“But because our product is not creating a revenue through the sale of the hunt, but through the sale of a live animal, we’re a bit more appealing.” “A large portion of our audience that buys from us are pro-hunting. WildLife Partners has been successful because it’s a new business model with wide appeal. In 2016, the Exotic Wildlife Association estimated the industry has a $3.3 billion annual economic impact in Texas. In Texas, where the industry is largely unregulated and the climate mild, Gilroy said there are more exotic animals than any other state, with one estimate putting the total at 1.3 million and growing. He built the business on an approach to safeguarding the animals that appeals to owners, buyers, and potential investors. “I liked having them and they were a good tax writeoff and my kids loved them.” As a hunter and landowner, Gilroy had Persian ibexes and enjoyed them as status symbols, as “yard art,” he said. He figured there was money to be made in exotics – without necessarily hunting them. WildLife Partners got its start when Gilroy decided he’d rather be on the ranch than in an oilfield. ![]() It’s Texas landowners who have given them hope for survival, Gilroy said. ![]() In some cases, they have been classified as extinct in the wild. In their native ranges, these animals exist in very low numbers. These include the dama gazelle, addax, Arabian oryx, Père David’s deer, Grevy’s zebra, mountain bongo, and scimitar oryx. Today, there are more than 125 exotic species living on private land, Gilroy said, and more than 5,000 ranches with exotic wildlife populations in the hundreds of thousands. began producing surplus animals in the 1950s, a steady flow of non-native animals has arrived on Texas ranches. Wildlife as BusinessĮver since zoos in the U.S. A female kudu peaks her head out from the dense brush. It is the full-time job of a dozen WildLife Partners employees to carefully catch, transport, and release animals without harming them, a guarantee the company offers. Ranchers also make money selling off surplus animals. WildLife Partners has 300 regular customers – ranchers who buy the animals for the novelty of owning them and to earn tax breaks, Gilroy said. He has moved 8,000 animals in three years from zoos or Texas ranches needing to reduce their populations. Gilroy brokers the exotic animals, buying and selling monthly about $1 million worth, mostly non-native hoofstock and birds. ![]() Each partnership is a $5 million investment. He set up his office in Shavano Park and now operates three ranches populated with 3,000 super-exotic animals – 70 species ranging from Nubian ibexes to Cape buffaloes – owned by five partnerships made up of 45 investors. But Gilroy is at home on this 1,750-acre parcel of land – enough to step from the ATV, walk gingerly through the brush, and scoop the newborn into his arms.Ī San Antonio native, Gilroy is CEO of WildLife Partners, a business he founded in 2016 with his brother, Chris, after a long career in the oil and gas industry and finance and investing. The scene on a recent autumn day is a long way from Brian Gilroy’s upscale workplace in a far North San Antonio office building. GOLIAD – In a dense South Texas thicket of mesquite and grass, a small herd of wild antelope known as nyala is grazing serenely when an all-terrain vehicle comes to a stop on the dirt path.Ī calf, born just hours before, wobbles to its feet among those sturdy animals with entrancing eyes that peer cautiously at the intrusion. What you’ll read in this series are just some of the many stories San Antonio holds. ![]() We asked each of our journalists to throw a dart at a map of Bexar County and find a story wherever the dart lands. The result is Bexar’s Eye, a weekly series aimed – literally – at uncovering previously untold stories about people, places, and practices in San Antonio and surrounding areas.
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