From December 8-18, myself, Phoebe Alverson, and Dennis Alverson embarked on a guided hunting trip to South Africa. When I mentioned to people that we were hunting in South Africa the response I would generally receive was “Is that legal?!”. Yes it is legal; we hunted impala, wildebeest, sable, and kudu (basically the equivalent of antelope and elk in Montana). During our stay at the lodge we got to eat meals with meat that previous hunters had killed, whereas future hunters will get to eat the meat that we killed and any remaining meat will be put to use by nearby tribes/towns.

After a long 15-hour flight we landed in Johannesburg, and from there we drove about three hours to the lodge which was surrounded by plains and forest that was referred to as “the bush”. South Africa had a different system when it came to hunting animals. Rather than applying/getting a tag for an animal all you needed was the land owner’s permission. Our guide owned all the land we hunted on, and his land was also fenced in to try to prevent predators/more destructive animals (elephants and rhinos) from entering. Each morning we would get up around 5 a.m. to go hunt, taking only one break for lunch and hunt until the sun went down and we didn’t have a good shooting light.