The tiny little suni is typically hunted only by serious collectors of African mammal trophies.
Another of the dwarf antelope, the Suni inhabits the coastal areas of the KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa, most of Mozambique, and further northward into the Zambezi Valley. Only the males carry horns, while the female of the specie tends to be just a bit heavier. These little antelope prefer the dry woodlands with thick underbrush and dense thickets. Mostly solitary, they are know to pair and graze together. The Suni is most active during mornings and afternoons, avoiding the midday sun. When hunting Suni, their habit of wagging their tails vigorously will often give them away in the bush.
Mostly browsers, they like the tender shoots of trees, mushrooms, fallen fruit, weeds and occasionally grass and field crops. Not dependent on water, they get all they need from their diet. Hunting Suni is best along game trails, which they tend to frequent. This habit makes them fairly easy to trap and more are taken in this way than fall victim to predation. When hunting Suni, one can take advantage of his very wary nature, which causes him to freeze for quite a long period of time before he finally takes flight.
If hunting Suni is the mission, your best choice of weapon will be the shotgun. Like many of the mini antelope, you will get only short, fleeting glimpses of this little guy as he spooks and heads for the thick underbrush. As for an aim point, given time it would be the same as that for any of the other “mini-lopes”, but you will probably only have time to take the shot at whatever part of his body he presents.
