Earlier this month, Namibia Professional Hunting Association presented a new Trophy Measurement System to the Namibian Ministry of Environment and Tourism. The system provides more incentives to take older animals, minimizing the hunting by size alone that anti-hunters often criticize.
This new pro-active model supports sustainable hunting by adding incentives for taking older animals that have already contributed to the gene pool, and that may have been previously overlooked based on other measurement systems.
Some of the characteristics currently used to recognize age, such as outward pointing horns on a kudu, have been recently linked to genetics instead of maturity. Adopting the proposed Namibian Trophy Measurement system could help hunting withstand future criticisms about hunting and its perceived alteration of gene pools.
Some of the ways this proposed system scores animals includes:
- Only the longer horn/tusk is measured, and the entire length is measured
- Any animal that has not reached maturity is disqualified
- Multiplication of an age factor to reach final score
Specifics of aging criteria for different species will include age of horn cells, color of canine teeth/molar inspection, discoloring of horns, and closure of nerve cavity.
The material presented by NAPHA was the result of a working group that applied itself to develop a method of scientifically orientated aging of African hunting trophies at the request of the Ministry of Environment and Tourism.
Source: NAPHA
