Hunting: Big plans to create more training courses

The Namibia Professional Hunting Association (Napha) School of Conservation has big plans for the future to extend its curriculum and offer even more courses for the hunting industry.

According to instructor Royston Wright, research is currently being done to develop the Okatjeru training facilities and school to offer courses such as practical hunting, which will cover all aspects of trophy hunting, as well as photography, hunting assisting, tracking, bow hunting and many more.

The school’s aim is to educate and train existing and future Namibian hunters in the professional, sustainable and ethical utilisation of the country’s resources, he said.

“The Napha School of Conservation is built on the formidable foundations laid by the father of professional hunting in Namibia, Volker Grellmann, and his family,” Wright said.

According to him, the original concept for training aspiring hunting professionals in Namibia was developed and executed by Volker and Anke Grellmann and was presented at the Eagle Rock Professional Hunting Academy.

Events leading up to the establishment of the school date back as far as 1973, when the Grellmann’s business, Anvo Safaris, developed a hunting educational course, he said.

“By this time, members of the hunting fraternity realised that trophy hunting could become an important branch of hunting in Namibia. At the same time, it became abundantly clear that it would need to be controlled.

“It was a self-imposed control, one that Anvo Safaris and the other big practitioner of hunting safaris at the time, Basie Maartens, saw as a necessity if trophy hunting was to develop into a big business in an ethical way.”



Code of ethics

They then realised that a Namibian code of ethics for trophy hunting needed to be developed, Wright said.

“In those days, there were no facilities for people to acquire local training and there was no framework in place for aspiring hunting guides to do an apprenticeship.”

He said the first courses offered in 1973 consisted of day-long seminars and by the mid-70s, these were expanded to include separate courses for aspiring hunting guides and professional hunters. By the 80s, regular courses were offered annually.

To qualify as hunting guides or professional hunters, participants were tested by officials from the environment and tourism ministry, he added.

“They had to pass practical field tests as well as a written examination - as is the still the case.”

From 1998 to 2020, courses were also offered to previously disadvantaged Namibians at Eagle Rock who could then qualify and be registered in the profession by doing their theoretical examinations orally, tested by ministry officials. Then they were tested practically.

If they passed this, all they needed was a first-aid certificate, he explained.



‘Massive void’

According to Wright, Volker’s death in 2019 left a massive void not only in the hunting fraternity, but also within the hunting training vocation.

“Napha therefore decided to continue with the legacy left by Volker.”

The first training courses were offered at Eagle Rock, but after Napha was informed that these facilities would no longer be available, the association took the opportunity to build its own school.

He said the vision of the school is to keep it flexible and offer courses all over the country and expand on various courses.

The first courses for hunting guides and professional hunters took place in 2021 at Okatjeru Farm. Two courses were presented - one for previously disadvantaged Namibians and another for more experienced students, he said.

Inclusive

Wright narrated that early this year, the environment ministry requested the formulation of a preparation course to assist previously disadvantaged students without practical firearm knowledge to pass their practical examinations.

The school - alongside Okatjeru Hunting – then developed a practical training course to prepare students for the safe and effective use of firearms, the skinning and caping of trophies and the accurate determination antelope horn lengths.

Those who completed the training successfully were placed under tutorship to further improve on and practice what they had learnt, he said.

In addition, the school also developed a re-examination preparation course in module format to assist those preparing for the ministry’s examinations.

Wright added that Napha’s previously disadvantaged programme enables experienced trackers and skinners - who had no way of registering anywhere in a professional capacity in earlier years - to become members of the hunting fraternity in Namibia.

“The course is open to literate as well as illiterate people, it is their communication and field skills that count and the advantage is that that can do their examinations orally.”

He, however, stressed that the standards are the same for everyone, whether the exam is done orally or in writing.



Students

To date, more than 376 previously disadvantaged students have passed their theoretical and practical examinations, of which 131 have acquired their masters hunting status since 2004, Wright said.

“At the end of this year, the school was overwhelmed with applications to attend all our courses.

“The hunting professional preparation course had a total of 28 students, the bow hunting course had seven students, the housekeeping course had 11 students, the first-aid course had 44 students and the list goes on.”