IT\u2019S A MUGGY SPRING DAY,<\/span><\/strong> and I\u2019m riding on a bench mounted over the bed of an old Jeep\u2014a typical rig in this part of the world. We\u2019ve been looking for a broken-horned blackbuck for about an hour when I see one in a clearing with a group of Thomson\u2019s gazelles.<\/p>\n \u201cBroken horn, three o\u2019clock,\u201d I say quietly as four sets of binoculars turn to the right. The buck stands broadside, maybe 130 yards away, as the Jeep rolls to a stop.<\/p>\n Setting 9-year-old Landon up on the shooting sticks, Jason Wallace crouches over her left shoulder. To her right, her dad, Mike Bowen, whispers to shoot when she\u2019s ready. But then the blackbuck trots off. The trio hops back in the Jeep, and away we go, driving along the dusty senderos<\/em> of Salt Creek Ranch.<\/p>\n Located 50 miles north of the Mexican border, the 3,600-acre, high-fenced property holds 45 species of exotic wildlife. Wallace, who owns Alpha Outfitters<\/a> and runs the operation here, tells me the ranch is home to roughly a thousand animals. The springbok, impala, and other antelope we see are bedded under mesquite trees and small oaks. Herds of wildebeest run in the open, galloping like wild horses. A lone kudu bull peeks over the pond, but by the time I spot his horns, he spooks.<\/p>\n Turning uphill and out of the grasslands, I peer into the brush on either side of the road. I won\u2019t spot a scimitar-horned oryx<\/a> or a dama gazelle until this evening, but Wallace assures me they\u2019re around. With the sun overhead, they\u2019re just hiding in the thick stuff along with most of the other transplants.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s crazy how well these animals can hide when they want to,\u201d Wallace says from behind the wheel. \u201cWe\u2019re talking about a mostly white 450-pound antelope, and one could be standing right over there, not 20 feet into the brush.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, I have a better chance of seeing a scimitar oryx here than in the wilds of Africa, where the species is now extinct. It\u2019s a paradox that defines the modern-day safari industry in Texas, where wealthy hunters pay tens of thousands of dollars to shoot exotic species behind high fences.<\/p>\n But as the potential for profit has grown, so has the industry\u2019s role as a conservation tool. If things continue the way they\u2019re going, then by the year 2100 or so, most safaris for African species will take place in the Lone Star State. Rising temperatures, poaching, and unchecked human development will leave parts of the Mother Continent unrecognizable, with scientists estimating that more than half its mammals<\/a> will disappear by the end of the century.<\/p>\n For some of these exotic species, a high-fence ranch in Texas just might be their last chance at avoiding extinction. Many of the rare animals now being bred and raised in Texas could be used to repopulate their native homelands. In some places, this has already happened.<\/p>\n The number of scimitar-horned oryx, addax antelope, and dama gazelle living in their native Africa had reached an all-time low in 2004, says Charly Seale, executive director of the state\u2019s Exotic Wildlife Association<\/a>. The three animals were added to the endangered species list, which automatically banned anyone from hunting them\u2014regardless of whether the hunt took place in South Africa or South Texas. Foreseeing the financial hit that exotic-wildlife ranchers in Texas would take, the EWA invited representatives from the Department of the Interior to a well-known game preserve in Central Texas.<\/p>\n \u201cWe showed people what we were doing in this part of the Hill Country, and the vast number of scimitar, addax, and damas we had here,\u201d Seale says. \u201cThey went back and rewrote parts of the Endangered Species Act to have [the three species] exempted, and George W. Bush signed off on it.\u201d<\/p>\n The Humane Society of the U.S. and other animal rights groups sued. And as the lawsuit dragged out over the next eight or so years, exotic-wildlife ranchers in Texas panicked. They started offloading these animals, selling them for pennies on the dollar.\u00a0<\/p>\n Wallace, who was working for another landowner at the time, witnessed this practice firsthand.<\/p>\n \u201cMy boss said, \u2018Jason, kill \u2019em all. I will not have an animal on my ranch that is a negative in my checkbook. If I can\u2019t hunt these things, I don\u2019t want them here. Lower the price and get rid of them.\u2019 So we did.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Seale\u2019s estimates, the statewide populations of the three endangered species fell by at least 50 percent while the lawsuit languished in the courts. Then, in 2013, President Obama signed a bill into law that permanently exempted the species<\/a> from the ESA and reopened the door to hunting scimitar oryx, addax antelope, and dama gazelle in Texas.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s where we are today. We\u2019re back to freely raising, buying, selling, and hunting these animals. And we\u2019re estimating the state\u2019s current population of scimitar oryx to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 to 20 thousand.\u201d<\/p>\n Charly Seale, EWA\u2019s executive director <\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Meanwhile, the International Union for Conservation of Nature estimates that there are no more than 2,000 of the desert-dwelling antelope living in Africa, where they\u2019re still classified as extinct in the wild.<\/a> Most of these animals live on game preserves, which have been reinvigorated with stocks of Texas-raised scimitars over the years. Led by a partnership between the EWA and the Sahara Conservation Fund<\/a>, a past reintroduction effort in Senegal embodies the organization\u2019s motto: \u201cconservation through commerce.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very plain and simple: To conserve these animals, they have to have a value,\u201d Seale says. \u201cEach one of our ranchers is a small businessman, and at the end of every month, he\u2019s gotta see a return on his investments or he won\u2019t stay in business. But if we give these animals a value, they\u2019ll flourish.\u201d<\/p>\n The dama gazelle and addax antelope are still on shaky ground, with as few as 100 of each species living in the wild today. And although they number in the thousands on private Texas ranchland, Seale says that with the rare exception of the scimitar project in Senegal, reintroducing African animals raised in Texas is difficult because of political differences between the U.S. and various African governments.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were involved in a project a few years ago called Rhino 1000<\/a>,\u201d Seale says. \u201cMany South Africans wanted a safety deposit box, if you will, and they felt like Texas could be that box. Ranchers could raise the [rhinos] here, and then, eventually, we could repatriate their offspring back to South Africa. But as governments got more involved, South Africa put that plan on hiatus. And the whole idea just went away.\u201d<\/p>\n Regardless, there are dozens of black and white rhinos sourced from U.S. zoos currently living on Texas ranches. (The total number of rhinos in the state does not appear to be published anywhere, and Seale says he\u2019s unsure of the exact figure himself.) And because intense poaching pressure has brought the total number of wild black rhinos in Africa to around 6,000 animals, there\u2019s still a chance these ranches could help with repopulation in the future.<\/p>\n Despite the red tape, partnerships between Texas conservationists and their counterparts in Africa are still being forged today, says Dr. James Derr, a researcher and professor at Texas A&M\u2019s Department of Veterinary Pathobiology<\/a>. A self-dubbed \u201cold-school geneticist,\u201d Derr has been taking graduate students to South Africa for more than 20 years.<\/p>\n \u201cMany areas of South Africa, especially the Lowveld<\/a>, are very, very similar to South Texas in terms of ecology,\u201d he says, explaining why many of the African species do so well in the state. Both regions have a subtropical climate and open woodlands dominated by tall grasses and thorny scrub.<\/p>\n As the demand for exotic-wildlife professionals has grown over the past decade, Derr has helped launch a new program at A&M. He now brings veterinary students across the Atlantic, where they learn how to capture and care for African game.<\/p>\n \u201cWe teach them how to chemically immobilize African wildlife, and how to treat them, transport them, et cetera,\u201d Derr says. \u201cWe\u2019ll capture all the dangerous game species\u2014elephants, rhinos, Cape buffalo, lions, and leopards\u2014as well as plains game. That way, when they\u2019re working as veterinarians here in Texas, they\u2019ll know how to care for these exotic species that are all over the state now.\u201d<\/p>\n Derr says he understands why the motivations behind the state\u2019s exotic-hunting industry might be questioned by non-hunters and hunters alike. But the way he and some of his colleagues see it, the breeding programs on these ranches are now an integral part of a global conservation strategy.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not just exotic hoof stock,\u201d says Dr. Brian Davis, an associate professor and researcher who studies population genetics at A&M. \u201cI also work with a lot of large carnivores. And I think that captive animals\u2014as long as they\u2019re cared for properly\u2014can represent genetic diversity that may not exist in the wild anymore. I think if certain wealthy individuals are committed to managing and maintaining these species, they can be an important, and maybe even an essential, part of conservation.\u201d<\/p>\n The first known release of exotic game on private land in Texas took place on the legendary King Ranch<\/a> in the 1930s. After buying nilgai antelope from a zoo, which imported the stock straight from India, the owners of the sprawling cattle ranch released a small herd onto the coastal plain. The animals quickly adapted to the temperate climate and, with no natural predators, the herd grew.<\/p>\n Other ranchers in Texas followed suit, stocking their places with blackbuck and axis purchased from big-city zoos. Then, roughly 20 years after the King Ranch release, Texas experienced its worst drought<\/a> on record. Springs went dry and feed prices skyrocketed, crippling the state\u2019s cattle ranchers.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were left with only one source of revenue, and that was their seasonal deer leases. So they started looking for alternative ways to provide a year-round income,\u201d Seale explains. \u201cSome of the old guys who started this whole industry had been to Africa and hunted over there. They saw that the climate and terrain were very similar to the Texas Hill Country and South Texas, and they figured those animals would flourish over here.\u201d<\/p>\n The original ranchers argued that the animals should be classified as livestock and not wildlife, Seale says. \u201cSo they went to the legislature and got [a bill] passed that put [the animals] into the Texas agriculture code as livestock. And that\u2019s where they remain today.\u201d<\/p>\n By the time the EWA was founded, in 1967, the stage in Texas was set. The local landscape and climate had proven hospitable to these new species, and a lack of regulations had blurred the line between livestock and game animals. There was also money\u2014a whole lot of money\u2014to be made.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The state\u2019s exotic-wildlife industry is currently valued at around $5 billion, which is double what it was six or seven years ago, according to Seale. He says there are roughly one million exotic animals now living on private game ranches in Texas. This includes only hoof stock\u2014not birds or big cats, the latter of which require special permits to raise in pens.\u00a0<\/p>\n The state\u2019s wildlife menagerie isn\u2019t limited to African origins, either; animals from six continents have found a footing on private land here. Herds of Iberian ibex share the rocky hillsides with Himalayan tahr. Down in the oak savannas, Indian axis and blackbuck drink from stock tanks alongside red kangaroos and P\u00e8re David\u2019s deer from China. Standing in the right place on a crisp fall morning, a hunter can hear the roars of Patagonian red stag intermingled with the bugles of Rocky Mountain elk.<\/p>\n With the exception of rhinos and big cats, every one of the exotics held on private land in Texas can be hunted year-round at any time of day. And as long as the shooter possesses a valid Texas hunting license, there are few regulations<\/a> on how these animals (which are, technically, livestock) can be hunted. <\/p>\n There are no bag limits or harvest restrictions. Hunting over bait and shooting from vehicles is permitted. The state doesn\u2019t even have a minimum acreage law for hunting, although most counties require a minimum of 10 acres on which to legally hunt or discharge a firearm.<\/p>\n But is any of this really hunting? That depends who you ask and where you go. (Free-range exotics do exist in Texas, and several counties now have axis, nilgai, blackbuck, fallow deer, and aoudad, according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Wallace has dealt with plenty of critics who take issue with the way high-fence ranches like Salt Creek operate. \u201cZoo hunting,\u201d they call it. But he thinks some of these critiques are overblown when you consider the vast acreage on some of these properties.<\/p>\n \u201cSome of the [high-fence] ranches in Texas are bigger than small cities. You can drive the ranch for an entire day and never see the same fence,\u201d Wallace says. \u201cI don\u2019t care what kind of \u2018low fence\u2019 or \u2018no fence\u2019 property you hunt. That animal will come to a boundary at some point\u2014whether it\u2019s an interstate, a river, or something else.\u201d<\/p>\n Wallace also guides hunters in Namibia, and he points out that many of those hunting concessions have high fences, too.<\/p>\n \u201cEven those big ranches [in Africa] have high fences around their perimeters. They\u2019re not to keep the animals from escaping. They\u2019re to protect them from poachers,\u201d he says. \u201cBut the kind of hunting we do there is exactly the same kind of hunting we do here.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Regardless, this is where the Boone and Crockett Club<\/a> and other big-game conservation organizations draw the line, as they don\u2019t maintain records for pen-raised animals or critters killed behind high fences. An exception is Safari Club International<\/a>, which fully supports high-fence hunting and accepts these animals into its own record book. (SCI declined to comment for this story.)<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s obviously a place and a market for it, but there is also a potential that this type of thing might be viewed negatively by the non-hunting public,\u201d says B&C big game records director Justin Spring. \u201cWe\u2019ve just always been a proponent of fair chase. And if you get to the root of that, \u2018fair\u2019 means the animal has an equal or greater chance to escape the hunter than the hunter does to kill it.\u201d<\/p>\n Put plainly, on most high-fence hunts, the shooter gets their animal. And I\u2019ll readily acknowledge that the kind of sheep hunting I saw take place at Salt Creek Ranch is not the kind that Jack O\u2019Connor wrote about<\/a>. Driving along a fence at the base of a large hill, we saw a band of Red sheep working their way through the scrub. Sitting in the passenger seat of the Jeep roughly 60 yards away, the client picked out the biggest one. Then he lifted his rifle and pulled the trigger. We found the ram, piled up in the prickly pears a short distance from where it was hit.\u00a0<\/p>\n Still, Spring sees Texas\u2019 exotic-wildlife industry, and especially the breeding side, as having real value in the larger conservation world. He references B&C\u2019s position statement on the genetic manipulation of game<\/a>, which supports \u201cthe use of scientifically guided wildlife management techniques used to enhance or restore big game populations or at-risk species.\u201d<\/p>\n Spring also points to the similarities between these exotic breeding programs and captive herds of desert bighorns, which Texas has released on public land over the years to strengthen native populations.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it goes without saying,\u201d he says, \u201cthat having these animals somewhere is better than not having them on the face of the earth.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou ever tried zebra before?\u201d asks Robert Martin, who everyone just calls Uncle Bobby. He smiles when I tell him I haven\u2019t. \u201cYou\u2019re in for a treat.\u201d<\/p>\n Wallace\u2019s right-hand man and the only employee who lives on the ranch full time, Martin is in the middle of butchering the Grant\u2019s zebra that a client, Steve Beatte, killed this morning. After severing a chunk of rib with a Sawzall, Martin grabs a sharp knife to cut out a few tomahawk steaks. The hide of the blond-maned stallion lies on the floor of the walk-in cooler, rinsed and ready for a trip to the taxidermist.<\/p>\n Josh Risner, Wallace\u2019s lead guide, stands outside under the roof of the skinning shed. Built like an ox, the back of his neck is sunburned from ranch work, his arms covered in tattoos. He can throw deer over his shoulder like bags of corn, and he and Martin once set a ranch record by skinning 18 animals in 24 hours.\u00a0<\/p>\n While Martin trims a tenderloin, they both get a text from Wallace with a GPS pin: \u201cRam down. Nala to me.\u201d Before Martin can get his gloves off, Risner replies. He loads Nala, Wallace\u2019s tracking dog, into a buggy and drives off to help find the downed sheep.<\/p>\n Two rigs come back an hour later. A dead ram lies on a rack mounted to the Jeep\u2019s front bumper. It\u2019s an old Transcaspian urial, native to the mountains of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and northern Iran. When Risner puts a tape to its horns, we see its upper gums are cut and swollen from rubbing against the few lower teeth it had left.<\/p>\n The zebra and the ram aren\u2019t the first critters Beatte and Wallace have killed together, and they won\u2019t be the last. That evening, Beatte will shoot an axis buck with just a shred of velvet hanging from the base of its antlers. The following day, he\u2019ll take what could be the highest-scoring bongo ever killed with a handgun. A striped, forest-dwelling antelope<\/a> native to sub-Saharan Africa, the bongo will cost Beatte roughly $50,000, or about 10 times as much<\/a> as the axis. But that\u2019s just part of the game down here, and Wallace knows exactly how to play it.<\/p>\n Wearing tactical boots, cargo pants, a tucked-in T-shirt, and a cap, Wallace looks like former military. Serving in his own way, he forged his identity and moral compass in a firehouse, where he followed in his father\u2019s footsteps and still works today. But underneath an exterior hardened by West Texas wildfires and trauma care, Wallace\u2019s affable nature shines through. He smiles often and easily, especially when he talks about BB, the 11-day-old markhor kid he carries around in his arms.<\/p>\n \u201cYou should have seen me trying to get her to take the bottle,\u201d Wallace tells me, explaining how he nursed the goat back to health after its mother died giving birth to triplets. \u201cI\u2019d have to sit down and take my shirt off, and she\u2019d nose around my chest for a while. Eventually she\u2019d get up near my armpit and I would slip the nipple through.\u201d<\/p>\n Also known as \u201cscrew-horned goats,\u201d markhor are native to the Himalayas, where they spend most of their lives above the treeline. They\u2019re incredibly agile climbers. They\u2019re also increasingly rare in the wild<\/a>.<\/p>\n The 41-year-old now breeds and raises the goats on his home property near Luling. It\u2019s a new phase for Wallace, who started guiding hunters on private ranches 17 years ago. Working his way up from whitetail and aoudad hunts, he got to know other landowners and exotic-animal brokers. It wasn\u2019t long before he was traveling the state, taking eager clients to whichever ranch held the next critter on their list.<\/p>\n \u201cEventually, I had to branch out,\u201d Wallace says. \u201cMy reputation kind of grew, and other ranchers started contacting me, asking, \u2018Hey, how can I get you to come sell animals on my place?\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n This brought him and his outfitting business to Salt Creek, where he\u2019s grown the hunting program while establishing a breeding operation. They primarily breed markhor, fallow deer, kangaroos, and Nubian ibex, but also have a few African species like kudu, bongo, nyala, and sitatunga antelope.<\/p>\n The transition from hunting guide to herdsman seems natural for Wallace. Long before he was a professional hunter and a ranch manager, he was an FFA kid who raised hogs and goats. He was also obsessed with the movie Hatari!<\/em>, in which John Wayne plays a wildlife trapper in Africa named Sean Mercer.<\/p>\n \u201cMy best friend and I, we\u2019d go out to his ranch, jump around the picnic tables, and yell \u2018Let out the rhinos!\u2019\u201d Wallace laughs. \u201cAnd I told him one day when we were 7 or 8: \u2018I\u2019m gonna have my own ranch someday and do this just like John Wayne.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n He might be in Texas, but for all intents and purposes, Wallace is<\/em> a modern-day Mercer. And getting into some of his wilder animal-capture stories, it\u2019s clear he has the bumps and bruises to prove it.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been gored, kicked, and had my knee dislocated more than once,\u201d Wallace says. \u201cI\u2019ve ridden eland bulls through this brush because they weren\u2019t as asleep as I thought they were.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that\u2019s nothing. There are guys out here who ride around on four-wheelers with lassos. They\u2019ll ride up beside the animals, rope \u2019em and bail off. Then they\u2019ll grab their tails, sweep a leg, dive on \u2019em and hogtie \u2019em. I\u2019m talking real cowboy stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n That night, after photographing Steve\u2019s axis buck, we all sit down at the ranch house for dinner. Our plates are crammed with giant wagyu steaks, homemade salsa, potatoes, and zebra tenderloin. And while I\u2019ve never considered myself a horse-meat evangelist, I will say that Uncle Bobby was right. Grilled rare over an open mesquite fire, the zebra blows the beefsteak right out of the water.<\/p>\n What\u2019s harder to swallow is how the state\u2019s exotic-hunting industry is built on the premise of treating an animal like wildlife while using it as livestock.<\/p>\n Keeping these thoughts entirely to myself, I hear about a nearby rancher who was nearly gored to death by a warthog in a breeding pen. Wallace tells stories from Africa, like the time he was stalked by a leopard while blowgun hunting in Namibia. We talk about the first deer Landon ever killed\u2014she was with Wallace at the time\u2014and the broken-horned blackbuck that got away that afternoon.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Read Next:<\/strong> Cape Fear: Hunting Buffalo in the Matetsi Safari Area of Zimbabwe<\/a><\/p>\n At some point the conversation drifts from big exotic critters to the long-gone megafauna painted on cave walls. Someone mentions the researchers who are trying to resurrect the woolly mammoth. The company plans to use preserved DNA to grow a woolly mammoth embryo and implant it in an African elephant. The laboratory, of course, is based in Texas.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know, I think I know a guy who would buy a woolly mammoth hunt,\u201d Jason jokes. <\/p>\n But I get the feeling he\u2019s dead serious.<\/p>\n Read more\u00a0OL+<\/a>\u00a0stories.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n![\"exotic](\"https:\/\/www.outdoorlife.com\/uploads\/2023\/06\/01\/20230512_outdoorlife_alpha-7473.jpg\")
Conservation Through Commerce<\/h2>\n
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The Future of Exotic Wildlife in Texas<\/h2>\n
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High Dollars and High Fences<\/h2>\n
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The Elephant in the Trophy Room<\/h2>\n
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From Hunting Guide to Herdsman<\/h2>\n
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Striped Horse for Supper<\/h2>\n