Newsletter by Edmond Rouillard (Outfitter) and Niel Uys (Manager):
Dear friends... I trust you are well.
Our season has started with a bang. We have been going at it non-stop with Safaris since 25 March.
Besides plains game some good sable, hippo, exceptional crocs and 8 very nice buffalo bulls have been taken. Not completely without incident. We had one very hairy moment which luckily ended ok when the dust eventually settled…
It seems like our dry years are something of the past for now. We were blessed with good rains as well as follow up, and Harloo is looking lush and green. One buff bull carcass dressed out at nearly 900 pounds!
IN THIS NEWSLETTER:
1. Latest Rhino Poaching Statistics
2. Poaching on Harloo
3. Harloo in the Community
4. SCI 2018
5. Weather
6. 2018 Season hunts and great animals taken
7. Promo DVD on the website.
8. Great new deals on cull and management hunts
Enjoy!
Yours Sincerely
Edmond Rouillard (outfitter)
1. Latest Rhino Poaching Statistics
Last year (2017) a total 222 Rhino were killed by poachers.
To date 2018 “only” 54 Rhinos have been killed already – compared to 104 in 2017 to date. Although its still a high number, the amount killed to date has dropped by nearly 50%. Lets hope this trend continues.
The reason for this is still unclear.!
2. Poaching on Harloo
Since 19 November 2017 there has been no poaching incidents on Harloo. We are grateful for an excellent team that looks after our animals so well here on Harloo and for keeping the poachers out.
3. Harloo in the Community
Harloo sowed back into the local community by hosting the annual Cane Growers meeting and sponsoring our local school in the Macnab Fundraising Event.
CANE GROWERS MEETING
The yearly cane growers meeting and conference took place at Harloo Safaris once again. This conference is about communication between the Cane Growers and the Sugar Mill to strategise about the industry as well as the challenges for the New Year and to discuss issues that arose throughout the previous year
THE MACNAB CHALLENGE OF JOHN BUCHAN
The challenge of the Macnab originates from a book written by John Buchan, published in 1925 under the title John Macnab. It is an adventure story about three members of London’s upper class society, a banker, a cabinet Minister and an ex-attorney general. Sitting at their club, utterly bored, they concocted a rejuvenating challenge that would add a little danger and excitement to their lives.
A challenging note, stating a date that one John Macnab intends to poach from their estates without being caught, was sent to three prominent Scottish landowners. In the case of success the landowners had to donate £50 to a charity of their choice. In the case of failure, John Macnab would donate £100 to a charity. The landlords hired men to keep guard 24 hours a day and the chances of success was rated at one in a hundred.
The interesting part of the story is that the three poachers all operated under the name “John Macnab”. Two of them had to poach a deer each, and one had to catch a salmon. Birds did not feature in the story. The hunters used several helpers and planned their actions meticulously in order to distract the guards.
Sightings of the poacher “John Macnab” caused confusion as there was conflicting evidence about his identity. Was he a gentleman or a tramp?
One hunter was caught but he escaped. The other hunter successfully poached a deer and the other caught his salmon.
With time the challenge of Macnab changed to the modern day version of shooting a free-ranging buck, catching a game fish and shooting a game bird all in one day during legal shooting light.
So our local shool have this Macnab challenge for the last 4 years and this year was also a huge success. These funds are used to help poor children to be able to compete in sports at the school by buying them equipment and give them funds to attend school sport tours. We also use the funds to upgrade our schools sport facilities. This year the school had 31 entries for the challenge.
We as Harloo Safaris are proud to say that we are one of the main sponsors in this challenge for the last 4 years. (Please see some of the Macnab pictures below).
4. SCI 2018
SCI was good for us and we had a good show.
Once again thank you to everybody that visited our booth this year! We are looking forward seeing you all in Reno next year!
5. Weather
We have had some good rain with some more follow up rain and the grass and veld is looking absolutely beautiful. The animals are in very good condition and we have taken some very nice animals so far this year with our clients. Our first clients arrived on 25 March and from then it has been back to back with safaris.
With this good rain we had we also had some impressive storms. In one of these storms a small tornado took the roof of Niel’s house. Luckily no one was injured. It is never a good thing to lose a roof on a house and the timing was absolutely terrible. It happened on the night of March 21 and caused Niel and his family to evacuate their house immediately. We had our first clients arriving on 25 March and to put the cherry on the cake we lost our main power supply to our lodge due to lightning in the same storm and had to deal with this issue too.
We all jumped in and helped whereever we could to fix the disaster and managed to do so. Niel and his family moved in with friends in town and we took our generator down to the lodge for a temporary electricity supply. Niel and his family would like to thank the Rouillard family and other people involved for supporting them through all of this!
We are glad to say that the electricity at the camp is now fixed and Niel moved back into his house about a month ago!
6. 2018 Hunting season
We are absolutely blessed with a great season so far! We harvested quite a few exceptional good quality animals this year so far. Among these animals I would like to highlight a few of them. Two buffalo bulls of 38” and one of 41” a Roan, Red Hartebeest, Steenbuck of 51/2”, Kudu, Hippo and 2x Crocodiles. Please visit our website for more new pictures of other buffalo and plains game. www.harloosafaris.co.za
7. Harloo Promo DVD
Please visit our website to see our new promo video http://www.harloosafaris.co.za/videos
8. Great new deals on hunts at Harloo!
Please visit our website for our all new specials on hunts. www.harloosafaris.co.za
Fantastic buffalo, sable and other deals on offer:
CAPE BUFFALO FROM 40” TO 43” SPECIAL A:
Trophy fee for old, hard bossed dugga bull up to 43” spread.
All in for $12 500
Including 3 nights for one hunter, permits, license fees, and field staff all included, no hidden fees.
Regular price up to $17 000 in South Africa
First come basis. Limited numbers available.
Usual stuff what is in or included below.
15% discount.
CAPE BUFFALO UP TO < 40” SPECIAL B:
Trophy fee for old, hard bossed dugga bull up to <40” spread!
All in for $9 900
Including 3 nights for one hunter, permits, license fees, and field staff all included, no hidden fees.
First come basis. Limited numbers available.
25 % discount.
BUFFALO SPECIAL UP TO 37” SPECIAL C
Trophy fee for old, hard bossed thick necked dugga bull up to 37” spread - and tough to hunt!
All in for $7 750
Including 3 nights for one hunter, permits, license fees, and field staff all included, no hidden fees.
First come basis. Limited numbers available.
35% discount.
SABLE:
Trophy fee for black mature Sable bull up to 40”
All in for $6 700.
Trophy fee for black mature Sable bull up to 42”
All in for $7 800. Regular price $9 500 and up.
Plus daily rate as per brochure
Permits, license fees, field staff all included, no hidden fees.
First come basis. Limited numbers available.
ROAN:
Trophy fee for mature Roan bull up to 27”
All in for $6 700.
Trophy fee for mature Roan bull up bigger than 27”
All in for $7 800. Regular price $9 500 and up.
Plus daily rate as per brochure
Permits, license fees, field staff all included, no hidden fees.
First come basis. Limited numbers available.
NYALA:
Trophy fee for nyala bull (expect 26” to 29” realistically)
All in for $1990. Regular price around $3 000 and up
Plus daily rate as per brochure
Permits, license fees, field staff all included, no hidden fees.
NB !!PLAINS GAME SPECIAL FOR THE 2018 SEASON
Choose any 6 species or 6 animals in total: Grey Duiker, Warthog , Impala, Blesbuck, Wildebeest, Zebra, Kudu and Nyala
Daily rate for 2 hunters, 2:1 hunt, 10 days, 9 nights in camp.
Grand Total for all above worth approx. $14 000.
2018 Special price is $8 990 for the lot, daily rates and trophy fees included.
This amounts to nearly 35% discount!
Please note some species are more expensive e.g. Nyala which makes the package pricier. It's important to compare apples when looking at a package, and not the amount or number of animals included! Nyala generally sell for $2300 each and up, so for one Nyala up to 6 "cheaper" species can be added to make it look good.