of my companies and foundation have been completely ignored by USFWS, so we have already been operating at a loss for too long it is time to stop and I cannot guarantee that the biodiversity of the hunting areas will not be lost now!.

Our involvement in anti-poaching has become almost zero this year because our income losses. I think that the decisions by USFWS will eventually exterminate all Tanzania wildlife outside National Parks because of their determination to stop the importation of trophies into the US.

Everything will end very quickly and wildlife will disappear in these areas that represent almost 1/3 of Tanzania territory.

I have already returned 10 blocks the past years and with no hunters in the field it is going to be very difficult to save our last elephants.

Our poor elephants, our poor animals, SHAME on….!!!!

The real truth is that everyone does not care and nobody can realize the irreversible damage caused by such decisions. It is certainly the END OF THE GAME if your governments do not realize and help Tanzania.

Anyway, It is already too late for me, and soon it will be too late for other outfitters."

Kind regards
Eric Pasanisi

Big Elenpahnt hunted in Tanzania with PH Francois Lyonnet at Pasanisi 72.75 pounds (33 kilograms)

 

[rinehart0050]

Sad to hear this. The far reaching consequences of bad US policy will only spread until corrected.

 

[BRICKBURN]

Congratulations, USFWS.

I wonder if the HSUS will start funding the Scouts!?

 

[sierraone]

Congratulations, USFWS.

I wonder if the HSUS will start funding the Scouts!?

Brickburn, I understand the outfitter is going out of business because he can't sell any (or enough) 21 day lion or elephant hunts to pay the bills, primarily because Americans can't bring home the trophies.
But, I have looked up plains game hunts in the past in most all the African hunting countries...and a simple PG hunt in Tanzania was far to expensive for someone like me to ever hunt there. If I remember correctly fees and taxes from the government go on and on. Not to mention I believe you are required to have a 10 day hunt for an impala or 16 days for a kudu. So do you not think this is part of their problem also, just too expensive for most of us on the most simple level? Or am I missing something here?

 

[PaulT]

Sierra, a lot/most/some of the costs needed to operate in certain Countries is mandated by concession costs, taxes, community services/donations etc etc etc which are mandated by the Government of the country and to a lessor, but non-the-less contributing, factor local Governements and Community leaders etc.

Try and think that "If it pays, it stays"
and if it don't pay well..........................

Both you and I could probably never afford a hunt with the likes of the Pasinisi's but the revenue they created,
the areas they managed,
the wildlife they protected,
the game scouts they employed,
the local benefits they provided to the local communities were very FAR reaching.

Sure, the likes of you and me were still likely to never have benifited from any of this DIRECTLY but indirectly they kept commercial safari hunting on the map, they secured 10'000 of km's2 of sensitive country from poachers they employed hundreds of local people who without that work would probably be poaching, out of necessity themselves.

Who is going to protect those areas NOW !

Kenya, shut down sport hunting in 1980.
Is their wildlife population exploding ?
India, shut down sport hunting 1978. Has it saved the Tiger ?

Exclusion from safari hunting, which in itself is nothing more than an interactive animal husbandry tool, will NOT save wildlife.

Let history note the contributions of the anti hunting lobby groups and the U.S.F.W.S have made to the decimation of populations of wildlife Worldwide.

Make no mistake.

You, meaning everyone here, may have never had a plan to hunt Tanzania, nor with the Pasinisi's, and may think that this decision is simply another operator closing the doors and it will not effect you, well you are wrong.
The ripple effect of this decision will effect A LOT of people in A LOT of different countries and is already being framed by people that know a lot more about all of this than me as the beginning of the END.

This news, to me, is tradgic, depressing and regretful.

I feel like there has been a death in the family.

 

[sierraone]

Sierra, a lot/most/some of the costs needed to operate in certain Countries is mandated by concession costs, taxes, community services/donations etc etc etc which are mandated by the Government of the country and to a lessor, but non-the-less contributing, factor local Governements and Community leaders etc.

Try and think that "If it pays, it stays"
and if it don't pay well..........................

Both you and I could probably never afford a hunt with the likes of the Pasinisi's but the revenue they created,
the areas they managed,
the wildlife they protected,
the game scouts they employed,
the local benefits they provided to the local communities were very FAR reaching.

Sure, the likes of you and me were still likely to never have benifited from any of this DIRECTLY but indirectly they kept commercial safari hunting on the map, they secured 10'000 of km's2 of sensitive country from poachers they employed hundreds of local people who without that work would probably be poaching, out of necessity themselves.

Who is going to protect those areas NOW !

Kenya, shut down sport hunting in 1980.
Is their wildlife population exploding ?
India, shut down sport hunting 1978. Has it saved the Tiger ?

Exclusion from safari hunting, which in itself is nothing more than an interactive animal husbandry tool, will NOT save wildlife.

Let history note the contributions of the anti hunting lobby groups and the U.S.F.W.S have made to the decimation of populations of wildlife Worldwide.

Make no mistake.

You, meaning everyone here, may have never had a plan to hunt Tanzania, nor with the Pasinisi's, and may think that this decision is simply another operator closing the doors and it will not effect you, well you are wrong.
The ripple effect of this decision will effect A LOT of people in A LOT of different countries and is already being framed by people that know a lot more about all of this than me as the beginning of the END.

This news, to me, is tradgic, depressing and regretful.

I feel like there has been a death in the family.

So I guess the idea of lowering costs, fees and taxes, at least for PG hunting, to get more hunters into the country was not an option?

 

[PaulT]

So I guess the idea of lowering costs, fees and taxes, at least for PG hunting, to get more hunters into the country was not an option?

I guess if you could convince the various Government Authorities responsible for setting these charges that they will have less income to miss-manage and corruptly steer in to their personal accounts for their own gain then yes perhaps lowering fees may have been an option.

Excuse my Sinicism it is not directed to you personally.

 

[sierraone]

I guess if you could convince the various Government Authorities responsible for setting these charges that they will have less income to miss-manage and corruptly steer in to their personal accounts for their own gain then yes perhaps lowering fees may have been an option.

Excuse my Sinicism it is not directed to you personally.

No offense taken. So government corruption is also a main contributor to the problem? At least I understand that!

 

[PaulT]

Sierra, the hogs have been feeding at the trough for decades.

At the expense of the overseas hunting client.

Now that he has gone, the lifestyles and expectations will not change they will just exchange the source of the revenue.
The source will now have to come from mining, eco-tourism etc or some other activities (you fill in the blanks) and remember that I believe that some Asian (no racists connotations intended, just stating the facts) companies have been awarded the contracts for the construction of one of the biggest water catchment projects in Africa expected to consume over 5,000km's2 of the existing Selous Game Reserve (which will now NOT be protected by the once anti-poaching patrols provided by the revenue generated by the company which has just shut down) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good-by Ele's and good-by and remaining animals of any value.

 

[sierraone]

Sierra, the hogs have been feeding at the trough for decades.

At the expense of the overseas hunting client.

Now that he has gone, the lifestyles and expectations will not change they will just exchange the source of the revenue.
The source will now have to come from mining, eco-tourism etc or some other activities (you fill in the blanks) and remember that I believe that some Asian (no racists connotations intended, just stating the facts) companies have been awarded the contracts for the construction of one of the biggest water catchment projects in Africa expected to consume over 5,000km's2 of the existing Selous Game Reserve (which will now NOT be protected by the once anti-poaching patrols provided by the revenue generated by the company which has just shut down) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good-by Ele's and good-by and remaining animals of any value.

Thanks for the information. So much hunting history in the former German East Africa. I hope it is all well documented.

 

[CAustin]

Thank you for sharing the original post Pieter.

 

[cpr0312]

Saw this yesterday, pretty damn sad!!

 

[johnnyblues]

GREED...... So where does it end? Land grabbing in SA, Tanzania...Poachers..Corrupt govt officals. Is the future of hunting Africa coming to an end?

 

[Ridgewalker]

This is very sad.
Interesting to me that the blame is mostly put on the US? Don’t other countries hunt Africa? Not trying to defend USFWS, just sounds like the only hunters in the world are US. I know that’s far from true. UK, Germany, Portugal pretty much started the hunting scene in Africa. Where are they in all this?

 

[LivingTheDream]

I feel like banning the importation of trophies is a cause but as much blame if not more is on the Tanzania government. The government fees to hunt Tanzania have gotten ridiculous. Also some of their rules around licenses for plains game also I am assuming hurt operators. I understand that Tanzania is/was the premier hunting location for a long time and that comes with a premium, but the government got greedy IMO.

 

[mdwest]

I spent several weeks in Tanzania on business about 10 years ago.. even then it was obvious just walking down the street in Dar Es Salaam how much influence both the Chinese and Indians had on things.. and how little the time, money, and energy the US Government was willing to invest in anything related to Tanzania..

I spent time at the US embassy talking to folk in both the commerce and economics sections asking for assistance.. It was our intent at that time (or we were at least considering..) to hire a couple of thousand Tanzanian nationals.. pay would have been SIGNIFICANTLY higher (3-4x) than what your typical unskilled or semi-skilled worker could make at home (if they could find a job at all).. Our challenge was Tanzanian taxes, regulation, corruption, etc..etc..etc..

In a nutshell, we got no real assistance at all.. and ended up sticking with Ugandan nationals for our workforce... employing just under 6,000 of them for almost 6 years...

Huge missed opportunity for Tanzania.. that I largely lay at the feet of the governments of both T and the US..

 

[mdwest]

This is very sad.
Interesting to me that the blame is mostly put on the US? Don’t other countries hunt Africa? Not trying to defend USFWS, just sounds like the only hunters in the world are US. I know that’s far from true. UK, Germany, Portugal pretty much started the hunting scene in Africa. Where are they in all this?

Im not sure putting the blame on the US is the proper thing to do.. We have our country to manage and they have theirs.. Its up to them to keep their economy and their markets vibrant and to respond to any actions or activities that will have negative impact on them..

That said, I think when the US takes a harmful position, its going to have a huge impact most of the time and be far harder to recover from than say an import ban from Portugal, German, the UK, or even all of them combined..

While hunters represent a very small percentage of the US population (I think the last time I heard Shane Mahoney speak he said the number is down to just over 3%?), 3% of our 323M+ population is still a much larger number than whatever percentage of people hunt out of the 82M person population of Germany or the 65M person population in the UK or 10M population in Portugal.. and my guess is not only are the number of US hunters greater, but that generally speaking the dollars spent by US hunters are likely much, much higher as well...

 

[Hogpatrol]

That notice needs to be sent to President Trump, who needs to hear the other side of the story.

 

[Therack]

I know absolutely zero about Tanzania and how things work. Everyone is assuming the game will be poached and gone. Wouldn’t another operator pick up the concessions and protect the game?

 

[mdwest]

I know absolutely zero about Tanzania and how things work. Everyone is assuming the game will be poached and gone. Wouldn’t another operator pick up the concessions and protect the game?

I think thats doubtful..

From what I can tell this outfitter didnt go out of business due to mismanagement.. he went out of business because there is little to no business to be had..

I think it would be a pretty serious risk for another outfitter to come in and pay all the costs associated with getting set up, knowing that the market there is unhealthy..