ox safari texas

• Things to Do
• Restaurants
• Vacation Rentals
• Travel Stories
• Rental Cars
• Add a Place
• Travel Forum
• Travelers' Choice
• Help Center

Experience of a Lifetime - Ox Ranch

• United States    
• Texas (TX)    
• Uvalde    
• Uvalde Specialty Lodging    
• Uvalde Lodges    

Live Oaks Bed and Breakfast

Benson Guest House

Days Inn by Wyndham Uvalde

Hampton Inn Uvalde

Motel 6 Uvalde

Amber sky motel, quail springs.

Chalk Bluff River Resort

Inn of Uvalde

Americas Best Value Inn Uvalde

Best experience ever. We had so so much fun. Hannah was our guide and she was amazing! So knowledgeable and spent so much time with us! Who knew you could pet a rhino?! We saw some of the coolest things. Animals, swimming, shooting, some of the best food ever too!! I would absolutely go again and request her specifically. We had an absolute blast!!

The ranch is absolutely beautiful. We have a great experience on all levels. Kamiryn was a doll. Her knowledge of all things OX Ranch was impressive. She made our first day so awesome we decided to stay another night. My son really loved driving the tank and shooting the guns. That was the primary reason we went, memory he will never forget. The major added plus was the entire staff, the food and all the other activities. To see the animals running free was just awesome. The pool was awesome to jump into when we got off the ATV's. We will be back... Estela Arguindegui

We got a 10 out of 10 experience when we expected a 6 out of 10. First thing we see getting in the ranch is all the animals walking around like elk, springbok, deer, giraffe and a rhino. All the animals look well taken care of and the grounds well kept. The lodge is amazing. The urinals have a target video game linked to a video screen. Makes it fun to pee. We did the King Cobra tank ride and flame thrower. The guides were very friendly and informative. The tank ride was fun but the flame thrower was incredible. King Cobra as WWII tank that saw action in the war. That right there is awesome. There are other tanks and weapons to ride in and fire. Where can you shoot a flame thrower? HERE. And it is worth every penny. We will be back. Even if you are not a hunter or want to do these same things there are plenty of animals to picture safari and take nature tours. Lots of exotic to see. Yes they have hunting but there is much much more here

• Cleanliness

The family and I spent 2 days at Drivetanks.com and the Ox Ranch Safari and we had a ball. Chelsea was an amazing guide and absolutely wonderful with our 3 boys. We hand fed giraffes, pet rhinos, explored caves, found arrowheads, saw fossilized dinosaur tracks, saw dozens of wild exotic animals, ate WAY too much food (including the best cookies and bear claws ever) and it was just a fabulous time.

We visited Ox Ranch for the animal safari. It was amazing to see all the animals just out and about. We were able to feed the giraffes by hand which was incredible! The food was very good. We were always stuffed to the gills! Everything was delicious! We had some very exotic things too- zebra sausage and deer meat. If you're a vegetarian, I don't know if you'll enjoy the food very much. We also got to do some caving and looked at the dinosaur tracks. We stayed in the Barracks which was part of the DriveTanks experience. This was also excellent and very fun. I have more details in the DriveTanks review. We had a superb time with Glenn. Thank you!!

• Sleep Quality

830/275-4962

For questions or inquiries, 1-830-275-4962.

Ox Safari is located in Texas, USA

1946 Private Road 2485

Uvalde, TX 78001 / [email protected]

(important information on travel and directions)

Thanks for submitting!

Our address only works in Google maps.

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Blood and Beauty on a Texas Exotic-Game Ranch

By Manny Fernandez

• Oct. 19, 2017

UVALDE, Tex. — On a ranch at the southwestern edge of the Texas Hill Country, a hunting guide spotted her cooling off in the shade: an African reticulated giraffe. Such is the curious state of modern Texas ranching, that a giraffe among the oak and the mesquite is an everyday sort of thing.

“That’s Buttercup,” said the guide, Buck Watson, 54.

In a place of rare creatures, Buttercup is among the rarest; she is off limits to hunters at the Ox Ranch . Not so the African bongo antelope, one of the world’s heaviest and most striking spiral-horned antelopes, which roams the same countryside as Buttercup. The price to kill a bongo at the Ox Ranch is $35,000.

Himalayan tahrs, wild goats with a bushy lion-style mane, are far cheaper. The trophy fee, or kill fee, to shoot one is $7,500. An Arabian oryx is $9,500; a sitatunga antelope, $12,000; and a black wildebeest, $15,000.

“We don’t hunt giraffes,” Mr. Watson said. “Buttercup will live out her days here, letting people take pictures of her. She can walk around and graze off the trees as if she was in Africa.”

The Ox Ranch near Uvalde, Tex., is not quite a zoo, and not quite an animal shooting range, but something in between.

The ranch’s hunting guides and managers walk a thin, controversial line between caring for thousands of rare, threatened and endangered animals and helping to execute them. Some see the ranch as a place for sport and conservation. Some see it as a place for slaughter and hypocrisy.

The Ox Ranch provides a glimpse into the future of the mythic Texas range — equal parts exotic game-hunting retreat, upscale outdoor adventure, and breeding and killing ground for exotic species.

Ranchers in the nation’s top cattle-raising state have been transforming pasture land into something out of an African safari, largely to lure trophy hunters who pay top-dollar kill fees to hunt exotics. Zebra mares forage here near African impala antelopes, and it is easy to forget that downtown San Antonio is only two hours to the east.

The ranch has about 30 bongo, the African antelopes with a trophy fee of $35,000. Last fall, a hunter shot one. “Taking one paid their feed bill for the entire year, for the rest of them,” said Jason Molitor, the chief executive of the Ox Ranch.

To many animal-protection groups, such management of rare and endangered species — breeding some, preventing some from being hunted, while allowing the killing of others — is not only repulsive, but puts hunting ranches in a legal and ethical gray area.

“Depending on what facility it is, there’s concern when animals are raised solely for profit purposes,” said Anna Frostic, a senior attorney with the Humane Society of the United States.

Hunting advocates disagree and say the breeding and hunting of exotic animals helps ensure species’ survival. Exotic-game ranches see themselves not as an enemy of wildlife conservation but as an ally, arguing that they contribute a percentage of their profits to conservation efforts.

“We love the animals, and that’s why we hunt them,” Mr. Molitor said. “Most hunters in general are more in line with conservation than the public believes that they are.”

Beyond the financial contributions, hunting ranches and their supporters say the blending of commerce and conservation helps save species from extinction.

Wildlife experts said there are more blackbuck antelope in Texas than there are in their native India because of the hunting ranches. In addition, Texas ranchers have in the past sent exotic animals, including scimitar-horned oryx, back to their home countries to build up wild populations there.

“Ranchers can sell these hunts and enjoy the income, while doing good for the species,” said John M. Tomecek, a wildlife specialist with the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service.

Animal-rights activists are outraged by these ranches. They call what goes on there “canned hunting” or “captive hunting.’’

“Hunting has absolutely nothing to do with conservation,” said Ashley Byrne, the associate director of campaigns for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. “What they’re doing is trying to put a better spin on a business that they know the average person finds despicable.”

A 2007 report from Texas A&M University called the exotic wildlife industry in America a billion-dollar industry.

At the Ox Ranch, it shows. The ranch has luxury log cabins, a runway for private planes and a 6,000-square-foot lodge with stone fireplaces and vaulted ceilings. More animals roam its 18,000 acres than roam the Houston Zoo, on a tract of land bigger than the island of Manhattan. The ranch is named for its owner, Brent C. Oxley, 34, the founder of HostGator.com, a web hosting provider that was sold in 2012 for more than $200 million.

“The owner hopes in a few years that we can break even,” Mr. Molitor said.

Because the industry is largely unregulated, there is no official census of exotic animals in Texas. But ranchers and wildlife experts said that Texas has more exotics than any other state. A survey by the state Parks and Wildlife Department in 1994 put the exotic population at more than 195,000 animals from 87 species, but the industry has grown explosively since then; one estimate by John T. Baccus, a retired Texas State University biologist, puts the current total at roughly 1.3 million.

The Ox Ranch needs no local, state or federal permit for most of their exotic animals.

State hunting regulations do not apply to exotics, which can be hunted year-round. The Fish and Wildlife Service allows ranches to hunt and kill certain animals that are federally designated as threatened or endangered species, if the ranches take certain steps, including donating 10 percent of their hunting proceeds to conservation programs. The ranches are issued permits to conduct activities that would otherwise be prohibited under the Endangered Species Act if those activities enhance the survival of the species in the wild. Those federal permits make it legal to hunt Eld’s deer and other threatened or endangered species at the Ox Ranch.

Mr. Molitor said more government oversight was unnecessary and would drive ranchers out of the business. “I ask people, who do you think is going to manage it better, private organizations or the government?” Mr. Molitor said.

Lawyers for conservation and animal-protection groups say that allowing endangered animals to be hunted undermines the Endangered Species Act, and that the ranches’ financial contributions fail to benefit wildlife conservation.

“We ended up with this sort of pay-to-play idea,” said Tanya Sanerib, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. “It is absolutely absurd that you can go to a canned-hunt facility and kill an endangered or threatened species.”

The creatures are not the only things at the ranch that are exotic. The tanks are, too.

The ranch offers its guests the opportunity to drive and shoot World War II-era tanks. People fire at bullet-ridden cars from atop an American M4 Sherman tank at a shooting range built to resemble a Nazi-occupied French town.

“We knew the gun people would come out,” said Todd DeGidio, the chief executive of DriveTanks.com, which runs the tank operation. “What surprised us was the demographic of people who’ve never shot guns before.”

Late one evening, two hunters, Joan Schaan and her 15-year-old son, Daniel, rushed to get ready for a nighttime hunt, adjusting the SWAT-style night-vision goggles on their heads.

Ms. Schaan is the executive director of a private foundation in Houston. Daniel is a sophomore at St. John’s School, a prestigious private school. They were there not for the exotics, but basically for the pests: feral hogs, which cause hundreds of millions of dollars in damage annually in Texas.

“We are here because we both like to hunt, and we like hunting hogs,” Ms. Schaan said. “And we love the meat and the sausage from the hogs we harvest.”

Pursuing the hogs, Ms. Schaan and her son go off-roading through the brush in near-total darkness, with a hunting guide behind the wheel. Aided by their night-vision goggles, they passed by the giraffes before rattling up and down the hilly terrain.

Daniel fired at hogs from the passenger seat with a SIG Sauer 516 rifle, his spent shell casings flying into the back seat. Their guide, Larry Hromadka, told Daniel when he could and could not take a shot.

No one is allowed to hunt at the ranch without a guide. The guides make sure no one shoots an exotic animal accidentally with a stray bullet, and that no one takes aim at an off-limits creature.

One of the hogs Daniel shot twitched and appeared to still be alive, until Mr. Hromadka approached with his light and his gun.

Hundreds of animals shot at the ranch have ended up in the cluttered workrooms and showrooms at Graves Taxidermy in Uvalde.

Part of the allure of exotic game-hunting is the so-called trophy at the end — the mounted and lifelike head of the animal that the hunter put down. The Ox Ranch is Graves Taxidermy’s biggest customer.

“My main business, of course, is white-tailed deer, but the exotics have kind of taken over,” said Browder Graves, the owner.

He said the animal mounts he makes for people were not so much a trophy on a wall as a symbol of the hunter’s memories of the entire experience. He has a mount of a Himalayan tahr he shot in New Zealand that he said he cannot look at without thinking of the time he spent with his son hunting up in the mountains.

“It’s God’s creature,” he said. “I’m trying to make it look as good as it can.”

Small herds passed by the Jeep being driven by Mr. Watson, the hunting guide. There were white elk and eland, impala and Arabian oryx.

Then the tour came to an unexpected stop. An Asiatic water buffalo blocked the road, unimpressed by the Jeep. The animal was caked with dried mud, an aging male that lived away from the herd.

“The Africans call them dugaboys,” Mr. Watson said. “They’re old lone bulls. They’re so big that they don’t care.”

The buffalo took his time moving. For a moment, at least, he had all the power.

A photo caption with an earlier version of this article misidentified the animals walking across a dam at the Ox Ranch. They are water buffaloes, not zebus.

How we handle corrections

Additional production by Meghan Petersen

At some Texas ranches, hunting exotic animals is touted as a way to support conservation efforts

With its rolling hills, lush vegetation and sunlit canopies, the Ox Ranch looks like a scene straight out of an African savanna.

The 18,000-acre preserve is home to 60 species of the world's most majestic animals , from giraffes and Cape buffalo to wildebeests and gazelles. Some of the species are threatened and some are endangered.

But this sprawling ranch, larger than the island of Manhattan, isn't in Africa. It's in Texas, and some of the animals are allowed to be hunted.

"A lot of people just enjoy coming out and seeing the animals," Jason Molitor, CEO of the Ox Ranch in Uvalde, Texas, told "Nightline." "If you want to hunt, each animal, which is available to be hunted, has a price associated with it."

Ranchers like Molitor and some hunting advocates say that hunting is actually a form of conservation. They argue that by killing a selected, few animals, they are helping to save the species as a whole.

"I know a lot of people are critical because we do hunt and harvest the excess males, but in my opinion, we are doing something good for the animals. We feed them. We take care of them," Molitor said.

At the Ox Ranch, Molitor said, price is determined by supply and demand so it can be extravagant. For instance, an emu, which is one of the least expensive animals, costs $1,000. A Grant's gazelle can set you back $10,000 while a roan costs double the amount. A bongo, Molitor said, comes with the heftiest price tag of $35,000.

Endangered white lion cub on display at Texas sanctuary

Feds: hunting good for wildlife refuges.

Molitor and the ranch's hunting guides monitor the herds and determine which animals are ready to be taken. Those animals are mostly the older males that are posing a threat to breeding or no longer reproducing. Hunters are only permitted to go out with a ranch guide who knows which animals can be culled.

"As long as it's a mature animal, then the guide will give him the green light to go ahead and shoot, or he'll say, 'No, that's a young one,'" Molitor said.

The money paid by the hunter goes to care for the rest of the herd, covering costs from feeding to breeding. For any endangered species that are hunted, the ranch must donate 10 percent to a conservation group.

"There's many thoughts that conservation is funded through general tax dollars and that's really not the case at all, and so it really begs the question of, how did the biologists that go out and work with private landowners ... how do they really fund it? How do they do their jobs? And the answer to that is hunters' dollars," said Corey Mason, executive director of the Dallas Safari Club.

Hunting is a part of Texas' exotic industry, which rakes in $2 billion annually, according to the Exotic Wildlife Association. Texas has about 5,000 ranches with exotics but only about a fifth of them offer commercial hunting.

Exotics first came to Texas largely from Africa and Asia in the 1950s. Decades later, some have become a naturalized part of the state's landscape. Ranchers say they are even thriving more in the Lone Star State than in their native land.

"For people who say, 'Oh, you're bringing endangered animals from Africa just so some fat-cat hunter can shoot them and have it on his wall,' nothing's further from the truth. It doesn't come from Africa and we would never hunt an animal to extinction," Molitor said.

Hunter Pelham first tried to hunt a blackbuck six years ago. The 22-year-old from the Houston area went to the Ox Ranch to celebrate his birthday recently, hoping to finally get a blackbuck, an exotic antelope that, at the ranch, comes with a $3,000 price tag.

Pelham, a professional BMX racer, said he did not mind paying that amount to hunt the animal. He said hunting is about the thrill of the chase.

"The reason why I get it is I know that this is an alive animal and I need to make a clean kill on this animal so it does not suffer," he said.

Pelham also said that an important part of hunting is knowing where his food comes from. He eats everything he hunts.

"I'm not a trophy hunter. I like to hunt for meat and I want to shoot something that I'm going to be able to eat," he said.

Does hunting elephants help conserve the species?

10 hunting licenses sold to babies in wisconsin.

"Nightline" accompanied Pelham as he set out to hunt the elusive blackbuck, starting the day well before daybreak to take advantage of prime hunting time.

Using a sophisticated bow and armed with just one arrow, Pelham and his guide Tommy Sowell set out to find a suitable blackbuck. They laid out some feed and set up a small blind, a tiny tent that only fits three people. They watched and waited, keeping as still and silent as possible.

"Game plan is for a mature blackbuck to walk in, possibly harvest him if we can [and] get a good shot on him," Pelham said.

At one point, Pelham thought they'd spotted an aging blackbuck, but it was not close enough to take a shot. After a few hours, they headed back to the lodge for breakfast. The rising sun and midday heat had sent the animals back to seek shade. Pelham and Sowell would have another chance to try again later in the day.

Related Stories

The federal government plans to restore grizzly bears to the North Cascades region of Washington

• 25 minutes ago

2 military horses that broke free and ran loose across London are in serious condition

• Apr 25, 6:21 AM

Wild horses will stay in North Dakota national park as officials reject removal of herd from Badlands, key lawmaker says

• 2 hours ago

As late afternoon hit, the duo headed out again, this time climbing into a different blind. Just before dusk, as the animals came out again, Pelham saw his shot. He and Sowell strategized, then Pelham readied his bow and aimed. After a years-long wait, he'd finally taken his blackbuck. He and Sowell took the animal and readied it for the meat processor.

"Tommy and I have been hunting a blackbuck for about six years now and it finally happened. It's amazing," Pelham said.

Pelham said he believes that hunting is one of the better ways to conserve exotics.

"I think that how much money is poured into something like this and how much time they spend with these animals and what they do to them, it's a heck of a lot better to a zoo in my mind," he said.

"Without a monetary value on these animals, they would cease to exist," Molitor said. "We are expanding the population of these animals. If you have too many males of a particular species, they'll start to fight, kill each other anyway and they'll overgraze the area."

Exotics are largely unmonitored, but for ranches offering endangered-species hunts, the federal government requires a special permit.

White House Petition to Extradite Cecil The Lion's Killer Exceeds 100,000 Signatures

Beyond cecil the lion: trophy-hunting industry in africa explained.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service told "Nightline" that it issues those permits on the condition that "a percentage of income derived from the hunting must then be donated for conservation of the species and/or its habitat."

That amounts to 10 percent of the cost to hunt each animal. The Ox Ranch told "Nightline" that in 2017, it donated more than $8,000 for the hunting of 12 individual endangered animals. The ranch also noted that 68 new individuals were added to the ranch's population through births.

There are some, however, like Kitty Block, acting CEO and president of the Humane Society of the United States, who do not agree that hunting is beneficial for conservation.

"If you want to help conservation, there are so many ways to do that," Block told "Nightline." "You can give to so many different, good organizations. It's never a way to protect animals by bringing them into your ranch and having them shot for funding. That just doesn't do it."

Brian Gilroy, the founder of Wildlife Partners in San Antonio, has a different approach to conservation. He said his breeding operation is a profit-driven business.

"I don't derive any revenue at the end of a gun," Gilroy said. "All of the revenue that we generate is generated as the result of selling live animals. And, we're not selling them for the purpose of hunting. We're selling them for the purpose of breeding."

Gilroy said his company made $30 million in revenue in the last two years, by breeding as well as buying and selling animals to private owners.

"We work with about 300 ranches here in the state and we sell them wildlife for the benefit of enjoyment, and it's theirs, they can do what they want with it," he said.

When asked whether his clients ultimately hunted the animals, Gilroy said he offers an incentive to prevent that from happening. He buys back some of the animals' offspring. In this way, he said, the animal is more profitable to its owner if it is alive.

"When the animals are born and are a year old approximately, we come back and buy what they've produced. The reason we do that is we have other customers that want to buy those offspring," he said.

When "Nightline" visited the ranch, Gilroy's company was fulfilling a client's request for a blesbok.

"We've got some young offspring that we're going to be moving to another ranch so we're going to go over and they're going to catch one of them," he said.

Sometimes catching the exotic involves using a helicopter.

"In the helicopter, we got a gunner and he's got a tranquilizer gun so the helicopter will fly over the herd. They'll identify one of the yearlings," he said. "They'll shoot a dart with the medication in it and that will allow the animal to go to sleep."

Gilroy said he also gives customers the option of buying animals and housing them at the Wildlife Partners' ranch. The company's staff cares for the animals and the owners can visit anytime.

Ferret Attacks Infant: Are Exotic Animals Safe Pets?

The allure of exotic pets bring risks to owners, animals.

For some of his customers, Gilroy said, owning a rare, exotic species is like owning a luxury car. He said it was the ultimate status symbol.

"I mean, why does someone buy a Ferrari? Do they buy a Ferrari because it goes fast?" Gilroy said. "But they also buy a Ferrari because they become the envy of their friends. They like pulling into the gas station and someone says, 'Hey, nice car.' And it's no different when you own a ranch in Texas and you pull in the gate and you've got a herd of zebras and your friends go 'Oooohhh' and 'Ahhhh.'"

For Texas landowners, Gilroy said, the tax deduction they get is another huge incentive to have exotics.

"When you create an environment where people can claim ownership of wildlife and they can benefit financially from owning them, they go to great lengths to protect them," Gilroy said.

Although Gilroy is not opposed to hunting, he said he doesn't buy the argument that conservation is a direct goal of hunting. He said it was more of a byproduct than the reason to hunt itself. He also disagreed with critics who argue that exotic animals shouldn't be on Texas ranches at all.

"Texas is serving as Noah's ark. We are housing these animals from all over the world. We're producing them in large numbers. And, we have the ability to go and repopulate these native areas at any time. Any time that they're ready, we have the foundation stock to be able to do it," he said.

Wild horses to remain in national park: Lawmaker

Ferrying voting machines to mountains and tropical areas in Indian elections is a Herculean task

• Apr 25, 3:23 AM

ABC News Live

24/7 coverage of breaking news and live events

YOU'RE THIS CLOSE

Do you have Mother's Day plans?

We have the perfect Mother's Day adventure gift planned for you with a very exciting special addition tour!

Click here to learn more!

CHOOSE YOUR SAFARI

Self-Guided Tour

Take your own vehicle on a driving safari through our 500-acre wildlife park. See and feed over 500 animals from 40 different species at your own pace. 

Guided Tour

Join one of our Safari Animal Rangers and meet animals from around the world. Learn unique facts and hear personal stories from your Ranger Tour Guide.

Giraffe VIP Experience

Start your tour with an intimate encounter with giraffes led by one of our Safari Animal Rangers! Then, enjoy a guided tour of our 500-acre park. 

Group Adventures

In the comfort of your own caravan or bus, witness animals from around the world, visit giraffes, meet a troop of ring-tailed lemurs, enjoy lunch, and shop.

Educational Adventures

Take your class on a real safari where there's a learning adventure around every corner. Students will love being close to animals wilder than they are!

ADD AN EXCURSION

Prehistoric Experience

Walk amongst dozens of dinosaurs that move, breathe, and can't wait for you to maybe get a little too close. This excursion is sure to be memorable!

Aviary Experience

The only thing better than seeing our birds is feeding them! Come inside with food on popsicle sticks that dozens of budgies look forward to enjoying.

Conservation

The conservation of animals and ranchland is of utmost importance to us at Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch. We actively collaborate with organizations worldwide to promote a sustainable future for both animals and the land they inhabit.

Wild About Education

Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch is the perfect place to go on safari. But it's also a place to learn about the wonderful, wild world of animals.  Click on the articles below or on "Read More" to learn something you didn't already know! 

Wild Nature Institute for Education

Teacher's Prompt: Conservation

Horns & Antlers

Fancy hunting a kangaroo? Or a zebra? In Texas, you can pay to play

In ‘canned’ hunts, captive animals are shot for meat and trophies but ranchers say they need to make money and exotic animals offer a steady revenue

I n the rolling expanse of rural west Texas , a southern white rhinoceros named Killian has learned to come when he’s called. Killian stands there like a big fat puppy, hoping someone will dare to pet him. He and his rhino companion, Sebastian, like rubdowns far better than treats.

We are standing on Ox Ranch, a more than 18,000-acre property in Texas crawling with exotic animals. Some are gunned down by paying guests for trophies. Others, like Killian and Sebastian, live here just for show. There are an estimated 8,000 animals on the land – but if chief executive Jason Molitor has to pick his favorites, it’s the two rhinos.

“That’s a good boy,” Molitor says to Killian. “I know I didn’t bring you no food, but you eat too much.”

Owned by tech entrepreneur Brent Oxley, the remote hunting ranch is a spectacle of contradictions, a wonder of nature that at times feels eerily unnatural. Just like in much of Texas, white-tailed and axis deer roam. But so do zebras. Kangaroos laze about, thousands of miles from Australia. And there are dozens of Eld’s deer, endangered and endemic to south-east Asia .

They’re all mostly healthy, pampered and loved – until the day someone eyes them from behind the barrel of a gun . It costs $6,500 to shoot one of Ox Ranch’s zebras , slightly more for a kangaroo. An Eld’s deer is listed for $12,000, while bongos and cape buffalo go for $40,000 and $80,000 a head.

These are what critics call “canned” hunts, where animals inside enclosures are shot for meat and trophies. Even the pro-hunting Boone and Crockett Club strongly opposes them, critical of the “artificial or bogus hunting situation” that arises when a target is in captivity and can’t get away.

At Ox Ranch, Molitor likes to think of the facility’s high fences as a management tool. He suggests that the area’s sweeping acreage blunts any advantage to hunters – and yet unlike in the wild , it’s rare for someone to leave without making a kill.

“These animals are literally being bred for the bullet, and then they’re stocked and shot within these fenced enclosures, where they have no chance of escape,” explains Samantha Hagio, director of wildlife protection for the Humane Society of the United States.

“So these ranches bear zero resemblance to traditional hunting, and there’s just nothing ethical about shooting a captive animal.”

Amid a complex tapestry of state laws around exotic animals and canned hunts , Texas sits along the more lenient end of the spectrum. According to Texas Parks and Wildlife , exotic animals can be harvested “by any means or methods at any time of year”.

But Molitor and Oxley have both said they’d end the hunting portion of their operations if anyone was willing to send them the millions a year it takes to maintain their ranch. It’s a promise with low stakes, since they’re convinced it will never happen.

Theirs is far from the only enterprise of its kind in Texas, a state where more than 95% of the land is privately owned and property taxes are high. Ranchers need to make money – and exotic animals offer a steady revenue stream.

So instead of sheep or goats, landowners are turning to bongos and kudus. The Humane Society of the United States estimates that there are around 500 captive hunting operations in Texas, and more than a thousand nationwide.

“Literally just Google Texas exotic hunting ranch, and you will get pages, and pages, and pages of results,” Hagio says.

Exotic ranches are a universe unto themselves, self-controlled and largely self-sustaining. The industry doesn’t deplete or destroy a naturally occurring population; instead, it creates its own populations to use for breeding and gun fodder. All of Ox Ranch’s exotics, for instance, came from inside the US. Owners sell to other owners, sometimes through auctions where animals are shocked and prodded into compliance.

Then, hunters go out with guides who make sure that – outside of the target – their expensive livestock stay safe. Any kills will most likely be clean, inflicting little to no suffering or psychological trauma, explained Perry Barboza, a professor in the college of agriculture and life sciences at Texas A&M University.

Asked about the animals’ welfare and the way they meet their end, Barboza likened targets for canned hunts to cattle at slaughter plants. The way they’re dispatched “might actually be quite humane”, he said. “Now, is it something that makes us comfortable? No. All of us are going to be very uncomfortable ... These are violent deaths.”

At Ox Ranch, about 1,500 animals were shot last year. Whether a creature lives or dies usually boils down to its economic and practical value. Generally, the kills are “excess males” who aren’t needed for breeding. Female zebras, for example, will roam unperturbed. They’ll breed over and over, and they won’t be hunted when they could just be sold instead. Males, on the other hand, are worth thousands as wall mounts, and hunting them keeps their populations low enough so they don’t slaughter one another while vying for mates.

“If you take some of those males out, then you don’t have as much competition for the females, and then you [have] a lot less natural death loss,” Molitor says. To him, the whole operation fits within a free market version of conservation. Shoot a few Arabian oryx, and the profits will feed their brothers, sisters and cousins on the ranch.

“If an animal ceases to have a monetary value, it’s gonna cease to exist,” Molitor says candidly. “I just believe that in the end, it actually works better, you know, to give people some incentive to conserve these animals.”

Yet even in this laissez-faire economy, not every creature has a price tag. Just outside the ranch’s central lodge, where taxidermied trophies abound, an eclectic mix of orphans have been hand- or bottle-raised. No one will ever hunt them, now that they’ve lost all fear of humanity. It wouldn’t be fair.

Molitor points out a kudu bull who’s getting to be trophy-sized, but who will nevertheless live out his days as eye candy. And then there’s Scarlett, the castrated red kangaroo who swings by the lodge each morning for peanuts, popcorn, biscuits or bananas. The rhinos can be petted and admired, but never hunted.

Somewhere deep in the complex, Molitor spots who he’s been looking for: a tall, majestic giraffe. “Hey Buttercup!” She’s living large and carefree: no one’s going to shoot the giraffes – not when a single living female is worth $150,000 or more.

Buttercup is the “star of the ranch”, Molitor says. Bottle-raised, she happily takes selfies with strangers if they offer her a cupful of corn. She’s gentle, un-spooked, like an animal at a petting zoo.

“Dad can come go hunt his axis deer, and then mom and the kids can have fun feeding Buttercup or the turtles, or petting the rhinos,” Molitor says.

Ox Ranch’s customers travel from across the country – other parts of Texas, the deep south and even the coasts. Many come to shoot an affordable and familiar species, like an axis deer or blackbuck. But then there’s a more niche clientele loaded with disposable income, who go to exotic hunting ranches in the US to save themselves a trip to Africa.

Maybe they don’t want to reup their passport, deal with permits, or get immunized; or they already went abroad but couldn’t bag the species they wanted. So they come to Texas, where those animals are stocked and waiting.

“They’re basically just pay-to-play operations, right?” Hagio says. “For wealthy, somewhat lazy shooters who basically don’t want to get their boots scuffed by putting in the time, skill and effort that fair chase hunting requires.”

She’s not wrong, at least not always. Some clients prefer to sit inside hunting blinds and set off corn feeders that lure animals directly to them. If that’s what they want, it’s what they do. Ox Ranch even hosts bachelor parties where guys can hang out in big blinds decked out with a poker table, refrigerator and satellite TV. And, if a feral pig shows up, the bachelor gets to shoot at it.

But given a choice, Ox Ranch’s staff prefers hunting safari-style, where they drive jeeps along Hill country roads until they spot an animal. Molitor likens these hunts to his experiences in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Botswana, though he believes they may be even harder. In Africa, he says, animals aren’t conditioned to distrust humans. On the ranch, he says, they know it’s time to leave when a jeep approaches.

And yet Ox Ranch’s animals have also grown to rely on people, for the $1.5m in hay and feed that supplements their diet each year, the antibiotics that nurse them back to health, and even the water troughs from which they drink. Across the world from their native continents, these species must adapt to a version of humanity that is both guardian angel and executioner, friend and foe.

During unwontedly harsh winter weather last February, the ranch’s hunting guides set up heat lamps, busted ice off of water troughs twice a day and cared for the animals as best they could. “They love the animals but yet they hunt the animals,” Molitor says, a relationship that’s nearly impossible for outsiders to understand.

In this tamed wilderness, a fragile ecosystem emerges: some die violently to pay for the rest. The most vulnerable and beloved animals are almost never in danger, and the land feels like a transcontinental experiment, complicated but beautiful.

At times, it all seems very sensible. Until a gunshot rings out.

Most viewed