| | |  News Around the Republic of Mexico 
Mexico Hopes to Lure Back U.S. Hunters
 Chris Hawley - Arizona Republic
go to original
March 15, 2010
| | Billy Prine of Mobile, Ala. (left) and Kevin Williams of Houston, Texas hunt mourning doves near Los Mochis, Mexico. (Chris Hawley/Arizona Republic) | |
Los Mochis, Mexico - It was a beautiful day for duck hunting, quiet and peaceful except for the occasional bang of a shotgun in a marsh near the Mexican town of Los Mochis.
Then Mexico's drug war intruded.
A police helicopter roared in over the mangroves, scattering the ducks and hovering over the American hunters trying not to be seen in their blinds.
Suspected drug traffickers had killed six people, execution-style with bullets to the head, near the marsh the night before. Now police were searching for a possible seventh body that may have been dumped in the water.
"Oh, that's not good for business," guide David Warner said as the helicopter clattered away over the marsh.
Across Mexico, drug violence is putting a damper on efforts to attract American hunters, a form of tourism that ranchers and the government have been trying to encourage in recent years as a way of bringing jobs to rural parts of the country.
U.S. sportsmen like Mexico's wide-open spaces, generous bag limits and later hunting seasons. But hunting outfitters say U.S. travel warnings, along with news reports about shootouts and massacres in Mexico, have driven down business by as much as 80 percent during the 2009-10 hunting season.
Each hunter typically pays $2,000 to $5,000 for a three-day hunting trip, so it's a big loss.
"It's been terrible," said Javier Plata, an outfitter and vice president of Mexico's En La Mira Hunters and Shooters Association. "It's really fears about the drug violence, not the economy. These hunters are wealthy people, and they can afford the trip."
Last year was the bloodiest yet since President Felipe Calderón launched a crackdown on Mexico's drug cartels in December 2006. A total of 6,587 people were killed in drug-related violence in 2009, up 26 percent from the 5,207 in 2008, according to an unofficial tally by the Reforma newspaper in Mexico City.
Tourism by foreigners in Mexico was down 2 percent overall in the third quarter of 2009 compared with the same period in 2008. But hunting has been hit much harder because 97 percent of Mexico's hunting preserves are in northern states where the drug violence is most intense.
There have been no confirmed run-ins between hunters and smugglers, and few reports of foreign tourists being affected by the drug violence. But the U.S. State Department is warning Americans to avoid parts of Durango, Coahuila and Chihuahua states, all prime hunting areas for deer and other big game. Sinaloa and Tamaulipas, two coastal states popular with bird hunters, have become battlefield states for competing cartels.
"People see that stuff, and they're just not going to go," said Tom Brown, who handles booking for Ojo Caliente Outfitters in Chihuahua state. "We're way off (in bookings), and it's getting worse."
It's also a setback for the Mexican government, which has been trying to attract foreign hunters in recent years.
Since 2000, the government has more than doubled the amount of land set aside for hunting, from 36 million acres to 82 million acres in 2010. The number of hunting licenses granted rose 31 percent between 2000 and 2007, from 35,631 to 46,650, according to the latest figures available.
About 43 percent of hunters come from the United States, drawn by Mexico's wide-open spaces, later hunting seasons, and wealth of deer, mountain lions and other game. Bird hunters can legally shoot 45 ducks a day here, compared with six or seven in most U.S. states.
Bird hunting ended Feb. 28 in most Mexican states and deer season closed in January, but bighorn sheep can be hunted into March, wild turkeys into May, and wild boar year-round.
Mexican lodge owners say the flow of hunters collapsed this year. Only eight American duck hunters came to Plata's La Abundancia Lodge in the eastern state of Tamaulipas this winter, down from 40-50 in a normal year, he said. Plata said he had to lay off 18 of his 20 full-time and part-time employees.
In the western state of Sinaloa, the Patolandia hunting lodge cut wages by 30 percent for its 15 employees, manager Nezahualcoytl Gutiérrez said. Gutiérrez said he hosted about 60 American hunters this year, half as many as normal.
Hector Betancourt, an ammunition seller who supplies about 60 hunting outfitters across six Mexican states, said his sales dropped 60 percent this year.
For many lodges, the biggest losses were in corporate hunting trips, said Bruno Taino, owner of the La Finca lodge in Tamaulipas. U.S. companies frequently sponsor hunting junkets as a way of courting clients or rewarding salespeople. But this year, many companies canceled because of worries over security.
"It's completely unjustified, because (traffickers) don't even want to be near foreigners, especially not shooters," Taino said. "It just creates problems for them. But when these companies see all these news stories about killings coming out of Mexico, they get nervous."
There have been no confirmed incidents of traffickers harassing hunters, said Gabriel Serna, a board member of Mexico's National Wildlife Breeder's Association.
But in October, bandits held nine bird hunters from Houston at gunpoint and stole their gear near Villa Mendés in Tamaulipas state. Taino said the robbery was related to a dispute between land owners.
In February, gunmen ambushed a team of federal game wardens as they were returning from a routine inspection of hunting areas in Sinaloa state. The attackers held the officials on the ground for an hour and threatened to kill them, according to an official report on the attack.
They eventually spared the men but took their sport-utility vehicle and equipment, including night-vision devices and bulletproof vests.
Still, hunters who came to Mexico said the danger was mostly overblown.
"We've been coming here for years and haven't had any problems, so I wasn't too worried," said Billy Prine of Mobile, Ala., as he watched for ducks from his blind in the marsh near Los Mochis, which is in Sinaloa state.
Outfitters said they were hoping for better luck next year. Bird hunting begins in August, and deer hunting starts in October. The lack of sportsmen this year should mean good hunting in the fall, Serna said.
"We've got people signing up for August, so that's good," he said. "We're just hoping all those people will come back."
Reach the reporter at chris.hawley(at)arizonarepublic.com.
|
|
| |
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us