Hunting in Tanzania

	Safari in Tanzania
There is no doubt in my mind that the best place to go for a traditional African safari, showing a great spread of species with large numbers of animals affected by minimal human pressure, is The Selous National Park in Tanzania.
	The area is entirely devoted to wildlife with numbers estimated at over 1 million and the only people entering the area are those on hunting or photographic safaris, which are strictly controlled in their number and strictly controlled as to what they can shoot.
The park is named after Courtnay Selous the intrepid explorer, species collector and ivory hunter and was declared a park in 1905. It covers an area of 50,000 square kilometres one hours flying time in a light aircraft, to the south west of Dar-es-Salaam. There are no permanent villages in the Selous.
	The fees paid by these parties form a large part of the monies used to police the park and to provide much needed work for the local people who live on the edge of the park and form the domestic and hunting staff in each camp.
Tanzania offers a huge range of game species, not all in one place, but the Selous park contains most of them. Baboon, buffalo, bushbuck, bushpig, civet cat, crocodile, dik-dik, common duiker, red duiker, eland, elephant, gerenuk, Grant's gazelle, Thompson's gazelle, Coke's Hartebeest, Lichtenstein Hartebeest,
	hippopatamus, spotted hyena, east african impala, southern impala, silver backed jackal, klipspringer, greater kudu, lesser kudu, leopard, lion, ostrich, oryx, oribi, reedbuck, sable, steinbuck, suni, warthog, waterbuch, white bearded wildebeest, Nyasaland wildebeest and zebra.
Permanent camps are not allowed in the Selous and other parks. It is an expensive operation to build and supply new camps with modern amenities every year, and to maintain a road system of thousands of kilometres to allow swift access to all parts so that a big safari can be limited to 21 or 28 days, rather than 2 to 6 months, which would otherwise be required for the same success.
	Consequently Tanzanian safaris are not cheap with a basic daily rate ranging from US$1500 to over $2000. In addition there is the charter flight from Dar-es-Salaam to camp, government fees for licenses, conservation work, permission to use the area and trophy fees. Drinks, tips, visa fees, international flight, dipping and packing of trophies and freight of trophies to your taxidermist are all extra costs.
The bigger companies only offer 21 and 28 days or longer safaris. Some of the smaller companies offer 7 to 14 day safaris for buffalo and plains game. However, if you can afford it, do it, because it will be an unforgettable experience of sights, sounds and comradeship, the likes of which are disappearing from our planet.

Safari in Tanzania

There is no doubt in my mind that the best place to go for a traditional African safari, showing a great spread of species with large numbers of animals affected by minimal human pressure, is The Selous National Park in Tanzania.

The area is entirely devoted to wildlife with numbers estimated at over 1 million and the only people entering the area are those on hunting or photographic safaris, which are strictly controlled in their number and strictly controlled as to what they can shoot.