Posted on 10/19/2017 5:07:53 AM PDT by PreciousLiberty
UVALDE, Tex. — On a ranch at the southwestern edge of the Texas Hill Country, a hunting guide spotted her cooling off in the shade: an African reticulated giraffe. Such is the curious state of modern Texas ranching, that a giraffe among the oak and the mesquite is an everyday sort of thing.
“That’s Buttercup,” said the guide, Buck Watson, 54.
In a place of rare creatures, Buttercup is among the rarest; she is off limits to hunters at the Ox Ranch. Not so the African bongo antelope, one of the world’s heaviest and most striking spiral-horned antelopes, which roams the same countryside as Buttercup. The price to kill a bongo at the Ox Ranch is $35,000.
Himalayan tahrs, wild goats with a bushy lion-style mane, are far cheaper. The trophy fee, or kill fee, to shoot one is $7,500. An Arabian oryx is $9,500; a sitatunga antelope, $12,000; and a black wildebeest, $15,000.
“We don’t hunt giraffes,” Mr. Watson said. “Buttercup will live out her days here, letting people take pictures of her. She can walk around and graze off the trees as if she was in Africa.”
The Ox Ranch near Uvalde, Tex., is not quite a zoo, and not quite an animal shooting range, but something in between.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I goggled both of those animals. They seem quite nice and the deer is especially nice looking. What’s the problem? These are immigrants I like.
im not a “trophy” hunter.. just kill to eat. I wouldnt mind taking a trophy but its not my goal.
my boss is in a hunting club in middle Ga, I think he pays 1000 to get in and 500 a year...
I can buy a lot of steak for that... no way I am paying that kind of money...
Its not really much different than deer hunting on private property in GA. 200-600 acres on average and they all put out food plots.
yeah i agree, live near Atl...
Pay lake.
Years ago, after seeing REAL Texas bucks with small antlers, I wondered where these game ranches were finding the BIG BUCKS shown in various hunting magazines.
Then I found out the game ranches in Texas were buying big antlered deer from game farms in Wisconsin for import to their Texas ranches.
“I goggled both of those animals. They seem quite nice and the deer is especially nice looking. What’s the problem? These are immigrants I like.”
Yep, I would think if there were a year-round open season on them, hunters would put an end to any overpopulation pretty quickly. I hear axis deer is fine eating! :-)
https://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/wild-chef/2012/06/axis-deer-best-game-meat
But the thing is, Axis deer are very tasty, and since they are not native to Texas they are not under the purview of the Dept. of Fish and Game, so it is open season on them, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
There is nothing preventing them from getting eaten to death and going extinct in Texas, except for laziness.
“To make it fair there should be some leopards and lions running around.”
People could get some actual defensive-shooting practice, too.
hah...the King still regulates the species on 'his' land. There are restrictions on state property. Private property, no problem.
Thank you for clarifying the issue, like butter.
It is my great shame that I have never hunted and killed anything bigger than a squirrel.
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