By Ammie Pringle
The eleventh annual game auction of Casper de Klerk Wild was held in Somerset East on Friday, 14 March.
This company, which boasts one of the most successful and experienced game capture teams in the country, captures and relocates large quantities of game across South Africa annually. They also specialize in game counts from helicopters, as well as the marketing, sale and transport of game.
Founder and owner Casper de Klerk was cautiously optimistic before the auction. “We are excited about the day and I feel that the right buyers are attending. I think that the prices for breeding game will be more or less the same as last year, but hopefully the trophy game will do better, because the hunting market is looking good at the moment.”
A total of 305 lots were offered at the auction. This included both trophy and breeding game. Potential buyers were able to view the animals in 146 of these lots in the bomas, while the rest were sold from the catalogue and still had to be caught and transported. A total of 145 buyers, 94 of whom were online, registered for this popular auction.
Tollie Jordaan of Tollies African Safaris, described the auction as a seller’s auction, as the prices were high. “After the covid pandemic, the hunting industry showed a boom and a lot of trophy game was hunted. This resulted in the current shortage of trophy game, so game hunting industries are willing to pay more to get their hands on this type of top quality for their customers.”
De Klerk was very pleased after the auction, especially with the prices that some trophy game fetched.
According to him, it was also nice that the sable cows again achieved good prices and were sold for about R30 000 each. “They have been neglected a bit in the past few years. The blue wildebeest bulls also achieved good prices after a few weak years and were sold for between R18 000 and R20 000 each.
“What also surprised me was that buyers were interested in zebras again and were willing to pay up to R9 000 each. Golden wildebeest and sable bulls also did well.”
The experienced Leon Klopper, who has been in the stud and game auctioneer industry for 36 years, conducted the auction.
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