I was quite amazed to see the huge impact of the game and hunting industry in South Africa.  Hunting is not something that appeals to me, but it is apparently contributing over R10 billion a year to the economy and employment for over 100,000 people.  The price of animals at auction is quite unbelievable and at the recent game auction of Piet du Toit, a friend advised me of some of the prices – for example a 25% share in a Sable called Tsunami went for R15,5 million meaning that his total value is effectively now R62 million!  I was stunned by these types of figures because I can only imagine the risks from predators, illness, disease, lightning strikes, etc simply destroying a major asset of one.  Black Impala go for more than R1 million each, a red Oryx bull went for R9,5 million and King Wildebeest saw some fetching R13 million for a bull.  It just shows you that there are sometimes huge parts of the economy that one simply does not know anything about and which have very little coverage in the media and that Piet du Toit, who sold his animals for R200 million at the one auction alone must be a very successful man!