Van Zyl, left, on the hunt. Photo ZimbabweNewsLive.com
South African hunter Scott Van Zyl ran guided hunts in the African bush where his clients would regularly take giraffe and elephants, as well as other hunts that offered opportunities to take up to seven different species for around $9,000 USD.
But in an ironic turn of fate, a DNA test confirmed this week that remains found in a crocodile recently were Van Zyl’s. Van Zyl was reportedly out on a mission in Zimbabwe near the border with South Africa with another hunter and a group of dogs when the two men split up. Van Zyl never returned and his partner tracked his footprints to an area where his backpack was found near a group of crocodiles on the Limpopo River. Three of the crocodiles were killed by the partner and turned over to authorities.
A screenshot of the SS Pro Safaris website.
Van Zyl ran the hunting outfitter SS Pro Safaris in the “foothills of South Africa’s Waterberg Mountains.” The words “Stop Whining, Go Hunting” are written in bold letters across the top of the site and a Youtube video on the homepage opens with a hunter shooting a large jaguar as it charges someone with a gun in the bush. A number of scenes show jaguars being killed at night while eating meat hung from a tree as bait. According to reports, Van Zyl’s death was among a number of fatalities from crocodiles in 2017.
