I was in S Africa 3 months ago on a guided hunt with my husband. I do not hunt, I just watched. It was on a ranch with thousands ands thousands of acres. It took a couple of hours just to drive across it.
The outfitter owned the ranch in the area my husband hunted . It was fenced in. My husband shot kudu. blesbuck, impala, diker and some others for the trophy head. You cannot bring back the meat from Africa. Only the trophy heads. The meat gets butchered, and sold in the grocery stores or in the townships. The landowners do this as a way to cull the herd, the trophy animals are usually the oldest, and probably will not make it through the next winter.
The outfitter told me that the lions in S Africa are in in the national parks. It appears to me that in order to bag a lion, it is probably a common practice to lure them away from the parks.That should not be done by the outfitters. If you spend $50,000 to hunt, you have to trust your outfitter to know the rules.
I am against hunting only for the sake of the heads. We also eat the meat. Before some of you call trophy hunters names,also know that in some cases, the hunter cannot bring the meat home. I sure would have liked to bring home some kudu, but we were not allowed to do that.
I for one, am only calling out one particular trophy hunter. Like I said earlier, a few idiots like this dentist ruin it for all the rest of us. And btw... thanks for the interesting story.