African Professional Hunters Association

Improper focus ruins potentially good photographs, and people’s perceptions and acceptance of programs that can contribute to conservation.  It’s happening with those who seek to eliminate hunting tourism, claiming that photo tourism is a universally superior conservation model, because it’s non-consumptive, more sustainable, contributes more financially, and doesn’t harm wildlife.  

But is that true?  

Photo safaris are popular bucket list experiences, but once completed, whose buckets are being filled and whose have been emptied dry? 

The photo tourism model requires high volume visitation, significant infrastructure, and massive resource consumption.  Roads, parking lots, lodges, viewing platforms, airstrips, bridges, picnic sites, entrance points, fences and toilet facilities all take up what was formerly wildlife habitat.  Typically, unlimited numbers of cars, (often with few occupants), emit pollution, especially whilst idling in traffic jams at wildlife sightings, traversing most of the available drivable areas every day, sometimes even spotlighting at night.  Auto fluid leakages and littering occurs, road dust chokes vegetation, invasive plants are introduced, and soil erosion from compaction ensues.  Necessary, frequent lodge services such as resupply of provisions, waste removal, and maintenance adds to the traffic impacts. 

Water consumption is enormous, often in the hundreds of liters per guest per day, and includes non-essentials like swimming pools, in areas where dry seasons are critically limiting to all life.  Sewage and grey water must be dealt with, sometimes containing harmful levels of pharmaceutical and sunscreen residues.  Most people embrace hedonism whilst on holiday, so water and food wastage is common.  Adherence to proper, conservative quotas are what makes hunting sustainable, yet rarely does photo tourism place any quotas on their limited resources, like water.   

Photo tourism brags about how much revenue it generates, as compared to hunting tourism, yet what does it give back?  Often none is required, voluntary amounts are nonexistent, companies are foreign owned, and much of the revenue doesn’t stay in country.  

One comparison of basic economic contributions was calculated by professional hunter Paul Stones, regarding reserves in the Greater Kruger area. During the 2018 to 2020 seasons, photo tourism there racked up a seemingly impressive 127,091 bed nights, in contrast to the mere 560 tallied for hunting tourism.  But the more telling figures are that the resulting game reserve levies generated were only $16 vs $1531 USD per bed night from photo vs hunting tourists. 

Many inexpensive photo safari options exist, yet tourists still complain and want prices lower.  Parks are grossly underfunded, however,  and are increasingly donor dependent, subsidized heavily by foreign governments and NGOs.  And yet they are still struggling. 

Photo safari destinations are often lavishly appointed,  westernized,  diluted, deluded, tamed versions not very representative of the harsh, limiting realities of daily life on the African continent.  Yet accusations of racism and colonialism are hurled at hunting tourism only.  

Many who stay in parks don’t even really care about nature.  They are simply on holiday at a lavishly appointed lodge.  Often where poverty is prevalent right outside each gate.  Photo tourists complain that there are too many people in countries they visit, yet they resist any time it’s suggested that tourist numbers be regulated.  

Local people residing adjacent to parks, most of whom will never get to visit them, are expected to tolerate destructive or dangerous wildlife simply because tourists wish to photograph them.  Most Africans have a utilitarian view of animals, understanding hunting more so than simply photography.  Yet anti-hunting photo tourists scoff at the merits of having hunting concessions as buffer zones around parks.

Critics say hunting tourism is not required for survival.  But more so photography is not, as people don’t eat photos. The most desirable,  visited photo lands primarily protect areas supporting the Big Five, with additional iconic scenery, high visibility and high natural wildlife concentrations. Not all of Africa is like this. 

Popular photo tourism circuits typically focus on only the highlights of the park system, with tourists rushing quickly from place to place even within each park. Sightings of the Big Five are almost guaranteed in many parks, often within only a couple days’ stay. Radiotracking locations or firsthand observations are often shared via two way radios or cell phones to help guarantee clients’ sightings.  A filling of a shopping list, no real effort required, please stay in your car, sort of experience.  Mad dashes on and offroad, resembling free for all auto races instead of nature appreciation, often ensue when special events are detected – particularly predatory ones. Smaller animals have been injured or killed in these frenzies, young separated from their mothers, and/or habitat destroyed. 

These disruptive, dangerous behaviors of guests and guides, willing to violate regulations to get better photos, often go unreported and unpunished. Those who are so keen to name and shame LEGAL hunters unfortunately don’t feel as obligated to call out the ILLEGAL behavior of their own cohorts. 

Bloodlust is prevalent, as witnessing wounding or killing in predation scenes is highly desirable, exciting for many, and is captured in great detail,  with camera shutters rapidly firing away like mini machine guns in the background.  People go to “The Greatest Wildlife Show On Earth” – the Great Migration in Kenya and Tanzania – not primarily to see wildebeest and zebra moving in response to grazing conditions, but to see them get attacked mid-river by crocodiles. Nature’s adversity is the photographer’s best opportunity to get dramatic shots, be it drought concentrating wildlife at waterholes or birthing seasons providing predators with abundant, more vulnerable prey. 

Many photo tourists claim wildlife should only die natural deaths, yet implore parks to capture and treat wounded animals.  And old, named and perceived to be tamed animals in their last, miserable days of organ failure sometimes have rangers or researchers as bodyguards so they can “die in peace”.  Implying of course, that having photo tourists around is disturbing.   

Animals in photo tourism areas, where there is no legal hunting, still get killed by humans in other ways, like auto collisions, poaching, human conflicts, ingestion of trash or poisons, habitat damage from overpopulation, catch and release fishing fatalities, light pollution,  and collisions with communications towers, lodge windows and utility lines.  And many lodges serve game meat or feature animal parts as décor. 

Disturbance at kills or of predation events, inbreeding, disease transmission, nest abandonment along roads, altering activity patterns, and noise pollution also have huge, sub-lethal impacts.  From reptiles to birds to mammals, emerging studies are recording chronic stress in wildlife due to the presence of humans.  Some parks receive over a million visitors per year, which can lead to tolerance or avoidance, either one of which likely results in chronic stress, as although humans want to see wildlife,  the reverse is not usually true. Except for when tourists feed them, transforming them into pests, who may eventually need eliminated for visitor safety reasons. 

Poaching problems in parks are prevalent and persistent,  yet are often kept quiet, so as not to ruin the illusion of parks as unspoiled Edens. Yet anti-poaching rangers are understaffed, underfunded and can get killed in the line of duty, leaving families behind with little or no financial support. 

Tourism has enormously grown in size, but the sizes of areas for it hasn’t.  In some places, hunting lands have been converted to photo tourism yet tragically, ironically, often end up inviable and degraded from human encroachment.

A common mantra is to take only photos, leave only footprints.  But how big is that footprint?  Claims are made of one animal generating many dollars over multiple years instead of being shot once by a hunter.  But what was the cost of that to the environment and all other inhabitants? 

Critics also suggest hunters should just donate money instead of going.  Are they willing to do that?  The pandemic showed us they weren’t.  A relevant, telling statistic that Paul Stones noted in the Greater Kruger area was that photo contribution in reserves dropped to 14% of what it was in the 2019/2020 season.  Yet hunting during the height of the pandemic was still over 60% with less staff retrenchment,  especially critical anti-poaching rangers.  Reports of animals in parks behaving quite differently without the mass, persistent presence of humans were also regular news during COVID’s reign.

It’s all too easy when looking through a camera viewfinder (or a rifle scope) to have an extremely limited range of view, especially if zoomed in, oblivious to surroundings, focused on your target.  Yet it’s imperative that all activities affecting conservation are viewed through a wider lens.  Photo tourism and hunting areas can and do work nicely in concert with each other, sometimes even on the same lands.  Both are necessary and desired, and can contribute to conservation.  But both can have harmful impacts as well. Therefore neither can be painted with a broad brush. The hunting industry recognizes, contributes to, and even protects the photo industry,  not calling for its elimination,  despite its flaws. Yet rarely does the photo tourism industry reciprocate such respect and courtesy.

African countries face ever increasing conservation challenges.  None of which can be solved by pointing fingers in only one direction – against hunting.  Photo tourism has negative impacts and is consumptive too, and on a much greater scale than hunting tourism is. No fancy filters or photo editing programs can delete or correct that.  

Dedicated photographers, just like responsible hunters, should aim to make the best shots possible, under any and all conditions. And should recognize that the most harmful shots currently being taken in Africa are the hypocritical, passing potshots of those who seek elimination of hunting tourism yet fail to sharpen the focus on their own serious impacts.  

A caveat in hunting is that you can’t take back a shot, so you must choose each wisely to effectively accomplish your goals.  In order for African conservation to succeed, and for good light to figuratively prevail,  the photo tourism industry and community should adopt this standard as well.  Absolute certainty of the target and proper focus is the safest and best practice for the sustainable future of Africa’s nature and its people. 

Written by:

Karen Seginak, Executive Officer, 

with Paul Stones, Vice President APHA