Munyan spent 30 days in Ethiopia this past March/April with Swanepoel and Scandrol Safaris, who is subleasing from Thomas Mattanovich. Munyan calls his experience a "nightmare," despite killing a mountain nyala, Menelik's bushbuck, Soemmering gazelle and Abysinnian kudu. He struck out on a Nile buffalo and giant forest hog, and reports a total cost of $80,000 for this hunt. His complaints are worth airing to give other hunters a better idea of the conditions they should discuss with their operators ahead of time and that they should be prepared to deal with on the ground.
First, Munyan cites a scarcity of game in the various areas he visited. He reports seeing two legal kudu after six days of hunting and climbing, 16 gazelles with only one legal ram after driving all over the hunting area, one gang of baboons in two full days of driving and hiking, and two legal nyala bulls after 10 days of hunting. From his experience he concludes that there is no such thing as achieving a full-bag safari in Ethiopia. The reasons are because of low game densities and quotas, plus another problem he observed, namely the numbers of people living within the hunting areas. I'll get to that issue in a moment.
Each area, he says, has only one or two trophy species available, and you must travel one or two days by ground to reach another hunting area for other species. (Charter flights are available, but........(continued)
