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Daily Maverick
6 days ago
- Business
- Daily Maverick
Hunting tourism's hidden value: $2.5 billion boost for South Africa's economy and conservation efforts
A new study shows the local hunting industry's important economic footprint. South Africa's hunting sector generates about $2.5-billion for the economy annually, creating badly needed jobs while conserving habitat and wildlife, according to the findings of a new study published in the peer-reviewed journal Wildlife Research. This is a significantly larger sum than previous estimates, underscoring the importance of hunting to a barely growing economy that faces many challenges. The study's findings come at a time when the hunting industry in Africa is in the cross hairs of animal welfare and rights organisations and Western public opinion, with campaigns in the UK and elsewhere to ban the import of trophies from hunts. Hunting is a hot-button culture issue. Critics maintain that it is a needlessly cruel activity, that its economic and conservation contribution is often inflated by its backers and that it endangers a number of species. This strikes a chord with the educated, middle-class people who tend to spearhead anti-hunting campaigns. But such views have little traction in Africa outside the urban middle class, and African governments such as Namibia, Botswana and others have lobbied against trophy hunting bans in large part because of the economic benefits hunting brings for their developing economies and the rural communities who must live alongside dangerous wildlife. There is a growing body of objective, peer-reviewed research in academic journals that highlights hunting's economic and conservation importance. And pointedly, there are no such studies that suggest that properly regulated hunting is driving any species to extinction. This study is the latest in this vein to objectively assess the economic impact of hunting and its conservation spin-offs. Titled Assessing the Contributions of Hunting Tourism to the South African Economy: A Post-Covid Analysis, it was written by Peet van der Merwe and Andrea Saayman, professors focused on tourism management and economics at North-West University. It does not address the thorny issues of animal welfare or cruelty, which are legitimate concerns beyond its scope, but provides a clinical and dispassionate dollars-and-cents examination of the issue. The authors used surveys of international and domestic hunters to reach an estimate of their expenditure. They then applied a 'production multiplier', an economic tool that tries to measure the snowball effects of expenditure and investment. 'The result revealed that hunting tourism's total impact on the South African economy is $2.5-billion. Hunting represents a production multiplier of 2.97, indicating that for every $1 spent by hunting tourists, production increases by an additional $1.97,' they write. 'Agriculture, trade, accommodation and personal services are the industry sectors most dependent on hunting tourism.' The questionnaires for the survey were sent between August 2022 and October 2023, and 414 international and 1,864 domestic hunters completed them. From this sample, the authors used other sources such as Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment data to estimate the total number of hunters from both categories – about 200,000. 'It is evident that the typical local hunter spends approximately $3,594 during a season on hunting. Game hunted by hunters accounted for $2,033. […] Accommodation, transport and meat processing are also significant hunting categories for local hunting tourists,' the authors write. The total spending of an international hunter was estimated to be $27,170. This includes gear, ammunition, transport, food and beverages, guiding fees and costs related to taxidermy and trophies. The total expenditure was estimated to reach $888-million, with the production multiplier bringing the total to about $2.5-billion. The authors noted several broad findings. 'The first finding of the research is that hunting tourism makes a significant economic contribution to the South African economy. […] The findings imply that hunting tourism drives production, household income and employment across various sectors, particularly for the agriculture and services delivery sectors,' they write. 'Any disruption or decline in this activity would significantly impact dependent industries and the economy of the country.' The second finding 'is that hunting tourism plays an important role in income generation and poverty reduction in South Africa. The implication is that hunting tourism has a high income multiplier, generating substantial income gains for the country's low- and middle-income households.' The study highlights the role that hunting plays in job creation for low-skilled workers, because it is a labour-intensive sector. 'The reduction of hunting tourism could disproportionately harm these workers, thus exacerbating the unemployment challenges in South Africa,' the authors write. Another key takeaway is the linkages of hunting to various sectors, including agriculture – South Africa allows private ownership of wildlife, and game farming is big business – as well as trade, accommodation and personal services. Beyond its economic spoor, the hunting sector has also blazed conservation trails as former farmland has been transformed to wildlife habitat. 'Hunting tourism contributes to the rewilding of previously crop and livestock farming areas as these are replaced with wildlife reserves. Reduction in hunting tourism activities will negatively impact land use for wildlife as landowners will revert back to alternative agricultural activities,' the authors write. At about R45-billion in local currency, hunting is clearly material to the economy and not far behind the wine industry's estimated contribution to GDP of R56-billion, according to data compiled by Wines of South Africa. Critics of hunting in South Africa and Africa more widely often insist that it can be replaced with photographic tourism, which also creates jobs and economic value. But many hunting areas are ill-suited to game viewing, defined by a dull landscape, thick bush and the difficulty of providing the amenities that such clients typically demand. Debates about hunting will continue to rage. Many people simply detest hunting, and unscrupulous operators involved in canned hunting and other questionable practices have done the industry a great deal of harm. But the tracks of its economic and conservation value are in plain sight. There is a reason South Africa's government and other African governments oppose trophy hunting bans sought by mostly non-Africans up north. DM
Daily Maverick
13-06-2025
- Science
- Daily Maverick
From Gansbaai to Indonesia: The astonishing 38,000km+ voyage of a misidentified white shark
This shark tale almost sank through the mesh of history into the murky deep but through sheer happenstance it improbably surfaced from the depths and into the light of scientific discovery. In November 2016, a female white shark that had been satellite tagged off the Western Cape coastal town of Gansbaai in May 2012 was caught and killed by longline fishermen in Indonesian waters — but it would take years for the shark's fate to emerge. The shark, named Alicia, has travelled an astonishing 38,000km by the time her satellite tag stopped emitting 1,000km southeast of Madagascar, according to scientists who have reported their findings in a soon to be published article in the peer-reviewed journal Wildlife Research. Alicia from there made her way to Indonesia — the longest recorded migration of the species and the first time that a white shark from South African waters turned up in South East Asia. 'This report marks only the second recorded transoceanic dispersal event for the species from South Africa, highlighting that despite extensive research, much remains to be learned about white sharks' dispersal patterns in the southern hemisphere,' the authors write. 'The movement between southern Africa and Southeast Asia surpasses the 11,000km dispersal recorded for another sub-adult female white shark (named Nicole) from Gansbaai, South Africa, to the west coast of Australia.' A happenstance of history And this shark tale almost sank through the mesh of history into the murky deep, but through sheer happenstance it improbably surfaced from the depths and into the light of scientific discovery. The shark's first transmission via satellite from its tag was recorded on 5 June 2012 in South African waters. Its last was sent 22 months later, in April 2014, 1,000km southeast of Madagascar. After that there was radio silence, the shark's fate unknown as it travelled further through Neptune's realm. And then, it turned out that Indonesian fishers had the tag as it had been extracted from the shark after it was caught in 2016 on a longline — and they rose to the monetary chum thrown out by an NGO called Project Hiu. 'Project Hiu works with local fishers in Indonesia to conserve sharks and has recently begun deploying satellite tags and offering a monetary reward for observing or recovering any shark tag… The fishers kept the tag and contacted Project Hiu members after learning about the monetary reward,' the scientists report. The fishers netted an undisclosed amount of cash while researchers reeled in scientific gold. Project Hiu contacted a company called Wildlife Computers with the serial number. Wildlife Computers provides advanced wildlife telemetry services such as tagging devices — and it had this tag in its database. 'Remarkably, the tag was identified as having been attached to a 390cm TL sub-adult female white shark in May 2012 in South Africa. Through subsequent investigations, including email correspondence and interviews with the fishers, we have determined that in November 2016, a 473cm TL female shark (misidentified at the time as a longfin mako shark) was captured in longline gear off the coast of Indonesia, Southeast Asia,' the authors write. Scientific advancement and red flags This astonishingly improbable sequence of events has enriched the scientific knowledge of the species while raising red flags about the misidentification of sharks caught and harvested by the commercial fishing industry in that region and more widely. 'Our shark was misidentified as a longfin mako. Fisheries records indicate about 30 of these are caught and landed in the area each year, and some level of misidentification is thought to be present in these records,' lead author Dylan Irion, an ecologist and PHD candidate at UCT, told Daily Maverick. 'What's worth noting is that the identification guidebook used by enumerators does not include a key for the white shark. It's also notable that this shark was gut-hooked.' 'Gut-hooked' effectively rules out catch and release. The bottom line is that much of the data in this regard may be unreliable, and catches and mortality of white sharks and other endangered sharks may be much higher than the numbers suggest. This meandering trip to Indonesia also throws into stunning relief the sheer stamina and adaptability of white sharks. This is a species that can travel bloody far, and it is not fussy about the hoods it moves through. 'In 2013, following a brief window of no satellite transmissions, the shark transmitted a location from inside the uThukela Banks Marine Protected Area located between the cities of Durban and Richards Bay along the South African coast, marking the start of a journey covering about 38,000km over 395 days, transmitting with a mean period of 8.55 hours between transmissions,' the authors write. 'During this time, she encountered a wide range of sea surface temperatures, ranging from 3.8 to 29°C, swam at an average speed of 56km per day and covered a cumulative distance of 37,178km, measured as the straight-line distance between satellite transmissions.' That fittingly is the equivalent of swimming the distance of the Two Oceans Marathon every day. 'What continues to amaze me is how remarkably adaptable these sharks are, capable of thriving in an incredible range of environments, from the cold kelp forests of the Cape, sub-polar waters of sub-Antarctic, to the warm coral reefs of Indonesia,' Dr Alison Kock, a marine biologist and renowned shark expert at SANParks who was one of the co-authors of the paper, told Daily Maverick. Mysteries of the deep This long marine trek also comes against the backdrop of debates about why white sharks have seemingly vanished from previous hotspots for the species, such as Gansbaai. Research by Kock and other scientists strongly suggests the species has moved eastward to escape the unwanted attention of a pair of orcas who have been preying on white sharks for their nutrient-rich livers. Other scientists maintain the populations off Gansbaai and other Cape locations were in decline before the liver-loving orcas rocked up, with the commercial fishing industry seen as a prime culprit despite the white sharks' protected status. The drum lines deployed by KZN Sharks Board's bather safety programme is also reaping a toll. A white shark tagged in Mossel Bay in May was recently killed in a drum line off the coast of Margate. This correspondent has previously highlighted the jarring fact that when a US video crew came to South Africa in 1969 with the goal of filming white sharks from cages it went straight to Durban to follow commercial whaling vessels. The crew did not even consider the Cape waters, which get only a brief but tantalising mention in the classic book about the expedition by Peter Matthiessen entitled Blue Meridian: The Search for the Great White Shark. This suggests that white sharks over five decades ago may not have been abundant in the cold Cape waters. South Africa's white sharks appear for a range of factors to come and go — and when they go, they can clearly go far. DM
