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A young buffalo bull has been sold for a record R26m at a game auction in Bela-Bela.
The bull, named Horizon, is believed to be the most expensive wild animal ever bought in South Africa.
It fetched R8m more than the buffalo "Senatla", sold for a year ago at a Thabazimbi auction.
Norman Adami of the Stud Game Breeder's Association, says the record price is proof of people's faith in the game industry.
He says good quality game is an excellent investment, and that the industry is a sustainable one that is contributing around R10b to the South African economy.
"There is a lot of confidence in the Industry and there is no doubt that wild life game breeding particularly the rare species is an attractive investment and particularly if one considers that the traditional investments are not performing as one would have hoped or expected, so it has increasingly become an attractive investment for investors and you are seeing an increasing number of people looking to invest in the wild life rare species industry" Adami said.
He added that quality and top genetics attract higher prices.
At the same auction, a pregnant buffalo cow from Nyumbu Game Reserve was sold for R5.2m.
Auctioneer Brandon Lear says more than a thousand people attended the auction which had a turnover of nearly R122m.
"These sort of turnovers you dont find all the time, this is probably the second highest turnover ever on a game auction and there were lots of records broken for other species, it really was a tremendous day" Lear said
