Canned hunts

A

AfricaPredator

New member
Just curious, does the market in USA offer clients what we class as CANNED hunts? A typical canned hunt is a basically known fact you will get what you are after, sort of like supermarket shopping. I think all CANNED hunting should be banned.

It is pretty well known in SA here, and it gives hunting a very bad name,driven shoots are just as bad. In some photos taken on websites you can actually see houses 150 yards behind animals being loaded on trucks and poles and border fences behind animals that are hunted in a CANNED fashion.

I believe if you want the animal you walk! Fair and square.

Is the CANNED business very popular in USA? I am a firm believer in fair chase.
 
AP,

Don't know the answer to your 1st question.

On a good day, I prefer to stalk a coyote. My ability against theirs. A bad stalk day, I just shoot long.

As for a [canned hunt]. I can see it perhaps, for a crippled/paralyized hunter. Other then that, pretty much like shooting fish in a barrel, IMB.
 
We've got a number of high-fence operations here in the states. I personally would not hunt in that fashion, but as Kirby said, it may be the right choice in some situations. To each his own, I just don't think I would have much of a sense of accomplishment hunting in a high fence setting. As for how popular it is? Well, apparently popular enough to keep the places in business.
 
Its very popular in states such as Texas,Montana has outlawed all high fence hunting to prevent the spread of diseases such as CWD,the only CWD infected game animals ever found in MT were in a game ranch.
 
I guess a person needs to define "canned hunt"
Is a hunt on a 60,000 acre ranch with a high fence a "Canned Hunt"? How about 100,000 acres? Is it size that determines "canned hunt"
As far as a house in the picture, I hunt deer in rural areas that are large by most standards, but you may see a farm house in the pic.
Some people hunt game in a cultivated field, grain, corn etc. is that a "canned hunt". How about a tree stand or a blind along the side of a field that has/had a crop in it.

I think a canned hunt is a small enclosure, high fence, less than a few hundred acres where the animal is in gun range all the time[400yds.] with no chance to leave the field.

But I don't see the difference between hunting 60,000 acres that is fenced or not fenced.
 
Well alright then. IMO, a "canned hunt" would be anywhere inside of a bordered/fenced area[game can't escape your wantenous killing desire /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif]. Whereas if you held/placed your firearm like a mortar launcher & your rd hit the opposing border in all directions /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
I agree with you on that, no way will I accept canned hunts, and will never even offer such hunts, driven or canned.

To many clients come into SA for instance, and are supermarket hunters.

Canned should be banned, even if its a 400yard enclosure or 4000 camp. Its unethical and not sportsman like at all.

The canned thing is giving hunting a terrible name.
 
I'd have to agree with Redfrog on that one. If it's the case where the game is continuously on the run because it is always in danger/range of being taken while a person is hunting then I am strongly against it.

On the other hand if the game has hundreds of thousands of acres to escape...whether it's fenced or not, is it that big of a difference?
 
Red Frog,

Those were some mighty big animals you got indeed. Just curious if you ate the meat? Is it tasty or what do you relate it to here as far as taste?

Good Shooting.
 
If a hunter books a hunt and is taken to a camp, and is driven around and shown the various game, and dropped off ( sometimes not even dropped off- he just shoots from a truck) dropped within 250 yards of lets say an Eland, the hunter stalks the Eland to within 200 yards and shoots it- that in an area of no more than a mile is considered a CANNED hunt. It also has to do with that game you are hunting, again an Eland, this is one of the dumbest animals on the African plains, so to stalk it is easy and to shoot it at anything more than 100 yards with a rifle is not sporting.

And with a CANNED hunt its even more pathetic.

Africa has vast amounts of game, many places on earth cannot compare with the amount of herd animals seen at one place and in a small area of ground like an open plain.

And CANNED is marketed to make the owners a quick bit of money as is wrong. If you hunt bigger buck as Kudu etc, and its hunted in the Kudus natural environment ( mountains) and you climb and look for that animal, cross mountains, and spend 3-4 hours stalking thats a hunt, not a hunt of driving around on a truck, looking at herds of game placed in camps for hunting, and picking out one, then driving to a spot of about 300 yards from the buck, getting off, walking 100 yards and shooting it, thats CANNED.

Many places in Africa market CANNED as described above, many farms dont allow ASSISTED MECHANICAL HELP at all, you want the buck, you walk, stalk and find it.This is how I conduct my hunts also.

Not only plains game is CANNED, much fowl hunting here is also CANNED. They are bred to be shot, and after reaching a certain age the fowl are taken into the mountains with hunters, and as the boxes are opened the birds take off and the hunters use shotguns to drop the birds.

A canned hunt does not have to have a fence around an area, if you are assisted by any mechanical help or other means that does not allow an animal a fair chance of survival is considered CANNED.
 
The canned hunts that I am most familiar with, and that used to be popular in this country for bear and especially cougar with hounds, and for jaguar in Mexico and South America, involved animals that had already been caught and held in cages awaiting a paying client. The animal was released prior to the actual hunt (sometimes with the client’s knowledge and sometimes without), hounds put on the track, and the animal treed for the client. This is illegal in all places in this country that I am aware of, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t still happen occasionally.

Just a notch above the canned hunt (in my opinion) is the guide’s waiting list. The guide hunts full time, with or without a client. In the event that a bear or lion is treed when a client isn’t along, a quick call from a cell phone (or a helper sent to town) brings a client on the run to “harvest” a trophy. If this isn’t illegal, it darn well should be; again in my opinion.
 
6mm06

Yep we ate game meat everyday in Africa. Sometimes twice a day, not including Biltong, which is African jerky.

We were not allowed to take meat out of the country. Game is eaten like beef everywhere we went.

The meat has little to no fat and it is similar to venison.
None of it was gamey or wild tasting. It would be no different than deer, moose or elk,
 
Wow!! Africapredator, that's a pretty broad definition.

So if I'm on an ATV or 4X4 truck and in my hunting area and see a moose on the side of a swamp, it would be a canned hunt if I stalk within a hundred yaards and shoot it??
The moose here is commonly called a "swamp donkey". Not real problem solvers. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

If a landowner charges a fee or guides for a fee to make money, that is also a canned hunt?? There's a lot of that going on in North America. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused1.gif

So when you call predators, do you do it on foot?? or from your truck?

Could you narrow your definition for me or am I just not understanding what a "Canned hunt" is.

I often use my truck and ATV to get into an area where I hunt. I often glass from the vehicle with Binos or spotting scope. I often try to get a sclose to an animal with my vehicle as I can before I stalk. Is this a canned hunt.

Sometimes I drive to the edge of a coulee and walk for 5 minutes or less to get a 250yd shot at a big game animal. Is this "Canned hunting"

I'm just trying to get an understanding of what it is that qualifies as a "canned hunt"
You seem very passionate about this topic and I'm not sure your idea of a canned hunt is the same as mine.
 
Canned hunts are not my bag of tea but I am not going to gripe about someone doing it. Many farmers have a hard time making it on agriculture these days and if they can raise wildlife and get someone to pay big bucks to shoot it, why not? We kill beef to eat every day in this country. What is the difference in killing a penned elk or deer. It may be killing and not hunting in my book but I think you draw a line in a bad place when you put it down. Next you will have to eliminate hound hunting, hunting with bait and who says it is fair to call a predator to an electronic call that you can set 100 yards away from you. I am just saying that we should let the other guy hunt however he wants to. It is all killing, no matter how we choose to do it. I believe that you play into the PETA folks hand when we begin to gripe about how other people hunt. They want nothing more than to pick us apart a little at a time.
 
Canned is if you enter an area stocked with game for the purpose of hunting , its not fair chase and you hunt the animal with the knowledge knowing it cannot escape easily or you use mechanical help to take it in a stocked area, thats canned.
 
Redfrog,

I agree with Africapredator(to an extent).

One canned hunt operation we have out here in California is for wild pigs. These guys have gone out and captured feral pigs and then bred them and raised the young in captivity. Then when they have grown large enough, they are realeased out of the pen 30 minutes to 1 hour before the "hunter" that has paid to "stalk" a pig arrives. The ranch guide drives the hunter out less than a 1/4 mile from the ranch house and he shoots it from the truck while it stands broadside out in the middle of an open field at 50-70 yards. Call it anything you want but don't call it fair chase.

Is this what you are talking about Africapredator?

On the other hand I must confess with guilt that I have gone on a couple of pheasant hunts where the birds had been released. On these occassions the birds were VERY wild acting and many escaped to live another day (thanks largely to my very poor shooting). I was more enamored with watching the dogs work and go into a point than anything else. Out here in Central California wild pheasants have almost completly disappeared. This is the only way I can "hunt" them.
 
If a person offers a hunt in that a hunter is taken to a stocked farm enclosed or not, but the chase does not allow the animal fair chance of escape and the hunter is dropped off close by and is or offered a shot from a truck is considered Canned.

Redfrog read my forum carefully, it is all worded and is easy to understand, once you hunt an area with game thats at an unfair advantage or have any mechanical help it becomes Canned.If you are dropped of in a camp after driving a mile to an animal, and you walk the last 200 yards and shoot the animal at 80 yards thats canned, if its not fair chase.

Bottom line- you want a trophy or want to hunt a buck you walk! Calling that animal is totally different. Canned is being offered an advantage to the disadvantage of the animal, and in most cases the animal has no escape.

In SA now this is within weeks of being banned, and to many of us its great, that means any hunter coming out to South Africa will have to hunt in the true meaning of the word. No more 5 star advantages.
 
Quote:
Canned is if you enter an area stocked with game for the purpose of hunting , its not fair chase and you hunt the animal with the knowledge knowing it cannot escape easily or you use mechanical help to take it in a stocked area, thats canned.



Thanks AfricaPredator. So it's the fact that it's stocked game. So what about on a large ranch of 50,000 acres/ If the rancher charges a fee, is that what you would consider a canned hunt?
I hunt all the time with an ATV or truck, but the animals are not stocked and can certainly escape. I don't consider it canned hunt, whether it is paid for or not.


CalCoyote I agree that is a canned hunt for the hogs.
 
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