Outfitter offers premium hunts on multiple concessions that span more than 2 million acres for bantang, buffalo, rusa, hog deer and more! Australia’s premiere big game hunt is the combination of water buffalo and banteng and is one of the most exciting and dangerous game hunts in the South Pacific. The best time for the combo hunt in the Northern Territories of Australia is the dry season, which runs approximately from June to September starting from Darwin.
Water buffalo were imported to Australia in the 19th century to supply meat to remote northern settlements. The settlements and their buffalo were abandoned in 1949 and, despite harvesting for meat, hides and as hunters' trophies, feral buffalo spread across the northern floodplains. Water Buffalo are bigger than Cape Buffalo and every bit as mean with the hunt being the traditional spot-and-stalk.
The domesticated form of the banteng was first introduced to Australia in 1849 with the establishment of a British military outpost on the Cobourg Peninsula. Twenty animals were taken to the western Arnhem Land, in present-day Northern Territory, as a source of meat. On the departure of British troops, the banteng were released from their grazing pastures and allowed to form a feral population. The initial population had grown from twenty in 1849 to a population on the Cobourg Peninsula of 10,000 head, making the population in the Northern Territory the largest in the world.
