A Sportsman’s Playground Like None Other

Safari Club International Brings Together The World of Hunting And Conservation Under One Roof

Combine the features of a natural history museum, a Sotheby’s firearm auction, an Abercrombie and Kent catalog, enough gold, silver and diamonds to make the Queen blush, and a roster of the world’s best hunting destinations and experts and you’re approaching something close to the annual Safari Club International Convention, which is headed to Las Vegas February 3-6, 2021.

Upwards of 20,000 attendees from across the globe—many arriving on private jets—are expected to descend on Vegas for this annual celebration of all things hunting, fishing and international wildlife conservation. The convention is Safari Club International’s largest fundraising event, which has generated more than $70 million to support conservation efforts across the globe since 2000.

Walk the 650,000-square feet of more than 1,000 booths and displays and you’ll be greeted by taxidermy dioramas the likes of which you’ll never see in a museum (my personal favorite was a wax figure of Teddy Roosevelt—at least I hope it was wax—riding a camel…an actual camel!), premium shotguns and rifles with intricate engraving and embossing—the kind you’d expect to find in the Louvre if it had a gunmaking wing. Then there are rows upon rows of lodges, guides and outfitters offering everything from sheep hunts in Tajikistan to stags in New Zealand to salmon fishing in Alaska…and pretty much anything you can think to pursue with rod, gun or bow.

All manner of seminars from the world’s leading hunting and outdoor experts, wild game chefs, book authors, dinner events and auctions where cocktail hour is foreplay to spending big on one-of-a-kind items and trips. Walking the isles you’re apt to bump into Hollywood celebrities, country music artists, sports stars, NASCAR legends, politicians, Generals and the who’s who of the outdoor world. These are people who might miss their kid’s graduation or bar mitzvah but they won’t skip this convention.

“This is the place you come to meet some of the most interesting people in the world,” says long time SCI volunteer and outfitter Russ MacLennan of Denver. “When you hunt with someone they often become lifelong friends and this convention is the one place where you can catch up with them every year. It’s sort of a big family reunion.”

“If you want to sell premium outdoor products,” says Steve Lamboy of Negrini and Sea Run, makers of the world’s best gun and fly fishing cases, “this is one convention that you can’t afford to miss.”

That sentiment is shared by Beretta, the venerable Italian gunmaker that once sold a custom shotgun set at this event for $1 million. “These are many of the most elite hunters and anglers in the world,” says Beretta’s Peter Horn. “These are people who can go anywhere and do anything…and they use the best gear available.”

That’s the fun, celebratory side of the convention. There is, however, serious business to be done to support Safari Club’s global conservation and hunter advocacy mission. The convention is billed as the, “Ultimate Sportsman’s Market” but it also is a marketplace of ideas where conservation leaders from across the globe gather to solve some of the most pressing wildlife issues of our time.

That’s one reason official delegations from numerous countries attend the event. Zambian minister Ronald Kaoma Chitotela was one such recent attendee. Nearly half of that nation’s conservation funding is generated through hunting tourism with some 70 percent of clients coming from the U.S. Similarly, officials from the African nations of Tanzania, Botswana, Ethiopia, Namibia, South Africa and Uganda report the same reliance on hunter-funded anti-poaching and conservation efforts.

“The SCI Convention is a showcase of the outdoor lifestyle and is a chance for friends from across the world to plan adventures, buy the best gear and generally have a wonderful time,” says the organization’s CEO W. Laird Hamberlin. “And the fun supports important work to save species and habitats across the world. We don’t just talk about conservation, we deliver it on-ground where wildlife and people benefit in a sustainable manner.”

The organization has active conservation projects in Alberta Canada, working with the University of Alberta and the University of Montana to monitor elk populations; in British Columbia in partnership with the BC Ministry of Forests, Land, and Natural Resources to better understand threatened bear populations and find solutions; in Michigan studying predator-prey relationships; in Missouri monitoring black bears, moose in Vermont, elk and mule deer in Wyoming as well as ongoing research on lions and buffalo in Tanzania and antelope in Uganda and many other areas across the globe.

“SCI’s conservation work doesn’t get as much credit as it deserves,” says Swarovski Optik’s Dean Capuano, makers of premium binoculars and scopes, “but they deliver sustainable programs that create value for wildlife…and that’s the only way to secure the future for species across the world.”

That gets to the crux of the hunting debate which is, well, often the elephant in the room. Animal rights groups posture that hunting is a threat to wildlife—especially across sub-Saharan Africa. However, countries that have banned hunting have seen the greatest decline in wildlife numbers. Kenya is the most glaring example where Dr. Richard Leakey, as head of the Kenya Wildlife Service, led the push to end elephant hunting in 1973 and famously burned piles of ivory in front of cameras from international news outlets. It was a moment celebrated across much of the western world as the good doctor was heralded as the savior of the great beasts.

Sadly, however, with no money from legal hunting to pay for anti-poaching units and to protect scores of species, poachers moved in en masse and decimated elephants, rhinos and other of the continent’s charismatic creatures. By 1989, Kenya’s elephant population had plummeted to fewer than 20,000 from a high of 275,000 animals.

Despite the horrific outcomes of Kenya’s elephant hunting ban, Botswana—bowing to international pressure—followed suit in 2014 and ended all hunting. The results were predictable as poachers decimated wildlife populations and deprived local communities of revenue, jobs and protein created from regulated hunting. Many Botswanans were angered that they were not given a say in how their wildlife would be managed. Government officials—after seeing the effects of rampant poaching and listening to their citizens—reversed the hunting ban last year.

“While the number of elephants in all of Africa has been declining, Botswana’s elephant population has been exploding—from 50,000 in 1991 to more than 130,000 today,” said Botswana president Mokgweetsi Masisi upon lifting the hunting ban. “That’s far more than Botswana’s fragile environment, already stressed by drought and other effects of climate change, can safely accommodate.”

“Safari Club has long recognized that if wildlife and people cannot co-exist, wildlife will lose,” says Hamberlin. “Without understanding the needs and concerns of indigenous populations and their relationship to wildlife, there can be no long term conservation solution. We don’t trade in emotion and sentiment. We base our conservation efforts on sound science and practical solutions—especially when it comes to human-animal conflict. People who live with lions, elephants, buffalo and other potentially destructive and dangerous animals deserve a seat at the table.”

And the people who attend this convention make that seat possible, for sportsmen and women have been picking up the tab for wildlife conservation for nearly a century—to the tune of more than $20 billion dollars from excise taxes and hunting licenses alone.

That’s cause for celebration.