Where Does the Meat Go?

In response to an email last night, a few quick words about hunting in Arrica and what happens to the meat. in America, hunting is a hobby and the meat belongs to the hunter. Over hre, at least where I've been in Namibia, hunting is both an important part of resource management and the food distribution system. Game animals are "ranched" in same way cattle are ranched, but at a vastly different scale.

For example, the Wildacker ranch we were on the Kalahari is more than 60,000 acres. The original plan was to run cattle, but like much of the Kalahari the Wildacker holdings are full of a particular poisonous plant that cattle just love to eat and the indigenous animals have learned to avoid (although some of the game animals routinely die from the poison). 

The ranches maintain their own butchering facilities and provide the game meat to the local tribes, who usually process the meat through drying it into biltong, sort of game beef jerky, to last through the rainy months. To be clear, the tribes have their own holdings and hunting rights, but there is no Whole Foods you can pop down to for free-range grass-fed beefsteak if daddy comes home empty-handed from the hunt.