For now, you should know that only 89 trophy hunting licenses are being issued despite a quota of 250 CITES export permits. That's because a number of trophies taken from hunts in 2009 and 2008 are being rolled over into the 2010 export quota. The reason, you'll recall, is the situation that occurred early in the 2009 hunting season, when MET issued a moratorium on leopard permits because it had issued the entire export quota by June. Namibia had never issued its entire quota on leopard before and in the past had always issued more licenses to hunt leopard than the export quota of 250 CITES permits. As a result, in 2009 the ministry had issued more than 400 trophy hunting licenses before the moratorium was announced. They decided to allow all of those hunts to take place, in spite of the filled export quota and promised to issue export permits in 2010 for any additional successful leopard hunters. The cause for all this, as we previously reported, was the sudden increase in the number of foreign hunters coming to Namibia for leopard, coupled with the number of hunts conducted with hounds. The hound hunts were so successful that the quota was filled just four months into the season.
Of the remaining 2010 permits, six have been allocated to State Concessions for hunts from 2009; six to State Concessions for 2010; 43 for Communal Conservancies for 2010; and 34 for freehold........(continued)
