Louis Theroux’s African Hunting Holiday

Louis Theroux journeys to the centre of the controversial South African hunting industry. It’s big business, attracting thousands of holiday hunters annually. Keeping wild animals fenced in on farms has made it cheaper and easier to hunt than ever before, but Louis discovers that this industry, instead of endangering species, has actually increased animal numbers. Staying at a safari hunting lodge, Louis hears that each kill has a price. The potential shopping list is endless, ranging from $250 for a porcupine to $100,000 for a rhino. It’s a hunter’s paradise.

A couple of years old, but seems pretty good.  I haven’t finished watching it yet though.


Comments

5 responses to “Louis Theroux’s African Hunting Holiday”

  1. This isn’t hunting. It’s a slaughter. No one who has ever been hunting can call what goes on here “a hunt.” Stuff like this is an insult to real hunters.

    1. If the fenced in farms were smaller I’d agree with you, they seem VERY large though. For that reason I really don’t see the difference between this and hunting in a unmanaged environment. Some of the blinds they set up look “too easy” though, but I guess that’s the kind of thing they feel they need to do in order to make it easier for people that have never even used a gun or a crossbow before.

  2. farmboy7.62 Avatar
    farmboy7.62

    Damn good show…Interesting perspective..

    @scurvy

    It is what it is. Free market economy at work. “Hunting” is a relative term. Because I work, and only have such limited time to pursue my hobbies, I would be tempted to go on a canned deer hunt. I love deer meat…I don’t have a week to go crawling around the forest (unfortunately). I have a weekend and thats it. I go..pay my money, shoot my own food and come home and get back to work. Every year I go with my family to Vermejo PArk ranch to catch some of Ted Turners huge stocked rainbows. Said fish are delicious and make wonderful sushi. I pay where there are game. I don’t shoot from trucks. I clean my own animals. Please forgive me if I don’t have a week to go on a real hunt.

    1. Sounds like you’re more a fan of harvesting as opposed to hunting. To each is own, but don’t call harvesting hunting.

  3. While I don’t hunt, I have no issue with it, either canned or in the wild. It was pretty obvious that Louis Theroux had a set viewpoint on hunting. I believe that he is British and, therefore, comes from a non-gun friendly culture. My bet is that hunting in the British Isles is all canned, although I’ll freely admit that I may be wrong. As far as it goes, I think that he was pretty fair about showing both the “good” and the “bad” about game farms and why they exist. I liked his last line about there being a paradox that some of these species would be endangered or extinct without the farms.