January 8, 2025
The Namibian Escarpment is perhaps the most prominent geological feature of the country. People have described this rugged escarpment, where the coastal plains of the Namib Desert rise steeply towards the Central Highlands, as the rocky backbone which runs through the entire country parallel to the coastline. At times these fissured badlands amidst the arid country are of such rough inhospitality that people have called Namibia the country that ‘God created in anger`.
January 8, 2025
Robust, collaborative and driven by science. This is how you can describe the process that the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism (MEFT) has adopted to set quotas in communal conservancies. Richard Fryer, the Control Warden for Human-Wildlife Conflict and Conservation Hunting at MEFT, who manages this process, explains that they needed their quota-setting system to include a more robust process that could withstand scrutiny from anti-hunting critics.
January 8, 2025
I like old things. In my house I’ve got a wooden carving from a Flemish church dating from the 1800s, some pewter tankards from the mid-1600s, and a smoking pipe of New Zealand origin from around the last war. My usual hunting rifle is an early 1970s Heckler and Koch .308, obtained via the deceased estate of a friend of Erich Honecker, the former communist East German party leader.
January 8, 2025
In the vast untamed landscapes of Namibia, hunting is more than just a sport. It is a tradition, a way of life that connects us deeply with the land. The Young Hunters Committee of Namibia carries the responsibility and honour of safeguarding this legacy for future generations.
January 8, 2025
With my gun case and rucksack I set off to Namibia on my own at the end of May 2024. I was looking forward to my second attempt to bag a mature old kudu bull according to the rules of the Erongo Verzeichnis. Like the previous year, my destination is Hagen Denker's hunting ground at the south-western foothills of the Erongo Mountains.
January 9, 2025
My son, Chris, had the 30-06 Ruger Hawkeye rifle steady on the sticks, with Robin giving extra support with his left shoulder, his well-worn floppy hat shading his eyes from the slanting sun rays. It was just after 10h00 and we had been following different groups of springbok since early morning.
January 9, 2025
In Namibia, the struggle for the survival of the African wild dog unfolds in what the program coordinator at the Kalahari African Wild Dog Conservation Project describes as a “war zone”. Local farmers, fearing for their livestock, often resort to killing these endangered animals. Nadja le Roux reports that the impact of this persecution is alarming.
January 10, 2025
Another Namibian conservation success story is that of the Black Rhino Custodianship Program. This initiative has achieved unparalleled success, resulting in significant population growth and allowing for regulated trophy hunting of older bulls. Kirsty Watermeyer
January 10, 2025
On a hunt earlier in the season we had witnessed from a distance how a leopard (we had four leopard sightings in broad daylight on that safari) had tried to snatch a young baboon on the granite ridge on which we were sitting now. When the rest of the baboons noticed what happened they quickly turned against the leopard, chasing him around between the boulders and crevices. It was a huge commotion with lots of screaming from the baboons and growling from the leopard.
January 10, 2025
Having grown up in Namibia, surrounded by its rugged landscapes and abundant wildlife, I have always been a nature lover and conservation enthusiast. This love is what guided my life toward the path of storytelling, with a focus on travel, tourism, conservation and, of course, hunting. As the editor of a hunting magazine that celebrates responsible hunting practices, it felt only right that I should experience a proper trophy hunt firsthand.
January 10, 2025
Sitting together on the low veranda wall in front of my wife’s office at Ameib Guesthouse in uncomplicated fashion so typical for Felix, dangling our legs and gossiping, of course talking about hunting, Felix mentioning that this time he would hunt a Bongo in Cameroon for himself as well, none of us could imagine that this was the last time that we would share time with this dear friend.
January 10, 2025
Royston Wright, a devoted conservationist and stalwart of sustainable hunting, passed away unexpectedly on 4 February 2024, leaving behind a legacy of education, passion and commitment to Namibia’s wildlife. For over 20 years, Royston made an indelible mark on the conservation and hunting community through his work with SCI International, SCI Alaska, the Namibia Tourism Board and the Namibia Professional Hunting Association (NAPHA)
January 10, 2025
For fifty years, the Namibia Professional HuntersAssociation (NAPHA) has stood as a beacon of ethical hunting, conservation and community. This golden anniversary marks a significant milestone on a journey defined by dedication to the land, respect for wildlife and the preservation of Namibia’s unique hunting heritage.
January 10, 2025
Every accolade credited to Africa is well earned. Perhaps William Burchell’s thought most accurately sums them all up: “Nothing but breathing the air of Africa, and actually walking through it, can communicate the indescribable sensations.” Words are a paltry attempt to raise images of buffalo charging out of the reeds or burning sunsets beyond brilliance in the minds of those who have not been favoured to set foot on the continent.
December 2, 2025
The hum of the little plane went right into my bones. Every vibration felt magnified, every bump in the sky another reminder of how fragile we humans really are when the ground disappears beneath our feet. My husband sat at the controls, calm and steady, as he always is in the air, on the hunt, and in life.
December 2, 2025
When Elzanne contacted me to request a contribution for this year’s Huntinamibia edition I was hesitant. First of all, the hunting season until then had not delivered something really noteworthy and moreover I have a feeling that after a quarter of a century of contributing to this publication, as not to become boring, it must come to an end. Therefore, I replied: "I don’t have something in mind at the moment. But I still have a last safari at the end of September. Should this hunt deliver something notable, I will contact you."
December 3, 2025
That is why I came here: to put my hunting skills at the service of a community. My first African safari, in pursuit of the Greater Kudu five years ago, brought me to the magnificent backdrop of the Erongo Mountains. It was an intense combination of strenuous hiking and meditative glassing of the mountain slopes and dry river courses. I returned again two years later, that time in the surreal expanse of the Namib Desert. The previous week I had hunted on the edge of the Kalahari at Petersfarm, going after hartebeest, gemsbok and warthog – the typical game species there. I thoroughly enjoyed all these hunts.
December 3, 2025
Experiencing intense moments in nature, embracing physical exertion and deprivation as a challenge in order to come to know hunting in a way that is rarely possible in today’s hunting grounds in Germany. This was the motivation for my hunting companion Holger and me to travel to Namibia.
December 3, 2025
Stories are manifold of the great springbok migrations in the South African Free State and up the Karoo towards the end of the 19th century, a migration (or trek) that involved many thousands of springbok and formed herds of several kilometres wide. Farmers and hunters of those times told of spurring on their horses in order to get out of the way of the masses of these “trek-bokke”. In Lawrence Green’s book Karoo an incident is related of how a Karoo farmer, Gert van der Merwe, moved his sheep and cattle between grazing lands, assisted by his shepherds and a Khoi wagon leader. “The trek-buck are on their way, and we’ll be trampled to death if we stay in the riverbed”, the driver warned when only a cloud of dust was visible in the distance.
December 3, 2025
White-backed Vulture J151 should be an ambassador for Namibia to become the first African country to ban lead ammunition for the benefit of nature and humans. All vulture species known in Namibia are either extinct as breeding species (Egyptian Vulture), critically endangered (Cape Vulture), endangered (Hooded Vulture, White-backed Vulture) or vulnerable (Lappet-faced Vulture, Whiteheaded Vulture). Numerous factors have led to the decline of the vulture populations in Namibia, in the region and in Africa in general. Habitat loss, disturbance, poisons and illegal killing are the main reasons. Lead-poisoning through ammunition has only recently been discovered as another dangerous factor leading to the decrease of these valuable birds.