Slightly smaller than the State of Alaska, Peru lies on the western coast of South America between Chile and Ecuador. Its terrain ranges from coastal plains bordering the Pacific Ocean in the west, to the rugged, high elevations of the Andes Mountains in the center of the country, to the lowland jungles of the Amazon Basin in the east. With such a range in ecosystems, Peru is a hunter’s paradise, offering more than 100 different species, including six different kinds of deer, a number of wild cats, numerous birds and interesting jungle species, such as capybara. The problem is that Peru has been essentially closed to hunting for several decades. That’s all about to change, opening the way for some new and exciting hunt opportunities.
Officially, hunting was never actually “closed” in Peru, but stringent regulations have made it virtually impossible for even resident Peruvians to obtain hunting licenses. Unfortunately, that stopped neither locals nor foreigners from hunting illegally, and a number of fly-by-night “outfitters” have hosted hunters from all over the world, killing everything from jaguars to rare birds. This activity only reinforced the anti-hunting bias among wildlife officials in Lima. Enter Thomas Saldias, a young, US-educated Peruvian who five years ago created the Peruvian Hunters Association to promote legal hunting in Peru. The only pro-hunting NGO in the country at the time, the Peruvian Hunters Association began lobbying government officials, trying to educate them on the many benefits of hunting. Saldias also brought the International Hunters Education Association to Lima to implement a hunter education program as a tool to open doors. And he managed to have South Carolina Representative Mike Pitts, former Co-Chair of the South Carolina Legislative Sportsmen’s Caucus, meet with Peru’s director of tourism, ministers of agriculture and commerce and other officials.....
