Posted on 08/09/2025 6:16:30 PM PDT by BenLurkin
A Texas real estate magnate and trophy hunter was killed by a Cape buffalo during a hunting expedition in South Africa, according to a safari company, which described the incident as "sudden and unprovoked."
Asher Watkins had been tracking the bull for a kill when the large horned animal staged an attack first.
"Asher was fatally injured in a sudden and unprovoked attack by an unwounded buffalo he was tracking together with one of our professional hunters and one of our trackers," said Hans Vermaak, leader of the safari company Coenraad Vermaak Safaris (CVS), in a statement.
"The family and our team members who were present at the time are understandably shaken. Out of respect for the family's privacy as well as our staff members involved, we will not be sharing further details," Vermaak also said.
He described Watkins and his family as "long-standing friends and part of the CVS family."
Cape buffalo are considered one of the "most 'wanted' dangerous game animal by trophy hunters across the globe," according to the safari company.
No other animal has "a more fearsome reputation than a cape buffalo!," the safari company said.
"Responsible for several deaths and many injuries to hunters each year, the buffalo is regarded as the most dangerous animal to pursue in Africa, let alone the world," CVS also said.
The nature of Watkins' death – being killed by the same animal he had sought to take down – sparked discussions online among animal rights groups and activists on the ethics of trophy hunting.
"Asher Watkins went on a luxury hunting trip in South Africa when he stalked a Cape buffalo," animal rights group PETA wrote on Instagram. "The terrified buffalo was cornered and retaliated. Animals aren't trophies or wall decorations. Trophy hunting must end!"
A comment under the post that said "cheers to the buffalo" has racked up thousands of likes.
Watkins led the real estate brokerage firm Watkins Ranch Group, where he was responsible for multimillion-dollar properties across Texas, Colorado and Arkansas.
Watkins was a lifelong outdoorsman who enjoyed fishing and hunting, according to his company biography.
Watkins' mother Gwen, daughter Savannah, brother Amon and stepfather Tony are among his surviving relatives, the safari company said.
Tracking it was provocation. Animals arent stupid like a guy just wanting to have animal parts for trophies.
Thats not necessarily a good thing
“stupid like a guy just wanting to have animal parts for trophies”
The only reason you think you believe this is that your consent was engineered while you weren’t paying attention.
There is no viable argument against the practice of hunting for trophies.
My intention is not to be antagonistic but to provide information.
African villagers would starve without somebody from Texas showing up to kill random animals? Oh what a world.
Hunting has been around since the beginning. But crybabies who think they don’t like hunting have only been around since Karl Marx told them how to think
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Oh right, hunting proves one is not a communist. These “hunters” are not “hunting” out of needing to feed themselves or their families. These “hunters” are paying thousands of dollars to prove they are big tough guys, masters of all that they can see, ruling over the animal kingdom with rifles, just like those that took out all the buffalo in the American West. These “hunters” are hunting for fun, recreation and sport. Disgusting.
No, you haven’t been thinking carefully. Your first sentence doesn’t follow my statements.
And the communist part of your argument is where you attack the hunter for what you claim are his motives, and where you compare him to criminals.
This is communistic in its dishonesty, and its assault on freedom of conscience, which are two fundamental methods all communists.
You’re the trophy hunter. You and the rest of the woke party. The species you’re targeting for extinction, like those criminals did to the buffalo, is the American patriot and his way of life.
You guys will be speaking different languages. You probably grew up hunting, and know the instinctual responses which occur during the hunt and as you sit on the trigger, waiting for the sight picture to be just perfect. And you accept it as part of being a being that needs meat to live, so hunting is natural to you. I understand that, and would actually consider myself a hunter, though I only kill predators. I have those instincts too.
At the same time, I kind of get his take. I befriended the deer around my house when they were starving in the winter, and see a lot of humanness in them. I have actually had a few females, after I gave them food stop in the middle of eating, and go to timidly kiss my face, some deer mix of appreciation and fondness, after they got to know me. I see their love for their babies, even after they grow up and hang in the same herd as adults, and being kind of a loner, and a target of US domestic surveillance now myself, I can see myself as the animal minding my business and leaving others alone, when some dude I do not know decides he is going to screw up my day because he enjoys doing that.
I think a lot of non-hunters are looking strictly at the act of taking a life which is not a threat to them, for personal enjoyment, and they feel the animals are kind of deserving of some empathy. I know hunters mmake healthy ecosystems, but they are not seeing that, and moreover, they think the only reason the hunter does it is enjoyment of taking the animal’s life.
I know, growing up as a hunter, that is like as foreign a take as you can imagine, but if you never hunted, all it seems like is killing something not bothering anyone for no real reason. They don’t see overpopulation, or how things die in the wild, vs a clean shot, or where the money goes and what it does, or any bigger picture. The animal could have gone on, and someone killed it for no reason. And they kind of feel like it is like killing a human.
Even knowing about overpopulation, and starvation, and disease, and how animals die in the winter, and thinking hunting is overall less painful for the population, (and even knowing I would prefer a bullet to dying naturally in the woods) I could still not just kill one of the girls I know.
Now coyotes, Bobcats, and anything else which poses a threat to something else, or attacks others as a rule, that I can love, and probably it would be where to start with non-hunters. Once something puts itself in the food chain, and kills or harms something else itself, it releases you to enjoy those instincts, and can’t really complain about getting hunted itself.
But anyone who grew up hunting, is going to have a hard time explaining hunting grasseaters to someone who didn’t.
No, you haven’t been thinking carefully. Your first sentence doesn’t follow my statements.
And the communist part of your argument is where you attack the hunter for what you claim are his motives, and where you compare him to criminals.
This is communistic in its dishonesty, and its assault on freedom of conscience, which are two fundamental methods all communists.
You’re the trophy hunter. You and the rest of the woke party. The species you’re targeting for extinction, like those criminals did to the buffalo, is the American patriot and his way of life.
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Hahaha, no dude, I am attacking the idiocy of hunting for sport and recreation. If you need food, that is one thing. But to think you need to hunt fine animals, not pests like feral hogs for example of which there are plenty in the US for this dude from Texas to hunt, that is just wrong. I am a patriot and was an Army officer and I am a long time conservative and am the furthest thing from woke that you can find. So don’t pretend you know my motives and don’t pretend you see logic or not because apparently not.
You’re making a moral claim.
But the only basis for your claim is “It makes me feel bad.”
You’re against trophy hunting because you feel sad for the animal and you feel angry at the hunter.
Let’s not confuse ourselves by replacing serious thinking with baseless emotions.
Here’s a test for your patriotism: why do you think our founding fathers didn’t outlaw trophy hunting?
You know what my trophy hunting is?
I hunt the infiltrators of our Great Country. My weapons are not guns, knives, spears or clubs. They’re letters on a page.
And I do enjoy the thrill of the hunt!
A Ghettopotamus would know the Cape buffalo quite well, frequently living in the same areas.
Speaking of the 470 Capstick, it’s namesake, Peter Hathaway Capstick in one of his books on African hunting said about Cape Buffalo “They look at you as though you owe them money”.
Thanks for posting, but I’ll stick to the Freezer Section for my meat.
So you are either with Homeland Security or DOJ? And if you are a lawyer, so am I. And if you enjoy the “thrill of the hunt” you are more emotional than I. And the founding fathers didn’t get into minutiae like trophies because they had bigger fish to fry.
But they said it was unprovoked.....
You don’t have to be with Homeland Security or DOJ to be able to identify the infiltrators of our country.
If you don’t want to rid our country of its enemies, then you’re not a patriot.
And people who don’t enjoy the thrill of hunting our nation’s enemies should not be involved with our Great Military.
Well, smarter than some realize, but still overall, a dumb animal.
You don’t have to be with Homeland Security or DOJ to be able to identify the infiltrators of our country.
If you don’t want to rid our country of its enemies, then you’re not a patriot.
And people who don’t enjoy the thrill of hunting our nation’s enemies should not be involved with our Great Military.
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So you won’t say who you are with. You make insane assumptions about me who you don’t know from Adam. LOL. May the force be with you dude. And yes, I want the illegal aliens cleared out. Have a thrilling morning.
I was meeting with an environmentalist, forest preservation guy and mentioned to him that I hunt and that some people are anti hunting.
He immediately said they are very foolish because hunting plays an essential role in managing wildlife and other natural resources.
You don’t tend to shoot an animal in the head, but then you don’t know anything about hunting.
I would guess that most of the people here who childishly nick hunting, have barely set for in the woods in their lives.
It would take several books to educate the ignorant about what’s involved in hunting and how difficult it is, the techniques, gun (or bow) safety, ethical behavior, many many factors that take years to learn.
Very ignorant people.
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