Exotic Hunting

March 23/2016  Weather 82 sunny, night 48.

hunting lodge with lookout/blind

When you drive around Hill Country you will continuously see enormous ranches - thousands and thousands of acres.   The fences are extremely high, 6 feet tall and more.   What in the world is inside those fences???

Gates close off every entrance to the ranches, and all have serious fences

 We see all kinds of animals.  Most look like some kind of deer or antelope to us but many have really big racks of antlers or curly antlers or long odd looking antlers.  Then we see animals we just don't know what they are..... What in the world are they?  You have to keep a sharp eye out and you will see these ranches on every road.

Bongo Antelope

We have discovered these are Exotic Hunting Ranches.  Hunters will fly in for the day or weekend or afternoon.  The ranches have all inclusive packages.  Lodges to stay in, the hunting guides, the licenses, fees, facilities to clean and process the "trophy" and ship.  This is a very lucrative business.   The exotics are not animals that are indigenous to Texas.  Such as feral hog, Aoudad sheep, Axis deer, Elk, Sika deer, Fallow deer, Blackbuck antelope, Nilgai antelope, Russian boar, Zebra, Wildebeest, Rhino, Barasingha, Corsican Rams, Scimitar Horned Orys, Addax Antelope, Trans Caspian Urial Sheep, and more. 

Wildebeest

Fees ranging from $5,000 for a Zebra to $12,000 for a Wildebeest.  There are on line auctions to hunt any and all of the Exotics.  Hunting can be also catch and release with dart guns(tranquilizers).    This is crazy........  Just so you know these are not my pictures, I had to look up what a Wildebeest was and a Bongo Antelope!!!  I just read where a hunter paid $23000 on line to dart hunt a Bongo Antelope, he shot it and had his picture taken with it then it woke up and they released it back into the wild on the ranch.  Some call it 'green hunting'.   Not sure about this...... Yes some of the ranches are 50,000 acres but still they all have fences.  So it's not in the true wild.  Some call it canned hunting.   Whatever you want to call it,,, it is really big business here.