List of famous big game hunters
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

This list of famous big-game hunters includes sportsmen who gained fame largely or solely because of their
big-game hunting Big-game hunting is the hunting of large game animals for meat, commercially valuable by-products (such as horns/antlers, furs, tusks, bones, body fat/ oil, or special organs and contents), trophy/taxidermy, or simply just for recreation ...
exploits. The members of this list either hunted big game for sport, to advance the science of their day, or as professional hunters. It includes brief biographical details focusing on the type of game hunted, methods employed, and weapons used by those featured.


Africa


Bunny Allen

Frank Maurice "Bunny" Allen (1906–2002) was an English-born professional safari guide in Kenya. Born in Buckinghamshire, as a young boy Allen learnt to poach game, gaining the nickname "Bunny" for his skill at snaring rabbits. In 1927 Allen followed his older brothers to Kenya. Managing a farm, Allen would take guests of the owner on shoots, bringing him to the attention of Bror von Blixen-Finecke and Denys Finch Hatton. Allen soon became one of Finch Hatton’s guns on shoots, including the Prince of Wales’ 1928 safari. Rising to captain in the 6th King's African Rifles during World War II, after the war Allen started his own safari business and by the 1950s was considered the best and the most expensive safari operator in Kenya. Allen was also regularly employed by film studios when filming in Africa. He is rumoured to have had love affairs with
Grace Kelly Grace Patricia Kelly (November 12, 1929 – September 14, 1982) was an American actress who, after starring in several significant films in the early to mid-1950s, became Princess of Monaco by marrying Prince Rainier III in April 1956. Kelly ...
and
Ava Gardner Ava Lavinia Gardner (December 24, 1922 – January 25, 1990) was an American actress. She first signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew critics' attention in 1946 with her perform ...
. Allen predominantly used a
.470 Nitro Express The .470 Nitro Express is a rifle cartridge developed by Joseph Lang in England for dangerous game hunting in Africa and India. This cartridge is used almost exclusively in double rifles. It is in wide use in the Southern and Central-East Afr ...
double rifle from
John Rigby & Company John Rigby & Company (or John Rigby & Co. (Gunmakers) Ltd) is a gunmaking firm founded by John Rigby in 1775 in Dublin. The company was established by the first John Rigby in Dublin, Ireland, apparently in 1775; his grandson, also John, opened a ...
to hunt big game.


Yank Allen

George "Yank" Allen (1867–1924) was an American born professional lion hunter in Northern and
Southern Rhodesia Southern Rhodesia was a landlocked self-governing British Crown colony in southern Africa, established in 1923 and consisting of British South Africa Company (BSAC) territories lying south of the Zambezi River. The region was informally kno ...
in the early 20th century. Allen was originally a Texan cowboy who reputedly left the United States as a result of a gunfight, first travelling to South America before arriving in Southern Africa in 1900. Renowned as an eccentric, Allen was quite contemptuous of lions, never referring to them as lions but instead calling them "dawgs" that did not roar but instead "bawled". Allen supplemented his income by hunting lion for the protection of cattle, charging farmers £7 per lion. In 1912 Allen became a professional lion hunter when the Southern Rhodesian cattle enterprise Liebig's hired him to protect their herd of 20,000 cattle, paying him £10 per lion plus transport and labour. Allen always hunted alone, not trusting his native help, and his favorite rifles for lion hunting were a
.303 British The .303 British (designated as the 303 British by the C.I.P. and SAAMI) or 7.7×56mmR, is a calibre rimmed rifle cartridge. The .303 inch bore diameter is measured between rifling lands as is the common practice in Europe which follows th ...
service rifle and a
.577 Black Powder Express The .577 Black Powder Express is a series of black powder cartridges of varying lengths including 2-inch, 2-inch, 3-inch and 3-inch. Development The .577 BPE originated around 1870 with the 2-inch variant. The 3-inch cartridge has survived to ...
double rifle. At the time of his death he was said to have killed around 300 lions, making him in the opinion of "Pondoro" Taylor one of the most successful lion hunters ever.


Major G.H. Anderson

Major Gordon H. "Andy" Anderson (1878–1946) was a British soldier, elephant hunter and safari guide. Anderson commenced big-game hunting in 1909 and elephant hunting in 1912, after meeting lifelong friend Jim Sutherland. Over the course of his life Anderson shot between 350 and 400 elephants, his favourite calibres for elephant hunting being the
.577 Nitro Express The .577 Nitro Express is a large-bore centerfire rifle cartridge designed for the purpose of hunting large game such as elephant. This cartridge is used almost exclusively in single-shot and double express rifles for hunting in the Tropics or h ...
, the
.470 Nitro Express The .470 Nitro Express is a rifle cartridge developed by Joseph Lang in England for dangerous game hunting in Africa and India. This cartridge is used almost exclusively in double rifles. It is in wide use in the Southern and Central-East Afr ...
and the
.318 Westley Richards The .318 Westley Richards, also known as the .318 Rimless Nitro Express and the .318 Accelerated Express, is a proprietary medium bore centerfire rifle cartridge developed by Westley Richards. Design Westley Richards introduced the .318, prim ...
. From 1921 Anderson also started acting as a professional safari guide, his most notable clients being the Duke and Duchess of York (later King George VI and
Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (4 August 1900 – 30 March 2002) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 to 6 February 1952 as the wife of King George VI. She was the l ...
) in 1924 and (in partnership with Denys Finch Hatton) the Prince of Wales (later
King Edward VIII Edward VIII (Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David; 23 June 1894 – 28 May 1972), later known as the Duke of Windsor, was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Empire and Emperor of India from 20 January 19 ...
) and his brother Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester in 1928. In 1934 Anderson was one of the founding members of the East African Professional Hunter's Association. In 1946 he wrote his autobiography, ''African Safaris'', which was published posthumously.


William Charles Baldwin

William Charles Baldwin (1826–1903) was an English-born big-game hunter in 19th century South Africa. Born in
Leyland, Lancashire Leyland () is a town in South Ribble, Lancashire, England, six miles (10 km) south of Preston. The population was 35,578 at the 2011 Census. The name of the town is Anglo-Saxon, meaning "untilled land". History English Leyland was an a ...
, from a young age Baldwin had an innate love of sports, dogs and horses. From the age of six he spent two days a week on a pony following the local harriers. After school Baldwin tried being a clerk in a shipping office and a farmer but in 1851 he packed his guns, rifles, saddles and seven deerhounds, purchased from Earl Fitzwilliam's gamekeeper at great expense, and sailed for South Africa to hunt elephant. Baldwin hunted from Zululand to the Zambezi and west to Lake Ngami. He claimed to be the second white man to set eyes on the
Victoria Falls Victoria Falls ( Lozi: ''Mosi-oa-Tunya'', "The Smoke That Thunders"; Tonga: ''Shungu Namutitima'', "Boiling Water") is a waterfall on the Zambezi River in southern Africa, which provides habitat for several unique species of plants and anim ...
in 1860. Baldwin hunted mainly mounted on horseback with local hounds, the deerhounds having proved of little use. He returned to England in 1861, never returning to Africa. In 1863 he published a memoir ''African hunting: from Natal to the Zambezi''.


Deaf Banks

Frederick Grant "Deaf" Banks (1875–1954) was variously a trader, government official, planter, elephant hunter and game ranger in Uganda. Born in London, but raised in Christchurch, New Zealand, Banks went to Africa in 1896 at the age of 21. Initially working with a coastal merchant, Banks moved into coffee planting and then set off on a prospecting trip to the Congo before he took to big-game hunting. Banks did most of his hunting in
Uganda Protectorate The Protectorate of Uganda was a protectorate of the British Empire from 1894 to 1962. In 1893 the Imperial British East Africa Company transferred its administration rights of territory consisting mainly of the Kingdom of Buganda to the Bri ...
and the Lado Enclave, and is said to have killed over 1,000 elephants in his life, despite being almost completely deaf. Banks did most of his elephant hunting with a 6.5×54mm Mannlicher–Schönauer in open country and a
.577 Nitro Express The .577 Nitro Express is a large-bore centerfire rifle cartridge designed for the purpose of hunting large game such as elephant. This cartridge is used almost exclusively in single-shot and double express rifles for hunting in the Tropics or h ...
double rifle for cover.


W.D.M. "Karamojo" Bell

Walter Dalrymple Maitland "Karamojo" Bell (1880–1954) was a Scottish, soldier, fighter pilot, adventurer and elephant hunter. Arriving in Africa at the end of the 19th century, from 1902 Bell hunted elephant in
Kenya ) , national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi ...
,
Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa. The country is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. The sou ...
, Abyssinia, Sudan, the Lado Enclave (one of the few to do so there legally),
French Ivory Coast The date of the first human presence in Ivory Coast (officially called Côte d'Ivoire) has been difficult to determine because human remains have not been well preserved in the country's humid climate. Weapon and tool fragments (specifically, po ...
, Liberia, French Congo and the
Belgian Congo The Belgian Congo (french: Congo belge, ; nl, Belgisch-Congo) was a Belgian colony in Central Africa from 1908 until independence in 1960. The former colony adopted its present name, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in 1964. Colo ...
. During his hunting career, Bell shot 1,011 elephants and numerous other game including 25 lions, 16 leopards, 4 white rhinoceros, 67 black rhinoceros and between 600 and 700 buffalo. Bell was an exceptional shot who preferred to hunt with smaller calibre bolt actioned rifles rather than with large bore double rifles; around 800 of his elephants were killed with a .275 Rigby. Bell published two books on his time in Africa, ''The wanderings of an elephant hunter'' in 1923 and ''Karamojo safari'' in 1949, along with a number of articles. Bell is considered one of the most successful of Africa's professional elephant hunters.


Bror Blixen

Baron Bror Fredrik "Blix" von Blixen-Finecke (1886–1946) was a
Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
baron, writer and professional safari guide. Blixen arrived in Kenya in 1913 with his new wife, his second cousin Karen von Blixen-Finecke. The marriage did not last, Blixen was a renowned philanderer, and after their separation in 1922 he was forced to flee from his creditors and hide in the bush. Close friend Sir Robert Coryndon intervened and referred some friends to Blixen to go on safari, and throughout the 1920s and 1930s he guided safaris throughout East Africa, notable clients included Edward, Prince of Wales and
Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century f ...
. Blixen returned to Sweden in 1938, where he died eight years later at the age of 59. Blixen hunted extensively with a
.600 Nitro Express The .600 Nitro Express is a large bore Nitro Express rifle cartridge developed by W.J. Jeffery & Co for the purpose of hunting large game such as elephant. Design The .600 Nitro Express is a slightly tapered walled, rimmed, centerfire rifl ...
double rifle by W.J. Jeffery & Co, in 1937 he published an autobiography in Swedish, ''African hunter''.


Peter Capstick

Peter Hathaway Capstick (1940–1996) was an American big-game hunter and author. Born in
New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
, after a short career as a Wall Street stockbroker, Capstick headed to Latin America shortly before his thirtieth birthday to become a professional hunter. After several years he returned to New York where he arranged professionally guided hunting trips. Making his first trip to Africa in 1968, Capstick later became a professional hunter and game ranger in Zambia, Botswana, and Rhodesia. Publishing articles about hunting and adventure from the late 1960s, Capstick published his first book ''Death in the Long Grass'' in 1977, establishing his reputation as a writer.


Cigar

Cigar was a 19th-century hottentot elephant hunter. Originally a jockey in
Grahamstown Makhanda, also known as Grahamstown, is a town of about 140,000 people in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is situated about northeast of Port Elizabeth and southwest of East London. Makhanda is the largest town in the Makana ...
, Cigar first hunted elephant for William Finaughty in 1869, keeping half of the ivory from elephants he shot. Finaughty stated Cigar was an excellent horseman and a fair shot, but his fear of elephants prevented him from having any success at that time. Frederick Selous first met Cigar in 1872 when Cigar agreed to take Selous elephant hunting; by then he had completely overcome his fear of elephants. At the time Cigar employed two native hunters and three porters; Selous described Cigar as a slightly built active man with wonderful endurance and a very good game shot who hunted with an old heavy
6 bore 6 (six) is the natural number following 5 and preceding 7. It is a composite number and the smallest perfect number. In mathematics Six is the smallest positive integer which is neither a square number nor a prime number; it is the second smal ...
muzzleloader. Cigar originally hunted elephant from horseback with Finaughty, but when Selous met him he hunted them on foot due to tsetse flies.


William Finaughty

William "Old Bill" Finaughty (1843–1917) was a 19th-century elephant hunter in Southern Africa. Born in Grahamstown, in 1864 at age 21 Finaughty travelled to
Matabeleland Matabeleland is a region located in southwestern Zimbabwe that is divided into three provinces: Matabeleland North, Bulawayo, and Matabeleland South. These provinces are in the west and south-west of Zimbabwe, between the Limpopo and Zambezi ...
to trade; chief
Mzilikazi Mzilikazi Moselekatse, Khumalo ( 1790 – 9 September 1868) was a Southern African king who founded the Mthwakazi Kingdom now known as Matebeleland, in Zimbabwe. His name means "the great river of blood". He was born the son of Mashobane kaMan ...
was friendly to his party and he witnessed a dance of 25,000 warriors. Shooting his first elephants on that trip, after making further expeditions in 1865 and 1866, Finaughty decided to hunt elephant professionally in 1867, which he did until 1876. Finaughty did all of his hunting from horseback, predominantly with a 4 bore muzzle loader, which fired a 4 oz bullet driven by "a handful of powder", whose recoil would leave his shoulder black and blue after a day’s elephant hunting and on a number of occasions knocked him out of the saddle. On one of his last hunts Finaughty used a "newly-invented" breech loading rifled 12 bore, and the memory of its recoil still made his eyes water 30 years later. It is believed Finaughty killed over 400 elephants in his life. He retired from elephant hunting when most elephants moved into tsetse fly country, not wanting to risk himself or his horses. In 1913, American Mr G.L. Harrison interviewed Finaughty, and upon his return to the United States he published Finaughty's recollections in ''The recollections of William Finaughty - elephant hunter 1864-1875''.


Denys Finch-Hatton

The Hon Denys George Finch-Hatton (1887–1931) was an English-born sportsman and professional safari guide in Kenya in the 20th century. The third son of an
Earl Earl () is a rank of the nobility in the United Kingdom. The title originates in the Old English word ''eorl'', meaning "a man of noble birth or rank". The word is cognate with the Scandinavian form '' jarl'', and meant "chieftain", particula ...
, Finch Hatton was educated at Eton and
Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...
and arrived in Kenya in 1911. He initially lived a nomadic life which included trading safaris throughout Kenya and Somaliland, during which he spent a lot of time hunting. In 1925 Finch Hatton became a professional safari guide, initially conducting a number of safaris with the veteran professional J.A. Hunter, Finch Hatton’s most notable guests were the Prince of Wales (later
King Edward VIII Edward VIII (Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David; 23 June 1894 – 28 May 1972), later known as the Duke of Windsor, was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Empire and Emperor of India from 20 January 19 ...
) and his brother Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester in 1928. Finch Hatton hunted with a Mannlicher bolt actioned rifle in 6.5×54mm Mannlicher–Schönauer, a second hand Rigby bolt actioned rifle in
.350 Rigby The .350 Rigby and .350 Rigby No 2 are proprietary medium bore rifle cartridges developed by John Rigby & Company. Design The .350 Rigby and .350 Rigby No 2 are both bottlenecked centerfire rifle cartridges, originally both cartridges fired ...
, a Lancaster double rifle that he had converted from
.450 No 2 Nitro Express The .450 No 2 Nitro Express also known as the .450 Nitro Express 3-inch was developed by Eley Brothers in 1903. Design The .450 No 2 Nitro Express is rimmed, bottlenecked, calibre cartridge designed for use in single-shot and double rifles, it ...
to
.450 Nitro Express .450 Nitro Express also known as the .450 Nitro Express 3-inch is a rifle cartridge designed for hunting dangerous game such as elephant, rhino, cape buffalo, lion, and leopard. This cartridge is used almost exclusively in double rifles for hunti ...
as it was easier to source ammunition and an Army & Navy 20 bore shotgun. Finch Hatton remains famous as the lover of Karen Blixen, their relationship being detailed in her memoir ''
Out of Africa ''Out of Africa'' is a memoir by the Danish author Karen Blixen. The book, first published in 1937, recounts events of the seventeen years when Blixen made her home in Kenya, then called British East Africa. The book is a lyrical meditation on ...
'', which she wrote under her pen name "Isak Dinesen".


Roualeyn Gordon-Cumming

Roualeyn George "The Lion Hunter" Gordon-Cumming (1820–1866) was a Scottish traveler, sportsman, big-game hunter and author. Growing up in the Scottish Highlands, from a young age Gordon-Cumming distinguished himself for his skill at deer stalking and salmon fishing. Gordon-Cumming briefly held commissions in the
Honourable East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...
and later the Cape Mounted Rifles, resigning the latter after several months to take up hunting in Africa. Between 1843 and 1848 Gordon-Cumming hunted chiefly in Bechuanaland and the valley of the
Limpopo River The Limpopo River rises in South Africa and flows generally eastward through Mozambique to the Indian Ocean. The term Limpopo is derived from Rivombo (Livombo/Lebombo), a group of Tsonga settlers led by Hosi Rivombo who settled in the mountain ...
, mostly he did so on horseback with the assistance of hounds and always wearing a kilt, both when mounted and when on foot. Gordon-Cumming killed numerous game including lion, leopard, white rhinoceros, black rhinoceros, buffalo, giraffe, various antelope, hippopotamus, a rock python and 105 elephants, his favourite weapon was a 10 bore muzzle loaded 2 groove double rifle made by Dickson of Edinburgh until it burst causing him great lament. In 1850 Gordon-Cumming published an account of his time in Africa, ''Five years of a hunter's life in the far interior of South Africa''.


Fred Green

Frederick Thomas Green Frederick Thomas (Fred) Green (April 4, 1829 – May 5, 1876) was an explorer, hunter and trader in what is now Namibia and Botswana. From 1850 to 1853 he operated in the Lake Ngami area with his older brother Charles. After 1854 he was mainly ba ...
(1829-1876) was a Canadian-born elephant hunter in what are now Namibia and Botswana. He came with his parents and siblings to the Cape Colony in the 1840s, and in the early 1850s made several hunting trips to what is now Botswana from
Bloemfontein Bloemfontein, ( ; , "fountain of flowers") also known as Bloem, is one of South Africa's three capital cities and the capital of the Free State (province), Free State province. It serves as the country's judicial capital, along with legisla ...
where his brother
Henry Green Henry Green was the pen name of Henry Vincent Yorke (29 October 1905 – 13 December 1973), an English writer best remembered for the novels ''Party Going'', ''Living'' and '' Loving''. He published a total of nine novels between 1926 and 1952 ...
was British Resident of the
Orange River Sovereignty The Orange River Sovereignty (1848–1854) was a short-lived political entity between the Orange and Vaal rivers in Southern Africa, a region known informally as Transorangia. In 1854, it became the Orange Free State, and is now the Free State ...
. He later preferred to travel from the west coast, exporting ivory from the port of
Walvis Bay Walvis Bay ( en, lit. Whale Bay; af, Walvisbaai; ger, Walfischbucht or Walfischbai) is a city in Namibia and the name of the bay on which it lies. It is the second largest city in Namibia and the largest coastal city in the country. The c ...
.


Quentin Grogan

Quentin Oliver Grogan (1883–1962) was an English-born big-game hunter in East Africa, and the younger brother of
Ewart Grogan Ewart Scott Grogan (1874–1967) was an English explorer, politician, and entrepreneur. He was the first person in recorded history to walk the length of Africa, from Cape Town to Cairo. Biography Ewart Grogan was educated at Winchester College ...
. Arriving in Kenya 1905 to assist with his brother’s businesses, Grogan instead took to hunting elephant. Hunting widely on Kenya, Uganda and the Belgian Congo, Grogan was one of four hunters to receive a license to hunt in the Lado Enclave, although he remained there to poach elephant once his license expired. In 1909 Grogan guided
Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...
’s safari when it came to the Lado Enclave to hunt for white rhinoceros. Grogan eventually settled on a farm at Turi in the
White Highlands The White Highlands is an area in the central uplands of Kenya. It was traditionally the homeland of indigenous Central Kenyan communities up to the colonial period, when it became the centre of European settlement in Kenya, and between 1902 and 19 ...
in 1915 and remained there until 1933 when he sold up and moved to South Africa. Grogan shot between 250 and 300 elephant in his life, he tried various rifles on elephant including a .256 Mannlicher, a
.280 Ross The .280 Ross, also known as the .280 Nitro, .280 Rimless Nitro Express Ross (CIP) and .280 Rimless cartridge, is an approximately 7mm bullet diameter rifle round developed in Canada by F.W. Jones as a consultant to Sir Charles Ross, 9th Baron ...
and a .450 Nitro Express, finally settling on a .318 Westley Richards bolt actioned rifle and a .577 Nitro Express double rifle by Westley Richards.


Sir William Cornwallis Harris

Major Sir William Cornwallis Harris (1807–1848) was an English military engineer, artist, naturalist and hunter. Joining the
Honourable East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...
in 1825, whilst in India he hunted tigers and blackbuck from elephant back and attempted to hunt lion in
Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...
. In 1836, following health issues, Harris was ordered to southern Africa to rehabilitate, where he went on a five-month safari from the Cape Colony to
Matabeleland Matabeleland is a region located in southwestern Zimbabwe that is divided into three provinces: Matabeleland North, Bulawayo, and Matabeleland South. These provinces are in the west and south-west of Zimbabwe, between the Limpopo and Zambezi ...
. During that trip Harris shot elephant, quagga, giraffe, hippopotamus, wildebeest, hartebeast, impala, rhinoceros, waterbuck and giraffe, the ivory from the elephant he shot funded the entire expedition. A naturalist, when not hunting Harris spent part of each day skillfully drawing animals and native Africans, he also collected two complete skulls of every quadruped found in southern Africa, along with a complete skeleton and skin of the
sable antelope The sable antelope (''Hippotragus niger'') is an antelope which inhabits wooded savanna in East and Southern Africa, from the south of Kenya to South Africa, with a separate population in Angola. Taxonomy The sable antelope shares the genus ''Hi ...
, which became known as the "Harris buck", these remains were later displayed in the British Museum. In 1838 Harris published an account of his time in southern Africa, ''The wild sports in southern Africa'' and in 1840 he published a folio volume of lithographs, ''Portraits of the game animals of southern Africa''.


Henry Hartley

Henry Hartley (1815–1876) was an English-born 19th-century South African farmer and elephant hunter. Arriving in South Africa aged 4, he initially trained as a blacksmith but in the 1840s he took up farming near
Magaliesberg The Magaliesberg (historically also known as ''Macalisberg'' or ''Cashan Mountains'') of northern South Africa, is a modest but well-defined mountain range composed mainly of quartzites. It rises at a point south of the Pilanesberg (and the Pil ...
in the Transvaal. From his farm, "Thorndale", Hartley would make annual treks to
Matabeleland Matabeleland is a region located in southwestern Zimbabwe that is divided into three provinces: Matabeleland North, Bulawayo, and Matabeleland South. These provinces are in the west and south-west of Zimbabwe, between the Limpopo and Zambezi ...
and further to
Mashonaland Mashonaland is a region in northern Zimbabwe. Currently, Mashonaland is divided into four provinces, * Mashonaland West * Mashonaland Central * Mashonaland East * Harare The Zimbabwean capital of Harare, a province unto itself, lies entirely ...
to hunt elephant in the
Zambezi Valley The Zambezi River (also spelled Zambeze and Zambesi) is the fourth-longest river in Africa, the longest east-flowing river in Africa and the largest flowing into the Indian Ocean from Africa. Its drainage basin covers , slightly less than hal ...
.
Mzilikazi Mzilikazi Moselekatse, Khumalo ( 1790 – 9 September 1868) was a Southern African king who founded the Mthwakazi Kingdom now known as Matebeleland, in Zimbabwe. His name means "the great river of blood". He was born the son of Mashobane kaMan ...
and
Lobengula Lobengula Khumalo (c. 1845 – presumed January 1894) was the second and last official king of the Northern Ndebele people (historically called Matabele in English). Both names in the Ndebele language mean "the men of the long shields", a refere ...
liked and trusted him, Mzilikazi called him the "Keeper of the King's Elephants". It is said that Hartley discovered gold in the Hartley Hills (later named in his honour) in 1866 near where he made his annual hunting camp, guiding
Karl Mauch Karl Gottlieb Mauch (7 May 1837 – 4 April 1875) was a German explorer and geographer of Africa. He reported on the archaeological ruins of Great Zimbabwe in 1871 during his search for the biblical land of Ophir. Exploration and Great Zimbabwe ...
back the following year who confirmed the presence of gold, their announcing the discovery led to South Africa's gold rush. In 1869 Hartley escorted
Thomas Baines (John) Thomas Baines (27 November 1820 – 8 May 1875) was an English artist and explorer of British colonial southern Africa and Australia. Life and work Born in King's Lynn, Norfolk, on 27 November 1820, Baines was apprenticed to a coach ...
to these goldfields. Hartley did all of his hunting from horseback, it is believed he shot between 1,000 and 1,200 elephant in his life, he eventually died from injuries caused by a rhinoceros collapsing on top of him after he had shot it.


J.A. Hunter

John Alexander "J.A." Hunter (1887–1963) was a Scottish born Kenyan game control officer, big-game hunter, safari guide, author and conservationist. Moving to Kenya in 1908, Hunter initially gained employment hunting lions for the
Uganda Railway The Uganda Railway was a metre-gauge railway system and former British state-owned railway company. The line linked the interiors of Uganda and Kenya with the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa in Kenya. After a series of mergers and splits, the lin ...
and over the next 50 years made a living as a professional hunter, it is believed Hunter killed over 1,400 elephant in his life. For much of his career Hunter was a Kenyan Government game control officer, between 1944 and 1946 he killed over 1,000 rhinoceros on behalf of the government in the Makueni District, the government wishing to clear the area of wildlife to resettle the
Kamba people The Kamba or Akamba (sometimes called Wakamba) people are a Bantu ethnic group who predominantly live in the area of Kenya stretching from Nairobi to Tsavo and north to Embu, in the southern part of the former Eastern Province. This land is ...
, Hunter later regretted the necessity of the task. An author of a number of books, his 1952 work ''Hunter'' was a
Book of the Month Club Book of the Month (founded 1926) is a United States subscription-based e-commerce service that offers a selection of five to seven new hardcover books each month to its members. Books are selected and endorsed by a panel of judges, and members c ...
selection the following year and was widely purchased by school libraries throughout the English speaking world in its abridged form ''African Hunter''. In later years Hunter became concerned about the fate of African game and advocated for the establishment of wildlife protection areas. Hunter hunted with a number of rifles, he arrived in Kenya with his father’s Purdey shotgun and a .275 Rigby rifle whilst later he used a
.416 Rigby The .416 Rigby is a rifle cartridge designed in 1911 by London based gunmaker John Rigby & Company, for hunting dangerous game. It is the first cartridge to use a bullet of .416 inch (10.57 mm) diameter. The rifles, as built by John Rigby & Co ...
, a
.500 Nitro Express The .500 Nitro Express is a rifle cartridge designed for hunting large and dangerous game animals in Africa and India. This cartridge was primarily designed for use in double rifles though various single shots were produced on the Farquarson act ...
and a
.505 Gibbs The .505 Gibbs cartridge was designed by George Gibbs in 1911. The cartridge was originally known as the .505 Rimless Nitro Express. The C.I.P. refers to the cartridge as the 505 Mag. Gibbs in their publications. It is a .50 caliber (12.8  ...
rifle.


Bobby "Iodine" Ionides

Constantine John Philip Ionides Constantine John Philip Ionides (1901–1968), nicknamed "Bobby" and then "Iodine", was a British-born naturalist and herpetologist known as the Snake Man of British East Africa. His decades as game warden (conservation officer) led to him being des ...
(1901-1968), known since childhood as Bobby, was born in England and decided at a young age to follow in the footsteps of Selous. He joined the army and was posted to Africa, where during leaves of absence he went poaching. He learned to hunt big game of all sorts, including elephants. He left the army once his hunting became financially self-supporting, and set up with a partner in Nairobi to guide wealthy Americans. His specimens can be found in the collections of the British Museum, the
National Museums of Kenya The National Museums of Kenya (NMK) is a state corporation that manages museums, sites and monuments in Kenya. It carries out heritage research, and has expertise in subjects ranging from palaeontology, archeology, ethnography and biodiversit ...
(in his day known as the Coryndon Memorial Museum), and Harvard's
Museum of Comparative Zoology A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...
. He became a game warden and is known as the father of the
Selous Game Reserve The Selous Game Reserve, now renamed Nyerere National Park, is a protected area in southern Tanzania. It covers a total area of and has additional buffer zones. It was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982 due to its wildlife diversity ...
in what is now Tanzania.


Petrus Jacobs

Petrus Jacobs was an early
Boer Boers ( ; af, Boere ()) are the descendants of the Dutch-speaking Free Burghers of the eastern Cape Colony, Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. From 1652 to 1795, the Dutch East India Company controll ...
elephant hunter in South Africa, described by Frederick Selous as "the most experienced elephant hunter in South Africa." Over seventy-three years old when Selous met him, Jacobs must have been born around 1800. Jacobs is believed to have killed between 400 and 500 bull elephants, mostly from horseback but also on foot when hunting in
tsetse fly Tsetse ( , or ) (sometimes spelled tzetze; also known as tik-tik flies), are large, biting flies that inhabit much of tropical Africa. Tsetse flies include all the species in the genus ''Glossina'', which are placed in their own family, Glo ...
country. Jacobs is also said to have killed over 100 lions, Selous saw him be mauled badly by one at over seventy-three years of age, he was saved by his three powerful dogs who attacked the lion's hind quarters, and within two months he was able to ride a horse again.


Frederick Vaughan Kirby

Frederick Vaughan Kirby was a soldier, traveller, big-game hunter and collector of natural history specimens. Irish born, Kirby hunted extensively throughout Portuguese East Africa and the eastern Transvaal until the Anglo-Boer War, publishing two books on his hunting experiences, ''In haunts of wild game'' in 1896 and ''Sport in east central Africa'' in 1899. After service in the Anglo-Boer War Kirby applied for employment on the Sabie Game Reserve but instead he became superintendent of the Transvaal Museum's zoological gardens until 1907, by 1908 he was making a living by selling birds and mammals to museums and private collectors. In 1911 Kirby became the Game Conservator for Zululand and he was instrumental in the proclamation of the
uMkhuze Game Reserve uMkhuze Game Reserve (also spelt Mkhuze or Mkuze) is a game reserve in northern Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.Atlas of National Parks and Reserves of South Africa. Mapstudio. 2004. It was proclaimed a protected area on 15 February 191 ...
before his retirement in 1929. Over the course of his life Kirby hunted elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, buffalo, lion, leopard, giraffe, eland, kudu, sable antelope, wildebeest, crocodiles and numerous smaller game. Kirby hunted extensively with a Gibbs–Farquharson–Metford and a Gibbs–Metford double rifle in
.461 Gibbs The .461 No 1 Gibbs and the .461 No 2 Gibbs are two obsolete proprietary rifle cartridges developed in 19th century Britain. Design The .461 No 1 Gibbs and the .461 No 2 Gibbs are both rimmed, bottlenecked centerfire rifle cartridges designed ...
, a Westley Richards
12 bore The gauge (or commonly bore in British English) of a firearm is a unit of measurement used to express the inner diameter (bore diameter) of the barrel. Gauge is determined from the weight of a solid sphere of lead that will fit the bore of the f ...
double rifle and a 10 bore double smoothbore.


Karl Larsen

Karl Larsen was a Danish professional elephant hunter who did most of his hunting in
Portuguese East Africa Portuguese Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique) or Portuguese East Africa (''África Oriental Portuguesa'') were the common terms by which Mozambique was designated during the period in which it was a Portuguese colony. Portuguese Mozambique originally ...
and
Portuguese West Africa Portuguese Angola refers to Angola during the historic period when it was a territory under Portuguese rule in southwestern Africa. In the same context, it was known until 1951 as Portuguese West Africa (officially the State of West Africa). I ...
in the early 20th century. It is believed Larsen had shot over 300 elephants by 1909, and he continued to hunt in West Africa for another 17 years. One of Larsen's favourite weapons for elephant was a
.600 Nitro Express The .600 Nitro Express is a large bore Nitro Express rifle cartridge developed by W.J. Jeffery & Co for the purpose of hunting large game such as elephant. Design The .600 Nitro Express is a slightly tapered walled, rimmed, centerfire rifl ...
by W.J. Jeffery & Co. One incident recorded about Larsen occurred on 20 January 1909, whilst on the trail of a wounded bull elephant in the district of Benguela, he came upon a pride of lions, killing seven of them in two minutes with nine shots from his .600 Nitro Express.


Harry Manners

Harry Manners (1917–1997) was a 20th-century South African elephant hunter. Born in
Grootfontein , nickname = , settlement_type = City , motto = Fons Vitæ , image_skyline = Grootfontein grass.jpg , imagesize = 300px , image_caption = , image_flag = , flag_si ...
to an English father and German mother, Manners shot his first elephant aged 17 using an old 10.75 x 68mm Mauser rifle. In 1937 Manners moved to the
Portuguese East Africa Portuguese Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique) or Portuguese East Africa (''África Oriental Portuguesa'') were the common terms by which Mozambique was designated during the period in which it was a Portuguese colony. Portuguese Mozambique originally ...
n hinterlands to take up elephant hunting, at the time there were no hunting restrictions there, he continued to hunt elephant (also selling the meat) professionally until 1953 when commercial ivory hunting was closed in Portuguese East Africa. Manners shot approximately 1,000 elephants in his life, his finest tusker had tusks weighing , the fourth largest African tusks ever recorded, he estimated that for every elephant he shot with tusks in the range, he had to walk . Manners predominantly hunted with a
Winchester Model 70 The Winchester Model 70 is a bolt-action sporting rifle. It has an iconic place in American sporting culture and has been held in high regard by shooters since it was introduced in 1936, earning the moniker "The Rifleman's Rifle". The action has s ...
firing the .375 H&H Magnum over iron sights (he thought a rifle scope added unnecessary weight), although for a period when .375 H&H ammunition was suddenly unavailable he resorted to a
.30-06 Springfield The .30-06 Springfield cartridge (pronounced "thirty- aught-six" ), 7.62×63mm in metric notation, and called the .30 Gov't '06 by Winchester, was introduced to the United States Army in 1906 and later standardized; it remained in military use ...
, although he only killed 40 elephants with it and only under the most certain conditions. Manners later ran a curio shop in the
Skukuza Skukuza (formerly Reserve, Sabi Bridge and Sikhukhuza), located 57 km east of Hazyview at the confluence of the N'waswitshaka and Sabie Rivers in Mpumalanga, is the administrative headquarters of the Kruger National Park. It is also the la ...
camp in
Kruger National Park Kruger National Park is a South African National Park and one of the largest game reserves in Africa. It covers an area of in the provinces of Limpopo and Mpumalanga in northeastern South Africa, and extends from north to south and from ea ...
, where he was a tourist attraction himself, in 1980 he published his autobiography, ''Kambaku!''.


Bali Mauladad

Muhammad Iqbal "Bali" Mauladad (1926–1970) was a Kenyan sportsman and safari guide. Born in Nairobi, Mauladad's father was a millionaire building contractor and he was initially groomed to move into the family business, but his passions were hunting, cricket and car racing. Mauladad first went on safari aged 11, at 17 he started hunting big game and decided to become a professional safari guide, first working for
Safariland Safariland, LLC is a United States-based manufacturer of personal, and other equipment focused on the law enforcement, public safety, military, and recreational markets. It was formerly a division of the United Kingdom-based defense and aerospace ...
and later Ker and Downey. Mauladad was the only non-white to be admitted to the East African Professional Hunter's Association, notable clients of his include
King Mahendra of Nepal Mahendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev ( ne, श्री ५ महाराजाधिराज महेन्द्र वीर विक्रम शाह देव; 11 June 1920 – 31 January 1972) was the King of Nepal from 13 March 1955 until h ...
and
Stavros Niarchos Stavros Spyrou Niarchos ( el, Σταύρος Σπύρου Νιάρχος, ; 3 July 1909 – 15 April 1996) was a Greek billionaire shipping tycoon. Starting in 1952, he had the world's biggest supertankers built for his fleet. Propelled by both ...
. For big-game hunting Mauladad used double rifles chambered in .470 Nitro Express and
.475 Nitro Express The .475 Nitro Express is a British rifle cartridge developed in the early 20th century. Design The .475 Nitro Express is a slightly tapered, non-bottlenecked rimmed cartridge very similar in appearance to the .450 Nitro Express, that is des ...
along with a
.416 Rigby The .416 Rigby is a rifle cartridge designed in 1911 by London based gunmaker John Rigby & Company, for hunting dangerous game. It is the first cartridge to use a bullet of .416 inch (10.57 mm) diameter. The rifles, as built by John Rigby & Co ...
magazine rifle.


Arthur H. Neumann

Arthur Henry Neumann Arthur Henry Neumann (12 June 1850 – 29 May 1907) was an English explorer, hunter, soldier, farmer and travel writer famous for his exploits in Equatorial East Africa. In 1898 he published ''Elephant Hunting in East Equatorial Africa''.A H Neum ...
(1850–1907) was an English explorer, hunter, soldier, writer and big-game hunter. Arriving in South Africa in 1869, Neumann held various jobs until 1877 when he took up hunting professionally, which except for a brief period of military service in 1879 for the
Anglo-Zulu War The Anglo-Zulu War was fought in 1879 between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom. Following the passing of the British North America Act of 1867 forming a federation in Canada, Lord Carnarvon thought that a similar political effort, coupl ...
, he did uninterrupted until 1890 in the Transvaal and Swaziland and along the Limpopo and Sabi rivers, shooting most game in southern Africa with the exception of elephant. In 1890 he entered the service of the
Imperial British East Africa Company The Imperial British East Africa Company (IBEAC) was a commercial association founded to develop African trade in the areas controlled by the British Empire. The company was incorporated in London on 18 April 1888 and granted a royal charter by Q ...
exploring for the
Uganda Railway The Uganda Railway was a metre-gauge railway system and former British state-owned railway company. The line linked the interiors of Uganda and Kenya with the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa in Kenya. After a series of mergers and splits, the lin ...
during which period he shot his first elephant. In 1893 Neumann departed on a 3-year hunting and exploring trip in East Africa, returning to England to publish ''Elephant hunting in Equatorial East Africa'' in 1897. Between 1899 and 1902 Neumann participated in the
Second Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sout ...
, in 1902 he returned to East Africa hunting elephant continuously until 1906 when he returned to England, dying the following year. One of the first to hunt elephant professionally in East Africa, it is unknown how many elephant Neumann shot in his life although it is believed to be in excess of 300. In his early career Neumann hunted with a
.577 Black Powder Express The .577 Black Powder Express is a series of black powder cartridges of varying lengths including 2-inch, 2-inch, 3-inch and 3-inch. Development The .577 BPE originated around 1870 with the 2-inch variant. The 3-inch cartridge has survived to ...
double rifle and a .461 No 1 Gibbs–Metford–
Farquharson rifle The Farquharson Rifle is a single-shot hammerless falling-block action rifle designed and patented by John Farquharson, of Daldhu, Scotland in 1872. George Gibbs, a gun maker in Bristol Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, ci ...
both by George Gibbs of Bristol and a 10 bore double rifle by Holland & Holland, when the
.303 British The .303 British (designated as the 303 British by the C.I.P. and SAAMI) or 7.7×56mmR, is a calibre rimmed rifle cartridge. The .303 inch bore diameter is measured between rifling lands as is the common practice in Europe which follows th ...
cartridge was introduced he hunted extensively with a Lee-Metford rifle and in 1902 he acquired a Rigby
.450 Nitro Express .450 Nitro Express also known as the .450 Nitro Express 3-inch is a rifle cartridge designed for hunting dangerous game such as elephant, rhino, cape buffalo, lion, and leopard. This cartridge is used almost exclusively in double rifles for hunti ...
double rifle which was his favourite for elephant.


William Cotton Oswell

William Cotton Oswell (1818–1893) was an English-born 19th-century explorer and big-game hunter. In 1837 Oswell entered the service of the
British East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...
, whilst in India he enjoyed fox
coursing Coursing by humans is the pursuit of game or other animals by dogs—chiefly greyhounds and other sighthounds—catching their prey by speed, running by sight, but not by scent. Coursing was a common hunting technique, practised by the nobility, t ...
with
Afghan hound The Afghan Hound is a hound that is distinguished by its thick, fine, silky coat and its tail with a ring curl at the end. The breed is selectively bred for its unique features in the cold mountains of Afghanistan. Its local name is ( ps, تاژ ...
s,
pig sticking Boar hunting is the practice of hunting wild boar, feral pigs, warthogs, and peccaries. Boar hunting was historically a dangerous exercise due to the tusked animal's ambush tactics as well as its thick hide and dense bones rendering them difficul ...
,
snipe A snipe is any of about 26 wading bird species in three genera in the family Scolopacidae. They are characterized by a very long, slender bill, eyes placed high on the head, and cryptic/camouflaging plumage. The ''Gallinago'' snipes have a near ...
shooting, and big-game hunting, shooting sambar,
chital The chital or cheetal (''Axis axis''; ), also known as the spotted deer, chital deer, and axis deer, is a deer species native to the Indian subcontinent. It was first described and given a binomial name by German naturalist Johann Christian Po ...
and bear, although in 1844 after suffering from severe malaria he was sent to the
Cape Colony The Cape Colony ( nl, Kaapkolonie), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British Empire, British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope, which existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when i ...
to recover. Once Oswell arrived in Africa his health quickly recovered and over the next 8 years, except for a short period in England and India, he spent his time exploring and hunting. No source describes the total amount of game Oswell shot, but he shot large numbers of elephant, rhinoceros, buffalo, hippopotamus, giraffe and quagga. Every animal Oswell shot, except 3 elephant, were subsequently completely eaten by his camp followers or local tribesmen, he once fed 600 highly emaciated men, women and children of the Bakaa tribe for 7 weeks and sent them home with an abundant supply of meat. According to Sir Samuel Baker, Oswell "was a first-rate horseman, and all of his shooting was from the saddle, or by dismounting for a shot after he had run his game to bay." Always shooting game from the closest possible range, Oswell had horses he was riding killed by buffalo and white rhinoceros, and on one occasion a lioness landed on his horse's rump. Oswell did almost all of his hunting with a double-barrelled 10 bore muzzle loader made by Purdey which weighed , fired 5 to 6 drams (8.9 to 10.6 g) of fine powder and was specially built to fire solid balls.


Pete Pearson

Peter C. "Pete" Pearson (1876–1929) was an Australian born game ranger and elephant hunter. Born in
Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
, in 1900 he volunteered as an ordinary seaman to get to South Africa in order to reach the
Anglo Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sout ...
. After the Boer War, Pearson remained in Africa and in 1903 he arrived in Kenya to hunt elephant. In 1904 Pearson moved into the Lado Enclave to poach elephant, returning to licensed hunting in 1910 in the
Belgian Congo The Belgian Congo (french: Congo belge, ; nl, Belgisch-Congo) was a Belgian colony in Central Africa from 1908 until independence in 1960. The former colony adopted its present name, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in 1964. Colo ...
and later in
Ubangi-Shari Ubangi-Shari (french: Oubangui-Chari) was a French colony in central Africa, a part of French Equatorial Africa. It was named after the Ubangi and Chari rivers along which it was colonised. It was established on 29 December 1903, from the U ...
. During the
Great War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
Pearson enlisted to the intelligence department, afterwards he returned to hunting in
Tanganyika Tanganyika may refer to: Places * Tanganyika Territory (1916–1961), a former British territory which preceded the sovereign state * Tanganyika (1961–1964), a sovereign state, comprising the mainland part of present-day Tanzania * Tanzania Main ...
. In 1924 Pearson joined the Uganda Game Department as an elephant hunter, controlling elephant numbers which were causing significant damage to crops. In 1924 Pearson accompanied the safari for the Duke and Duchess of York (later King George VI and
Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (4 August 1900 – 30 March 2002) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 to 6 February 1952 as the wife of King George VI. She was the l ...
) as a hunting guide during their visit to Uganda. In 1928 the Prince of Wales (later
King Edward VIII Edward VIII (Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David; 23 June 1894 – 28 May 1972), later known as the Duke of Windsor, was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Empire and Emperor of India from 20 January 19 ...
) travelled through East Africa including Uganda, Pearson was charged with organising a hunting safari and for 8 days the Royal party hunted under Pearson's guidance. On the last day of the safari, a rogue bull elephant charged the Royal Party and Pearson placed himself between the Prince and the elephant, shooting with lethal effect. It is believed Pearson shot as many as 2,000 elephants over the course of his life, he used a .350 Rigby, a Rigby Mauser .375 H&H Magnum, a W.J. Jeffery & Co .404 Jeffery and a .577 Nitro Express.


Philip Percival

Philip Hope Percival (1886–1966) was an English-born Kenyan professional hunter. In 1906, at the age of 21 Percival sailed to Kenya having been drawn to East Africa by the tales of his older brother Blaney. Initially Percival tried various agricultural pursuits whilst he hunted recreationally with his brother and local ostrich farmers Harold and Clifford Hill, predominantly shooting lion, in time he started talking clients on lion hunting trips. In 1909 Percival received his big break, he was invited by Sir Alfred Pease to assist with a lion hunt for
Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...
and the
Smithsonian–Roosevelt African Expedition The Smithsonian–Roosevelt African Expedition was an expedition to tropical Africa in 1909-1911 led by former United States president Theodore Roosevelt, funded by Andrew Carnegie and sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution. Its purpose was to ...
, following this he took to guiding hunting safaris full-time. One of the earliest established professional guides, Percival became one of the most respected and highest paid hunters of his day, his clients included
Baron Rothschild Baron Rothschild, of Tring in the County of Hertfordshire, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1885 for Sir Nathan Rothschild, 2nd Baronet, a member of the Rothschild banking family. He was the first Jewish memb ...
, the
Duke Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are ran ...
and
Duchess of Connaught Princess Louise Margaret of Prussia (Louise Margaret Alexandra Victoria Agnes; 25 July 1860 – 14 March 1917), later Duchess of Connaught and Strathearn Royal Order of Victoria and Albert, VA Order of the Crown of India, CI Royal Red Cross, RRC ...
,
Gary Cooper Gary Cooper (born Frank James Cooper; May 7, 1901May 13, 1961) was an American actor known for his strong, quiet screen persona and understated acting style. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice and had a further three nominations, a ...
,
George Eastman George Eastman (July 12, 1854March 14, 1932) was an American entrepreneur who founded the Kodak, Eastman Kodak Company and helped to bring the photographic use of roll film into the mainstream. He was a major philanthropist, establishing the ...
and arguably the most famous
Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century f ...
, who used Percival as the inspiration for the character 'Pop' in ''
Green Hills of Africa ''Green Hills of Africa'' is a 1935 work of nonfiction by American writer Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway's second work of nonfiction, ''Green Hills of Africa'' is an account of a month on safari he and his wife, Pauline Marie Pfeiffer, took in East ...
''. Known by colleagues as "the dean of hunters", Percival hunted with a pair of
.450 No 2 Nitro Express The .450 No 2 Nitro Express also known as the .450 Nitro Express 3-inch was developed by Eley Brothers in 1903. Design The .450 No 2 Nitro Express is rimmed, bottlenecked, calibre cartridge designed for use in single-shot and double rifles, it ...
boxlock
double rifle The double rifle, also known as a double-barreled rifle, is a rifle with two barrels mounted parallel to each other. Synonymous with big game hunting found primarily in Africa and India, the double rifle is a purely sporting weapon with no militar ...
s made by Joseph Lang.


Major P.G.H. Powell-Cotton

Major Percy Horace Gordon Powell-Cotton (1866–1940) was an English naturalist, explorer, hunter collector and early conservationist. Embarking on his first expedition in 1890, Powell-Cotton made 28 expeditions over a 50-year period throughout Africa and Asia to gather and categorise zoological and ethnographical specimens. Powell-Cotton was primarily concerned with contributing to scientific knowledge through preservation and documentation, not with indiscriminately collecting trophies, returning with their remains to Britain to be mounted by renowned London taxidermist
Rowland Ward James Rowland Ward (1848–1912) was a British taxidermist and founder of the firm Rowland Ward Limited of Piccadilly, London. The company specialised in and was renowned for its taxidermy work on birds and big-game trophies, but it did other ty ...
. The
Powell-Cotton Museum The Powell-Cotton Museum is situated in Quex Park, Birchington, Kent and houses the diverse personal collections of hunter and explorer Percy Powell-Cotton. The museum also contains the collections of Powell-Cotton's two daughters, Antoinette and ...
, built to house his specimens, contains over 16,000 mammal skeletons and skins but also includes butterflies, insects and birds. Among his most famous specimens was one of the largest tuskers ever killed, the pair of tusks weighed , the largest tusk was long, in diameter and weighed . An inveterate client of W.J. Jeffery & Co, Powell-Cotton hunted with a
.255 Jeffery Rook The .255 Jeffery Rook, also known as the .255 Jeffery Rook Rifle, is an obsolete small bore firearm Cartridge (firearms), cartridge. Overview The .255 Jeffery Rook is a Rim (firearms), rimmed Centerfire ammunition, centerfire cartridge. It was ...
rook rifle, a scoped .256 Mannlicher, a
.400 Jeffery Nitro Express The .400 Jeffery Nitro Express or .450/400 Nitro Express 3-inch is a medium bore, bottlenecked, Nitro Express cartridge designed by W.J. Jeffery & Co in 1902, intended for use in single shot and double rifles. Development The W.J. Jeffery & Co ...
double rifle, a
.600 Nitro Express The .600 Nitro Express is a large bore Nitro Express rifle cartridge developed by W.J. Jeffery & Co for the purpose of hunting large game such as elephant. Design The .600 Nitro Express is a slightly tapered walled, rimmed, centerfire rifl ...
double rifle, a 12 bore
ball and shot gun The ball and shot gun, often also known by the marketing name paradox gun, is a shotgun capable of firing both shot and solid projectiles. First built by Holland and Holland, the term paradox is a proprietary name applied to these guns by Holland ...
and an
8 bore The 8 bore, also known as the 8 gauge, is an obsolete caliber used commonly in the 19th-century black-powder firearms. Design An 8 bore is a caliber firearm. Historically it was used to fire solid projectiles from smoothbores, rifles, and part ...
hammer double rifle all by that maker, as well as a 12 bore paradox gun by Holland & Holland.


Paul Rainey

Paul James Rainey (1877–1923) was an American businessman, philanthropist, hunter, and photographer. In 1911 Rainey set sail from New York with a pack of 15 Southern
American Foxhound The American Foxhound is a breed of dog that is a cousin of the English Foxhound. They are scent hounds, bred to hunt foxes by scent. History In 1650, Robert Brooke sailed from England to Maryland with his pack of hunting dogs, which were th ...
s, having informed a correspondent of ''The New York Times'' that his "principle desire" was "to trap wild animals and bring them back alive." Instead, Rainey is said to have killed over 200 lions using this pack. In an editorial, ''The New York Times'' later questioned Rainey's sportsmanship, equating his hunting to "butcher's work",
John Guille Millais John Guille Millais ( , also ; 24 March 1865 – 24 March 1931) was a British artist, naturalist, gardener and travel writer who specialised in wildlife and flower portraiture. He travelled extensively around the world in the late Victorian p ...
wrote "Paul Rainey's method of hunting lions with a large pack of hounds can hardly come into the true category of lion-hunting where risks are taken. The dogs, it is true, were often killed or wounded; but as a friend who had taken part in the hunts remarked: 'It is just like rat-hunting, and about as dangerous'." Rainey subsequently made a wildlife film of his hunting in Africa, ''Paul Rainey's African Hunt'', released in April 1912 it was the largest money-making wildlife film of the decade.


Samaki Salmon

Roy John Dugdale "Samaki" Salmon (1888–1952) was a
New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
born game warden and
elephant Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae an ...
control officer in
Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa. The country is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. The sou ...
. Arriving in Africa in 1911, Salmon became a coffee grower in the
Uganda Protectorate The Protectorate of Uganda was a protectorate of the British Empire from 1894 to 1962. In 1893 the Imperial British East Africa Company transferred its administration rights of territory consisting mainly of the Kingdom of Buganda to the Bri ...
the following year, gaining a reputation as a skilled elephant hunter by efficiently killing 20 elephant a year as was allowed with a planter's elephant hunting licence. During World War I, Salmon served in the
King's African Rifles The King's African Rifles (KAR) was a multi-battalion British colonial regiment raised from Britain's various possessions in East Africa from 1902 until independence in the 1960s. It performed both military and internal security functions withi ...
, being awarded a
Military Cross The Military Cross (MC) is the third-level (second-level pre-1993) military decoration awarded to officers and (since 1993) other ranks of the British Armed Forces, and formerly awarded to officers of other Commonwealth countries. The MC i ...
for gallantry. In 1924, in an effort to combat the destruction to cropping and fencing caused by elephant that prevented the development of agriculture, the Ugandan Government created the Uganda Game Department and appointed Salmon as one of four white elephant control wardens, along with Deaf Banks and Pete Pearson. In the course of his duties Salmon shot as many as 4,000 elephant, more than anyone else in history, he predominantly used a pair of
.416 Rigby The .416 Rigby is a rifle cartridge designed in 1911 by London based gunmaker John Rigby & Company, for hunting dangerous game. It is the first cartridge to use a bullet of .416 inch (10.57 mm) diameter. The rifles, as built by John Rigby & Co ...
bolt-action rifles, but also used a .470 Nitro Express double rifle if hunting in thick cover. In 1930 Salmon was appointed chief game warden of Uganda, remaining in that position until his retirement in 1949, during that time he was successful in extending the boundaries of Uganda's national parks and creating a number of additional game preserves.


Frederick Selous

Frederick Courtney Selous Frederick Courteney Selous, DSO (; 31 December 1851 – 4 January 1917) was a British explorer, officer, professional hunter, and conservationist, famous for his exploits in Southeast Africa. His real-life adventures inspired Sir Henry Rider ...
(1851–1917) was an English-born hunter, explorer, soldier and writer. Selous arrived in South Africa in 1870 determined to become an elephant hunter, hunting and trading predominantly in
Mashonaland Mashonaland is a region in northern Zimbabwe. Currently, Mashonaland is divided into four provinces, * Mashonaland West * Mashonaland Central * Mashonaland East * Harare The Zimbabwean capital of Harare, a province unto itself, lies entirely ...
and
Matabeleland Matabeleland is a region located in southwestern Zimbabwe that is divided into three provinces: Matabeleland North, Bulawayo, and Matabeleland South. These provinces are in the west and south-west of Zimbabwe, between the Limpopo and Zambezi ...
until 1881, subsequently conducting several return hunting trips to Africa as well as hunting trips to Asia Minor, Wyoming, Transylvania, Canada, Sardinia, Kenya, the Yukon, Norway and the Sudan. Over the course of his life Selous shot 106 elephant, 177 buffalos, 31 lions, 23 white rhinoceros, 28 black rhinoceros, 67 giraffe and numerous antelope in Africa. Additionally, Selous shot moose, wapiti, caribou, wolf, lynx, deer and pronghorn in North America, red deer and wild goat in Asia Minor and red deer, reindeer, chamois and mouflon in Europe. Selous was provided with a large number of rifles by British gunmakers in the hope of his endorsement, but he makes mention of two Boer-style muzzle-loading muskets (known locally as "roer") which weighed about and fired 4 oz balls driven by 20 drams of powder, an
8 bore The 8 bore, also known as the 8 gauge, is an obsolete caliber used commonly in the 19th-century black-powder firearms. Design An 8 bore is a caliber firearm. Historically it was used to fire solid projectiles from smoothbores, rifles, and part ...
single-barrelled rifle, a 10 bore muzzle loading single-barrelled rifle, a 10 bore breech loading single-barrelled rifle, several 10 bore breech loading double rifles, a
12 bore The gauge (or commonly bore in British English) of a firearm is a unit of measurement used to express the inner diameter (bore diameter) of the barrel. Gauge is determined from the weight of a solid sphere of lead that will fit the bore of the f ...
double breech loading smooth bore made by
W.W. Greener W.W. Greener is a sporting shotgun and rifle manufacturer from England. The company produced its first firearm in 1829 and is still in business, with a fifth generation Greener serving on its board of directors. History The history of W.W. Gre ...
, at least one .461 No 1 Gibbs–Metford–
Farquharson rifle The Farquharson Rifle is a single-shot hammerless falling-block action rifle designed and patented by John Farquharson, of Daldhu, Scotland in 1872. George Gibbs, a gun maker in Bristol Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, ci ...
by Gibbs of Bristol (a favourite), a single-barrelled
.450 Black Powder Express The .450 Black Powder Express also known as the .450 3-inch BPE was a popular black powder cartridge in the late 19th and early 20th century. Design The .450 Black Powder Express is a rimmed, straight walled, centerfire rifle cartridge desig ...
by Henry of Edinburgh, a
.375 Flanged Nitro Express The .375 Nitro Express 2 inch Velopex , was a nitrocellulose (smokeless) powder cartridge introduced in 1899. Overview A hunting cartridge produced for single-shot and double rifles, the .375 Flanged NE is a slightly longer version of the .303 ...
falling block rifle and a .303 British falling block rifle both by Holland & Holland, a .303 British
Lee–Metford The Lee–Metford rifle (a.k.a. ''Magazine Lee–Metford'', abbreviated ''MLM'') was a bolt-action British army service rifle, combining James Paris Lee's rear-locking bolt system and detachable magazine with an innovative seven groove rifled ba ...
rifle and a .256 Mannlicher falling block rifle.


Sir Alfred Sharpe

Sir Alfred Sharpe (1853–1935) was a British adventurer, planter, lawyer, professional hunter and colonial administrator in
Nyasaland Nyasaland () was a British protectorate located in Africa that was established in 1907 when the former British Central Africa Protectorate changed its name. Between 1953 and 1963, Nyasaland was part of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasala ...
. After qualifying as a solicitor Sharpe practiced law in Lancaster for several years until 1853 when he moved his family to Fiji and unsuccessfully became a sugarcane planter, also acted as a local magistrate. In 1887, aged 34, he arrived in central Africa and spent the next two years hunting elephant professionally, predominantly in the
Luangwa Valley The Luangwa River is one of the major tributaries of the Zambezi River, and one of the four biggest rivers of Zambia. The river generally floods in the rainy season (December to March) and then falls considerably in the dry season. It is one of ...
. In 1889, whilst hunting in the lower
Shire River The Shire is the largest river in Malawi. It is the only outlet of Lake Malawi and flows into the Zambezi River in Mozambique. Its length is . The upper Shire River issues from Lake Malawi and runs approximately before it enters shallow Lake Malo ...
valley, Sharpe had a chance meeting with
Harry Johnston Sir Henry Hamilton Johnston (12 June 1858 – 31 July 1927), known as Harry Johnston, was a British explorer, botanist, artist, colonial administrator, and linguist who travelled widely in Africa and spoke many African languages. He publishe ...
who immediately appointed Sharpe as his vice-consul. In 1897 Sharpe succeeded Johnston as consul of the
British Central Africa Protectorate The British Central Africa Protectorate (BCA) was a British protectorate proclaimed in 1889 and ratified in 1891 that occupied the same area as present-day Malawi: it was renamed Nyasaland in 1907. British interest in the area arose from visits ...
, later becoming the first governor of
Nyasaland Nyasaland () was a British protectorate located in Africa that was established in 1907 when the former British Central Africa Protectorate changed its name. Between 1953 and 1963, Nyasaland was part of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasala ...
until his retirement in 1910. Whilst in the colonial service and after his retirement, Sharpe never lost his interest in hunting and whenever the opportunity arose he would go on long expeditions from central Africa into the Congo, from East Africa to Rhodesia, mainly to hunt elephant, the
Sharpe's grysbok Sharpe's or northern grysbok (''Raphicerus sharpei'') is a small, shy, solitary antelope that is found from tropical to south-eastern Africa. Range They are found in the Transvaal (South Africa), the Caprivi Strip (Namibia), Botswana, Mozambique ...
, Sharpe's greenbul and
Sharpe's pied-babbler The black-lored babbler or Sharpe's pied-babbler (''Turdoides sharpei'') is a species of bird in the family Leiothrichidae. It is found in southwestern Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, and the part of the Democratic Republic of the Co ...
are all named after him. Between 1887 and 1892 Sharpe used an
8 bore The 8 bore, also known as the 8 gauge, is an obsolete caliber used commonly in the 19th-century black-powder firearms. Design An 8 bore is a caliber firearm. Historically it was used to fire solid projectiles from smoothbores, rifles, and part ...
double rifle and a single-barrelled 4 bore, whilst in 1893 he acquired his first
bolt-action Bolt-action is a type of manual firearm action that is operated by ''directly'' manipulating the bolt via a bolt handle, which is most commonly placed on the right-hand side of the weapon (as most users are right-handed). Most bolt-action ...
ed rifle, preferring them to doubles from that time on due to the availability for more than two shots. Sharpe hunted extensively with a
.333 Jeffery The .333 Jeffery and .333 Jeffery Flanged are medium-bore rifle cartridges developed by W.J. Jeffery & Co and introduced in 1908. Design The .333 Jeffery and the .333 Jeffery Flanged are both bottlenecked centerfire rifle cartridges. Original ...
and a
.404 Jeffery The .404 Jeffery is a rifle cartridge designed for hunting large, dangerous game animals, such as the " Big Five" (elephant, rhino, cape buffalo, lion and leopard) of Africa. The cartridge is standardized by the C.I.P. and is also known as .404 ...
, on an expedition in 1916 he used a
.600 Nitro Express The .600 Nitro Express is a large bore Nitro Express rifle cartridge developed by W.J. Jeffery & Co for the purpose of hunting large game such as elephant. Design The .600 Nitro Express is a slightly tapered walled, rimmed, centerfire rifl ...
double rifle but discarded it after an incident involving four elephants; having shot the first two, he was charged by the remaining animals before he had time to reload.


Major C.H. Stigand

Major Chauncey Hugh Stigand (1877–1919) was a British soldier, colonial administrator and big-game hunter. Serving in
Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
,
British Somaliland British Somaliland, officially the Somaliland Protectorate ( so, Dhulka Maxmiyada Soomaalida ee Biritishka), was a British Empire, British protectorate in present-day Somaliland. During its existence, the territory was bordered by Italian Soma ...
,
British East Africa East Africa Protectorate (also known as British East Africa) was an area in the African Great Lakes occupying roughly the same terrain as present-day Kenya from the Indian Ocean inland to the border with Uganda in the west. Controlled by Britai ...
and the Sudan, Stigand was a keen big-game hunter who took greater risks than most hunters and often came close to being fatally injured. Stigand was gored in the chest by a rhino, mauled by a wounded lion that he was following up in the dark, tusked through the leg by an elephant that he was trying to drive out of a garden (without a rifle) and was knocked to the ground by another wounded elephant which stood over him bleeding whilst he lay hidden. Stigand once crawled into a cave after another wounded lion which, luckily for him, had died by the time he reached it. Stigand wrote several books including ''Hunting the elephant in Africa'' and ''The game of British East Africa'', he usually used a .256 Mannlicher for elephants, rhinoceros, lion, buffalo and smaller game, he also used an old big bore
.450 Nitro Express .450 Nitro Express also known as the .450 Nitro Express 3-inch is a rifle cartridge designed for hunting dangerous game such as elephant, rhino, cape buffalo, lion, and leopard. This cartridge is used almost exclusively in double rifles for hunti ...
double rifle which he usually had a gun bearer carry for him.


Jim Sutherland

James H. "Jim" Sutherland (1872–1932) was a Scottish born soldier and professional elephant hunter. Arriving in Africa in the 1896, from 1902 Sutherland hunted elephant professionally in
Portuguese East Africa Portuguese Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique) or Portuguese East Africa (''África Oriental Portuguesa'') were the common terms by which Mozambique was designated during the period in which it was a Portuguese colony. Portuguese Mozambique originally ...
,
German East Africa German East Africa (GEA; german: Deutsch-Ostafrika) was a German colony in the African Great Lakes region, which included present-day Burundi, Rwanda, the Tanzania mainland, and the Kionga Triangle, a small region later incorporated into Mozam ...
, the
Belgian Congo The Belgian Congo (french: Congo belge, ; nl, Belgisch-Congo) was a Belgian colony in Central Africa from 1908 until independence in 1960. The former colony adopted its present name, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in 1964. Colo ...
and the French Congo. Over the course of his life Sutherland shot between 1,300 and 1,600 elephants. Unlike "Karamojo" Bell, Sutherland preferred heavy calibre rifles for elephant and rhinoceros hunting, his favourite rifle being a Westley Richards single-trigger Droplock double rifle in
.577 Nitro Express The .577 Nitro Express is a large-bore centerfire rifle cartridge designed for the purpose of hunting large game such as elephant. This cartridge is used almost exclusively in single-shot and double express rifles for hunting in the Tropics or h ...
, he also used with a bolt action
.318 Westley Richards The .318 Westley Richards, also known as the .318 Rimless Nitro Express and the .318 Accelerated Express, is a proprietary medium bore centerfire rifle cartridge developed by Westley Richards. Design Westley Richards introduced the .318, prim ...
for open country where quarry was difficult to approach and longer ranged shots were required. In 1912 he wrote an account of his exploits to that date, ''The adventures of an elephant hunter'', upon his return to London in 1913 he was feted as the "World's greatest elephant hunter". Sutherland is considered one of the most successful of Africa's professional elephant hunters.


Colonel H.G.C. Swayne

Colonel Harald George Carlos Swayne (1860–1940) was a British soldier, explorer, naturalist and big-game hunter. Between 1884 and 1897 Swayne hunted whilst on active service in both Africa and India, between 1898 and 1927 he made roughly 40 further privately funded trips throughout Africa and Asia. Swayne shot numerous big game, including
elephant Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae an ...
,
rhinoceros A rhinoceros (; ; ), commonly abbreviated to rhino, is a member of any of the five extant species (or numerous extinct species) of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. (It can also refer to a member of any of the extinct species o ...
,
lion The lion (''Panthera leo'') is a large Felidae, cat of the genus ''Panthera'' native to Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body; short, rounded head; round ears; and a hairy tuft at the end of its tail. It is sexually dimorphi ...
,
tiger The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is the largest living cat species and a member of the genus '' Panthera''. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily preys on u ...
,
leopard The leopard (''Panthera pardus'') is one of the five extant species in the genus '' Panthera'', a member of the cat family, Felidae. It occurs in a wide range in sub-Saharan Africa, in some parts of Western and Central Asia, Southern Russia, a ...
and
bear Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family Ursidae. They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Nor ...
, the
Swayne's hartebeest Swayne's hartebeest (''Alcelaphus buselaphus swaynei'') is an endangered antelope native to Ethiopia. Two of the largest remaining populations are located in Senkelle Swayne's Hartebeest Sanctuary, Nechisar National Park and Maze National Park. It ...
and Swayne's Dik-dik are both named after him. Swayne hunted with various rifles, in his earlier years his battery consisted of a 4 bore double smoothbore, an
8 bore The 8 bore, also known as the 8 gauge, is an obsolete caliber used commonly in the 19th-century black-powder firearms. Design An 8 bore is a caliber firearm. Historically it was used to fire solid projectiles from smoothbores, rifles, and part ...
double
paradox gun A paradox is a logically self-contradictory statement or a statement that runs contrary to one's expectation. It is a statement that, despite apparently valid reasoning from true premises, leads to a seemingly self-contradictory or a logically u ...
and a
.577 Black Powder Express The .577 Black Powder Express is a series of black powder cartridges of varying lengths including 2-inch, 2-inch, 3-inch and 3-inch. Development The .577 BPE originated around 1870 with the 2-inch variant. The 3-inch cartridge has survived to ...
double rifle all made by Holland & Holland, along with a
Lee–Metford The Lee–Metford rifle (a.k.a. ''Magazine Lee–Metford'', abbreviated ''MLM'') was a bolt-action British army service rifle, combining James Paris Lee's rear-locking bolt system and detachable magazine with an innovative seven groove rifled ba ...
, a
Martini–Henry The Martini–Henry is a breech-loading single-shot rifle with a lever action that was used by the British Army. It first entered service in 1871, eventually replacing the Snider–Enfield, a muzzle-loader converted to the cartridge system. ...
and a
12 bore The gauge (or commonly bore in British English) of a firearm is a unit of measurement used to express the inner diameter (bore diameter) of the barrel. Gauge is determined from the weight of a solid sphere of lead that will fit the bore of the f ...
pistol. In later years he also used a .500/450 Nitro Express double rifle by Holland & Holland. He wrote 'Seventeen Trips through Somaliland' published by
Rowland Ward James Rowland Ward (1848–1912) was a British taxidermist and founder of the firm Rowland Ward Limited of Piccadilly, London. The company specialised in and was renowned for its taxidermy work on birds and big-game trophies, but it did other ty ...
in 1903.


John "Pondoro" Taylor

John Howard "Pondoro" Taylor (1904–1969) was an Irish-born big-game hunter, elephant poacher and writer. Arriving in Cape Town in 1920, Taylor hunted elephant professionally, often illegally, for almost 30 years in
Kenya ) , national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi ...
,
Tanganyika Tanganyika may refer to: Places * Tanganyika Territory (1916–1961), a former British territory which preceded the sovereign state * Tanganyika (1961–1964), a sovereign state, comprising the mainland part of present-day Tanzania * Tanzania Main ...
and
Portuguese East Africa Portuguese Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique) or Portuguese East Africa (''África Oriental Portuguesa'') were the common terms by which Mozambique was designated during the period in which it was a Portuguese colony. Portuguese Mozambique originally ...
, in his career he shot most of the big game of eastern Africa and it is believed he shot over 1,000 elephants. Taylor experimented widely with different types of hunting rifles, cartridges and bullet types throughout his career, his books ''African rifles and cartridges'' and ''Big game and big game rifles'' explore the practical application of bullet ballistics and type including articulating the "
Taylor KO factor The Taylor knock-out factor, also called Taylor KO factor or TKOF, is a formulaic mathematical approach for evaluating the stopping power of hunting Cartridge (firearms), cartridges, developed by John "Pondoro" Taylor in the middle of the 20th cent ...
" to calculate the "knock out" value (a "knock out" meant that the elephant was sufficiently stunned by the hit that he would not immediately turn on the hunter) of cartridges and bullet types. Taylor's writings also discuss numerous American, British and European cartridges as well as rifle actions with comparative notes on
double rifle The double rifle, also known as a double-barreled rifle, is a rifle with two barrels mounted parallel to each other. Synonymous with big game hunting found primarily in Africa and India, the double rifle is a purely sporting weapon with no militar ...
s, magazine rifles and
single-shot rifle Single-shot firearms are firearms that hold only a single round of ammunition, and must be reloaded manually after every shot. The history of firearms began with single-shot designs, then multi-barreled designs appeared, and eventually many cent ...
s. In his writings Taylor expresses a preference for double rifles and makes particular mention of the
.275 No 2 Magnum The .275 No 2 Magnum, also known as the 7mm Rigby Magnum Flanged and the .275 No 2 Rigby, is an obsolete centerfire rifle cartridge developed by John Rigby & Company in 1927. Overview The .275 No 2 Magnum is a rimmed cartridge intended for us ...
, the .300 H&H Magnum, the
.333 Jeffery The .333 Jeffery and .333 Jeffery Flanged are medium-bore rifle cartridges developed by W.J. Jeffery & Co and introduced in 1908. Design The .333 Jeffery and the .333 Jeffery Flanged are both bottlenecked centerfire rifle cartridges. Original ...
, the .375 H&H Magnum, the .450/400 Nitro Express (both the 3 inch and 3 inch versions), the
.416 Rigby The .416 Rigby is a rifle cartridge designed in 1911 by London based gunmaker John Rigby & Company, for hunting dangerous game. It is the first cartridge to use a bullet of .416 inch (10.57 mm) diameter. The rifles, as built by John Rigby & Co ...
, the
.450 No 2 Nitro Express The .450 No 2 Nitro Express also known as the .450 Nitro Express 3-inch was developed by Eley Brothers in 1903. Design The .450 No 2 Nitro Express is rimmed, bottlenecked, calibre cartridge designed for use in single-shot and double rifles, it ...
, the .500/465 Nitro Express, the
.470 Nitro Express The .470 Nitro Express is a rifle cartridge developed by Joseph Lang in England for dangerous game hunting in Africa and India. This cartridge is used almost exclusively in double rifles. It is in wide use in the Southern and Central-East Afr ...
and the
.600 Nitro Express The .600 Nitro Express is a large bore Nitro Express rifle cartridge developed by W.J. Jeffery & Co for the purpose of hunting large game such as elephant. Design The .600 Nitro Express is a slightly tapered walled, rimmed, centerfire rifl ...
.


Asia


Donald Anderson

Donald Malcolm Stuart Anderson (1934–2014) was an
Anglo-Indian Anglo-Indian people fall into two different groups: those with mixed Indian and British ancestry, and people of British descent born or residing in India. The latter sense is now mainly historical, but confusions can arise. The ''Oxford English ...
big-game hunter, angler and naturalist. The son of Kenneth Anderson, Donald shot his first leopard at the age of 13 and over the course of his life shot numerous elephant, tiger, leopard, bear, gaur, wild boar and deer, reluctantly giving up hunting in 1972 with the passing of the Indian Wildlife Protection Act. Donald gained fame from his contributions to his father's writings, describing several hunts for rogue and man-eating tigers and leopards, he was also Stewart Granger's stunt double for the film
Harry Black and the Tiger ''Harry Black'' (later titled ''Harry Black and the Tiger'') is a 1958 British film adaptation of the novel '' Harry Black'' by David Walker, released by 20th Century Fox. The film stars Stewart Granger, Barbara Rush, Anthony Steel, and I. ...
. Donald lived in Bangalore and like his father hunted the forests of southern India, he hunted with a
.423 Mauser 0.4, .4, point four, or dot four may refer to: * The number 0.4 as a fractional number * 0.4 shot, a basketball shot made by player Derek Fisher with 0.4 seconds left in Game 5 of the NBA 2004 Western Conference Semifinals * Point4, a songwriting ...
rifle for large and dangerous game, a
.30-06 Springfield The .30-06 Springfield cartridge (pronounced "thirty- aught-six" ), 7.62×63mm in metric notation, and called the .30 Gov't '06 by Winchester, was introduced to the United States Army in 1906 and later standardized; it remained in military use ...
rifle for deer and wild boar and a W. W. Greener shotgun. It has been claimed that Donald was one of the last white hunters from India's colonial period.


Kenneth Anderson

Kenneth Douglas Stuart Anderson (1910–1974) was a British Indian hunter, writer and naturalist. Born into a family of Scottish descent that had been in India for several generations, Anderson was a civil servant in Bangalore whose main pastime was watching and hunting game in the forests of
Southern India South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the States and union territories of India, Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and T ...
. On behalf of the government, Anderson shot a number of
man-eating A man-eater is an animal that preys on humans as a pattern of hunting behavior. This does not include the scavenging of corpses, a single attack born of opportunity or desperate hunger, or the incidental eating of a human that the animal has kil ...
tigers and leopards as well as rogue bears and elephants that had threatened and killed local villagers, official records from 1939 to 1966 show he shot 7
man-eating tiger Tiger attacks are an extreme form of human–wildlife conflict which occur for various reasons and have claimed more human lives than attacks by any of the other big cats. The most comprehensive study of deaths due to tiger attacks estimates that ...
s and 8 man-eating leopards, although he is rumoured to have shot many more. Anderson wrote several books about Indian wildlife, hunting and the locals of the jungle including ''
Nine maneaters and one rogue Kenneth Douglas Stewart Anderson (8 March 1910 – 30 August 1974) was an Indian writer and hunter who wrote books about his adventures in the jungles of South India. Biography Kenneth Anderson was born in Bolarum, Secunderabad and came f ...
'', his observations about wildlife include the first account of a pack of
dhole The dhole (''Cuon alpinus''; ) is a canid native to Central, South, East and Southeast Asia. Other English names for the species include Asian wild dog, Asiatic wild dog, Indian wild dog, whistling dog, red dog, red wolf, and mountain wolf. It ...
killing a tiger. Anderson usually hunted alone, his preferred method of hunting man-eaters was to sit in a machan over a bait, usually a cow or goat but on occasion the corpse of one of the man-eater’s victims. Anderson hunted predominantly with a
Winchester Model 1895 The Winchester Model 1895 is an American lever-action repeating firearm developed and manufactured by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company in the late 19th century, chambered for a number of full-size military and hunting cartridges such as 7.62 ...
chambered in
.405 Winchester The .405 Winchester (also known as the .405 WCF) is a centerfire rifle cartridge introduced in 1904 for the Winchester 1895 lever-action rifle.Cartridges Of The World, Frank Barnes, Krause Publications It remains to this day one of the most pow ...
and a double-barreled
12 bore The gauge (or commonly bore in British English) of a firearm is a unit of measurement used to express the inner diameter (bore diameter) of the barrel. Gauge is determined from the weight of a solid sphere of lead that will fit the bore of the f ...
shotgun, one barrel loaded with L.G. shot, the other with a solid slug.


Sir Samuel Baker

Sir Samuel White Baker Sir Samuel White Baker, KCB, FRS, FRGS (8 June 1821 – 30 December 1893) was an English explorer, officer, naturalist, big game hunter, engineer, writer and abolitionist. He also held the titles of Pasha and Major-General in the Ottoman ...
(1821–1893) was an English explorer, soldier, naturalist, big-game hunter, engineer, writer and
abolitionist Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The British ...
. Growing up on a country estate where he learnt to shoot, following a period in
Mauritius Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label=Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It incl ...
Baker travelled to
Ceylon Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
in 1846 to satisfy his craving for wild sport, remaining there with some interruptions until 1855. Between 1861 and 1873 Baker conducted several trips to Africa to hunt, explore and on one occasion abolish some slave markets, in 1879 he started a three-year round the world trip which included North America and in later years he settled in England but would winter in India or Egypt. Over the course of his life Baker killed hundreds of Asiatic elephant, over 200 buffalo, 22 tigers, approximately 400 sambar, considerable numbers of boar, leopard, sloth bear, swamp deer, blackbuck and other game in Asia, over 50 African elephants, rhinoceros, hippopotami, buffalo, lion, giraffe, waterbuck, wild ass, 13 species of antelope and gazelle, ostrich, crocodile and others in Africa, wapiti, bear and a bison, in North America and numerous game in Britain and Europe. Baker shot most of his game, both dismounted and mounted on horseback, although whilst in Ceylon he also hunted sambar and boar with his own pack of hounds and a hunting knife, and coursed axis deer with greyhounds. Baker published his first of book, ''The rifle and hound in Ceylon'' in 1853, establishing his fame as a big-game hunter. Baker’s career predominantly preceded the arrival of
cordite Cordite is a family of smokeless propellants developed and produced in the United Kingdom since 1889 to replace black powder as a military propellant. Like modern gunpowder, cordite is classified as a low explosive because of its slow burni ...
, he shot with a number of
black powder Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). Th ...
firearms including a specially built
6 bore 6 (six) is the natural number following 5 and preceding 7. It is a composite number and the smallest perfect number. In mathematics Six is the smallest positive integer which is neither a square number nor a prime number; it is the second smal ...
single-barrelled muzzle loading rifle by Gibbs of Bristol, four
8 bore The 8 bore, also known as the 8 gauge, is an obsolete caliber used commonly in the 19th-century black-powder firearms. Design An 8 bore is a caliber firearm. Historically it was used to fire solid projectiles from smoothbores, rifles, and part ...
single-barrel rifles (two muzzle loaders, two breech loaders), seven 10 bore muzzle-loaded double rifles, one 10 bore muzzle-loaded double smoothbore, one 14 bore muzzle-loaded single-barrelled rifle, one
.577 Black Powder Express The .577 Black Powder Express is a series of black powder cartridges of varying lengths including 2-inch, 2-inch, 3-inch and 3-inch. Development The .577 BPE originated around 1870 with the 2-inch variant. The 3-inch cartridge has survived to ...
double rifle by Holland & Holland (his favourite rifle) and two specially made single-barrelled rifles by Holland & Holland that fired explosive shells of his own design that weighed each.


Jim Corbett

Colonel Edward James "Jim" Corbett (1875–1955) was a British Indian soldier, conservationist, writer and hunter. Born and raised in India, Corbett served in the
British Indian Army The British Indian Army, commonly referred to as the Indian Army, was the main military of the British Raj before its dissolution in 1947. It was responsible for the defence of the British Indian Empire, including the princely states, which co ...
, serving in both world wars and rising to the rank of
Colonel Colonel (abbreviated as Col., Col or COL) is a senior military officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations. In the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, a colonel was typically in charge of ...
. Never a trophy hunter of big cats, between 1907 and 1938 Corbett shot 33 man-eaters (31 tigers and 2 leopards) who had terrorised local villagers, it is estimated that the man-eaters he dispatched had collectively killed over 1,600 men, women and children. A keen conservationist, Corbett was instrumental in the establishment of wildlife protection areas in India, the
Jim Corbett National Park Jim Corbett National Park is a national park in India located in the Nainital district of Uttarakhand state. The first national park in India, it was established in 1936 during the British Raj and named ''Hailey National Park'' after Willia ...
was named in his honour, along with the
Indochinese tiger The Indochinese tiger is a population of the ''Panthera tigris tigris'' subspecies that is native to Southeast Asia. This population occurs in Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos. In 2011, the population was thought to comprise 342 individuals, including ...
''(Panthera tigris corbetti)''. Corbett wrote a number of books including ''
Man-eaters of Kumaon ''Man-Eaters of Kumaon'' is a 1944 book written by hunter-naturalist Jim Corbett. It details the experiences that Corbett had in the Kumaon region of India from the 1900s to the 1930s, while hunting man-eating Bengal tigers and Indian leopards. ...
'', since publication his writings have never been out of print. Corbett usually hunted alone and on foot, only using a machan when absolutely necessary as he considered them unsporting. Corbett initially hunted with a rifle chambered in
.500 Black Powder Express The .500 Black Powder Express was a series of Black powder cases of varying lengths that emerged in the 1860s. Development The cartridge was offered in several case lengths including 1-inch, 2-inch, 2-inch, 2-inch, 3-inch and 3-inch,several were ...
, later switching to a W.J. Jeffery & Co
.400 Jeffery Nitro Express The .400 Jeffery Nitro Express or .450/400 Nitro Express 3-inch is a medium bore, bottlenecked, Nitro Express cartridge designed by W.J. Jeffery & Co in 1902, intended for use in single shot and double rifles. Development The W.J. Jeffery & Co ...
double rifle and a Rigby bolt actioned .275 Rigby.


John Faunthorpe

Lieutenant Colonel John Champion Faunthorpe (1871–1929) was an English-born British Indian administrator, soldier, horseman, big-game hunter and sports shooter. Arriving in India in 1892, Faunthorpe was introduced to big-game hunting in 1894 and remained an keen sportsman for the remainder of his life. Faunthorpe was an avid horseman and was very keen on pigsticking, he is said to have also speared leopard, cheetah and swamp deer from horseback. Over the course of his life Faunthorpe is thought to have shot over 300 tigers, numerous leopard (he once shot over 100 in one year), bear and deer, shooting most of his tiger from elephant back. Between 1922 and 1923, Faunthorpe joined
Arthur Vernay Arthur is a common male given name of Brittonic languages, Brythonic origin. Its popularity derives from it being the name of the legendary hero King Arthur. The etymology is disputed. It may derive from the Celtic ''Artos'' meaning “Bear”. An ...
in conducting the Vernay-Faunthorpe expedition, collecting Asian wildlife specimens for the American Natural History Museums in Chicago and New York, during which he shot the rare
Asiatic lion The Asiatic lion is a population of ''Panthera leo leo'' that today survives in the wild only in India. Since the turn of the 20th century, its range has been restricted to Gir National Park and the surrounding areas in the Indian state of Gujarat ...
in the
Gir forest Gir National Park and Wildlife Sanctuary, also known as Sasan Gir, is a forest, national park, and wildlife sanctuary near Talala Gir in Gujarat, India. It is located north-east of Somnath, south-east of Junagadh and south-west of Amreli ...
. Faunthorpe was a crack rifle shot, he shot for Great Britain in the 1924 Paris Olympiad, he was also considered one of the best ever shots from a howdah, having the ability to make both snap shots and the patience to work with the sway of an elephant.


Captain Philip Gallwey

Captain Philip Payne-Gallwey (1812–1894) was a soldier, road builder and sportsman in Ceylon. Gallwey was the son of
Sir William Payne-Gallwey, 1st Baronet General Sir William Payne-Gallwey, 1st Baronet (1759 – 16 April 1831) was a British soldier and Governor of the Leeward Islands. He was the youngest son of Ralph Payne by his second spouse Margaret née Gallwey, of St. Kitts, West Indies. He ...
and served in the
90th Regiment of Foot (Perthshire Volunteers) The 90th Perthshire Light Infantry was a Scottish light infantry regiment of the British Army, raised in 1794. Under the Childers Reforms it amalgamated with the 26th (Cameronian) Regiment of Foot to form the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) in 188 ...
. Gallwey is said to have killed between 700 and 1,300 elephants in Ceylon, depending on the source, in elephant control efforts. In the 1840s, the government of Ceylon offered rewards of 7-10
shillings The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 12 pence or ...
for the killing of an elephant due to the destruction they caused to crops.


Sultan Ibrahim I of Johor

Sultan Ibrahim I of Johor (1873–1959) was the 22nd
Sultan of Johor The Sultan of Johor is a hereditary seat and the sovereign ruler of the Malaysian state of Johor. In the past, the sultan held absolute power over the state and was advised by a ''bendahara''. Currently, the role of ''bendahara'' has been take ...
. An inveterate hunter of tiger, leopard and elephant, Ibrahim was also a keen conservationist who lent his wholehearted support and patronage to game protection in Jahor. Ibrahim appointed the first salaried Game Warden on the
Malay Peninsula The Malay Peninsula (Malay: ''Semenanjung Tanah Melayu'') is a peninsula in Mainland Southeast Asia. The landmass runs approximately north–south, and at its terminus, it is the southernmost point of the Asian continental mainland. The area ...
in 1921 and assisted with the establishment of the
Endau-Rompin National Park Endau-Rompin National Park ( Malay: ''Taman Negara Endau-Rompin'') is a protected tropical rainforest in the southernmost prolongation of the Tenasserim Hills, Malaysia. It is south of the state of Pahang and northeast of Johor covering an area of ...
in 1933.


"The Old Shekarry", Henry Astbury Leveson

Major Henry Astbury "The Old Shekarry" Leveson (1828–1875) was an English-born soldier, author and big-game hunter. At the age of 17, Leveson took a commission in the
Honourable East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...
serving in India until 1853, he subsequently served in the Ottoman cavalry during the
Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the de ...
, with
Garibaldi Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi ( , ;In his native Ligurian language, he is known as ''Gioxeppe Gaibado''. In his particular Niçard dialect of Ligurian, he was known as ''Jousé'' or ''Josep''. 4 July 1807 – 2 June 1882) was an Italian general, patr ...
’s Red Shirts during the
Expedition of the Thousand The Expedition of the Thousand ( it, Spedizione dei Mille) was an event of the Italian Risorgimento that took place in 1860. A corps of volunteers led by Giuseppe Garibaldi sailed from Quarto, near Genoa (now Quarto dei Mille) and landed in Ma ...
, in
Lagos Lagos (Nigerian English: ; ) is the largest city in Nigeria and the List of cities in Africa by population, second most populous city in Africa, with a population of 15.4 million as of 2015 within the city proper. Lagos was the national ca ...
following the
Lagos Treaty of Cession The Treaty of Cession, 6 August 1861 or the Lagos Treaty of Cession was a treaty between the British Empire and Oba Dosunmu of Lagos (spelt 'Docemo' in English documents) wherein Dosunmu, under the threat of military bombardment, ceded Lagos Isl ...
(where he was shot in the jaw) and with Robert Napier’s expedition to Abyssinia. Over the course of his life Leveson shot tiger, lion, leopard, snow leopard, bear, wolf, gorilla, elephant, hippopotamus, gaur, wild cattle, buffalo, bison, wild boar, nilgai, ibex, chamois, bighorn sheep, moose, various species of deer and various species of antelope in addition to numerous small game and bird species throughout Europe, India, Asia, North America and Africa. Leveson wrote a number of books about his sporting experiences under the pen name "The Old Shekarry", including ''Hunting grounds of the Old World'' and ''Sport in many lands''. Leveson stated his favorite gunmaker was Westley Richards, whilst a
12 bore The gauge (or commonly bore in British English) of a firearm is a unit of measurement used to express the inner diameter (bore diameter) of the barrel. Gauge is determined from the weight of a solid sphere of lead that will fit the bore of the f ...
breech loader was sufficient for all big-game hunting except elephant, for which a 10 bore was required.


St. George Littledale

Considered by many to be one of the greatest mountain hunters, St. George Littledale (December 8, 1851 - April 16, 1931) and his wife Theresa, conducted three great expeditions across central Asia, where they collected different species for animals and plants for the British Natural History Museum and the Liverpool Museum. Littledale has hunted horned and antlered game throughout the mountain regions of Asia, where he shot several wild goats and sheep, holding many trophies high on the Rowland Ward's Records of Big Game Lists, including 13 of the 19 caucasian chamois listed in the book, 6 Dagaestan Tur, a Tian Shan Ibex, and an Altai Argali. He also hunted extensively in North America, where he listed a Pronghorn antelope and a Rocky Mountain Big Horn Sheep. Of the different
Argali The argali (''Ovis ammon''), also known as the mountain sheep, is a wild sheep that roams the highlands of western East Asia, the Himalayas, Tibet, and the Altai Mountains. Description The name 'argali' is the Mongolian word for wild sheep. I ...
Sheep subspecies (Ovis ammon), the Littledale Argali ( Ovis ammon Littledalei) smallest of the subspecies, located at the East of the Tian Shan was named after him.


Nripendra Narayan

Nripendra Narayan Maharaja Nripendra Narayan (4 October 1862 – 18 September 1911) was the Maharaja of the princely state of Cooch Bihar, India, from 1863 to 1911. Early life Nripendra Narayan was only ten months old when his father, Narendra Narayan, died in ...
(1862–1911) was the
Maharaja Mahārāja (; also spelled Maharajah, Maharaj) is a Sanskrit title for a "great ruler", "great king" or " high king". A few ruled states informally called empires, including ruler raja Sri Gupta, founder of the ancient Indian Gupta Empire, an ...
of Koch Bihar from 1863 to 1911. An avid sportsman, Narayan did most of his big game shooting mounted on elephant from a
howdah A howdah, or houdah (Hindi: हौदा ''haudā''), derived from the Arabic (hawdaj), which means "bed carried by a camel", also known as ''hathi howdah'' (''hāthī haudā'', हाथी हौदा), is a carriage which is positioned o ...
. In his book ''Thirty-seven years of big game shooting in Cooch Behar, the Duars, and Assam'', Narayan listed the total big game shot by him or his hunting party from 1871 to 1907 as; 365 tigers, 311 leopards, 207 rhinoceros, 48 bison, 133 bear, 259 sambar and 318 barasing

Over the course of his hunting career, Narayan shot with "almost every variety of weapon", although he makes mention of a 4 bore double-barreled rifle firing 15 drams (26.6 g) of black powder, a
.577 Nitro Express The .577 Nitro Express is a large-bore centerfire rifle cartridge designed for the purpose of hunting large game such as elephant. This cartridge is used almost exclusively in single-shot and double express rifles for hunting in the Tropics or h ...
double rifle by Westley Richards, two
.500 Nitro Express The .500 Nitro Express is a rifle cartridge designed for hunting large and dangerous game animals in Africa and India. This cartridge was primarily designed for use in double rifles though various single shots were produced on the Farquarson act ...
double rifles by Lang and Holland & Holland, a .500/465 Nitro Express double rifle by Holland & Holland, a
.450 No 2 Nitro Express The .450 No 2 Nitro Express also known as the .450 Nitro Express 3-inch was developed by Eley Brothers in 1903. Design The .450 No 2 Nitro Express is rimmed, bottlenecked, calibre cartridge designed for use in single-shot and double rifles, it ...
double rifle and a .450/400 Nitro Express both by Manton & Co, an early model 12 bore
Paradox gun A paradox is a logically self-contradictory statement or a statement that runs contrary to one's expectation. It is a statement that, despite apparently valid reasoning from true premises, leads to a seemingly self-contradictory or a logically u ...
by Holland & Holland that fired 4.5 drams (8 g) of black powder and a later specially modified 12 bore Paradox gun by Holland & Holland that fired of cordite.


Major T.W. Rogers

Major Thomas William Rogers (1804–1845) was a British Colonial Service, colonial administrator, soldier and sportsman in Ceylon. Rogers was the assistant government agent and district judge of
Buttala Buttala (බුත්තල) is a town in Sri Lanka. It is located in Monaragala District of Uva Province, Sri Lanka. History The history of Buttala goes back to the time of King Dutugamunu in the 2nd century BC, when it was known as Guthala. The ...
, and a Major of the
Ceylon Rifle Regiment The Ceylon Rifle Regiment (CRR) was a regular native regiment formed by the British in Ceylon. Its history goes back to 1795. The nucleus of the Regiment was two companies of Malays recruited from among prisoners at St Helena. In 1795 there were ...
who was said to have killed over 1,500 elephants in elephant control efforts. Rogers did all of his hunting with muzzle loaded 16 bore smoothbore longarms with the barrels cut down to , and he used the proceeds from the ivory recovered to purchase his successive regimental commissions. Rogers was killed by a bolt of lightning in the course of his duties in the
Haputale Haputale ( si, හපුතලේ; ta, ஹபுதலே) is a town of Badulla District in the Uva Province, Sri Lanka, governed by an Urban Council. The elevation is 1431 m (4695 ft) above the sea level. The area has a rich bio-diver ...
Pass, so popular was he with the locals, that the Buddhist population of the Uva district erected the Anglican St Mark’s Church in
Badulla Badulla ( si, බදුල්ල, ta, பதுளை) is the capital and the largest city of Uva Province situated in the lower central hills of Sri Lanka. It is the capital city of Uva Province and the Badulla District. Geography Badulla is ...
in his honour.


Ganga Singh

Ganga Singh (1880–1943) was the
Maharaja Mahārāja (; also spelled Maharajah, Maharaj) is a Sanskrit title for a "great ruler", "great king" or " high king". A few ruled states informally called empires, including ruler raja Sri Gupta, founder of the ancient Indian Gupta Empire, an ...
of
Bikaner Bikaner () is a city in the northwest of the state of Rajasthan, India. It is located northwest of the state capital, Jaipur. Bikaner city is the administrative headquarters of Bikaner District and Bikaner division. Formerly the capital of ...
from 1888 to 1943. A very enthusiastic hunter who hunted extensively both within his own kingdom and beyond, Ganga Singh shot his first tiger, leopard and bear in 1869 aged 16 and in later years used hunting with visiting dignitaries to his kingdom as a means of diplomacy. By 1942 Ganga Singh had shot 266 tigers, 7
Asiatic lion The Asiatic lion is a population of ''Panthera leo leo'' that today survives in the wild only in India. Since the turn of the 20th century, its range has been restricted to Gir National Park and the surrounding areas in the Indian state of Gujarat ...
and 61 leopards, most of these tigers and leopards were shot in
Mewar Mewar or Mewad is a region in the south-central part of Rajasthan state of India. It includes the present-day districts of Bhilwara, Chittorgarh, Pratapgarh, Rajsamand, Udaipur, Pirawa Tehsil of Jhalawar District of Rajasthan, Neemuch and Man ...
,
Gwalior Gwalior() is a major city in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh; it lies in northern part of Madhya Pradesh and is one of the Counter-magnet cities. Located south of Delhi, the capital city of India, from Agra and from Bhopal, the s ...
,
Kotah Kota (), previously known as ''Kotah'', is a city located in the southeast of northern Indian state of Rajasthan. It is located about south of the state capital, Jaipur, situated on the banks of Chambal River. With a population of over 1.2 m ...
and British territories whilst the lions were all shot in or near the
Gir forest Gir National Park and Wildlife Sanctuary, also known as Sasan Gir, is a forest, national park, and wildlife sanctuary near Talala Gir in Gujarat, India. It is located north-east of Somnath, south-east of Junagadh and south-west of Amreli ...
. In addition to big game, over the course of his life Ganga Singh shot over 25,000
sandgrouse Sandgrouse is the common name for Pteroclidae , a family (biology), family of sixteen species of bird, members of the order Pterocliformes . They are traditionally placed in two Genus, genera. The two central Asian species are classified as ''Sy ...
, 23,000 duck and 3,000 kunj.


Sadul Singh

Sadul Singh Lieutenant-General (United Kingdom), Lieutenant-General Sir Sadul Singh GCSI, GCIE, KStJ, Commander of the Royal Victorian Order, CVO (7 September 1902 – 25 September 1950) was the last reigning Maharaja of Bikaner (princely state), Bikaner ...
(1902–1950) was the last Maharaja of Bikaner from 1943 to 1949. The son of Ganga Singh, like his father Sudal Singh hunting extensively both within and outside of his own kingdom. Over the course of his life Sadul Singh shot tigers in central India, an Asiatic lion in the Gir forest, leopards in Bharatpur,
wild water buffalo The wild water buffalo (''Bubalus arnee''), also called Asian buffalo, Asiatic buffalo and wild buffalo, is a large bovine native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. It has been listed as ''Endangered'' in the IUCN Red List since 198 ...
in Nepali
Tarai , image =Terai nepal.jpg , image_size = , image_alt = , caption =Aerial view of Terai plains near Biratnagar, Nepal , map = , map_size = , map_alt = , map_caption = , biogeographic_realm = Indomalayan realm , global200 = Terai-Duar savanna ...
,
Asiatic cheetah The Asiatic cheetah (''Acinonyx jubatus venaticus'') is a critically endangered cheetah subspecies currently only surviving in Iran. It once occurred from the Arabian Peninsula and the Near East to the Caspian region, Transcaucasus, Kyzylkum D ...
in
Rewa Rewa may refer to: Places Fiji * Rewa (Fijian Communal Constituency, Fiji), a former electoral division of Fiji * Rewa Plateau, between the Kaimur and Vindhya Ranges in Madhya Pradesh * Rewa Province, Fiji * Rewa River, the widest river in Fiji ...
h and beyond India cape buffalo,
black rhinoceros The black rhinoceros, black rhino or hook-lipped rhinoceros (''Diceros bicornis'') is a species of rhinoceros, native to eastern and southern Africa including Angola, Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Eswatini, Tanzania ...
and 31 other varieties of herbivore in Africa. Sudal Singh wrote an account of his hunting exploits, ''The big game diary of Sadul Singh, Maharajkumar of Bikaner'' which was privately published in 1936, in it he recounts shooting nearly 50,000 game animals and a further 46,000 game birds to that date; including 33 tigers, 30
Great Indian bustard The great Indian bustard (''Ardeotis nigriceps'') or Indian bustard, is a bustard found on the Indian subcontinent. A large bird with a horizontal body and long bare legs, giving it an ostrich like appearance, this bird is among the heaviest of t ...
s and over 21,000 sandgrouse.


Major Thomas Skinner

Major Thomas Skinner (1804–1877) was a Canadian born British soldier, road builder and sportsman. Whilst Commissioner of Roads in Ceylon in the 1840s, he is said to have killed between 700 and 1,200 elephants, depending on the source, in elephant control efforts. In 1891 he published an autobiography, ''Fifty years in Ceylon: an autobiography''.


Arthur de Carle Sowerby

Arthur de Carle Sowerby (1885–1954) was a British naturalist, big-game hunter and explorer in China in the early 1900s. Born in China to British missionary parents, Sowerby spoke fluent Chinese and in 1906 was invited to join the Duke of Bedford's mission to collect zoological specimens for the
British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
in Shensi. In 1909 Sowerby joined
Robert Sterling Clark Robert Sterling Clark (June 25, 1877 – December 29, 1956), an heir to the Singer Sewing Machine fortune, was an American art collector, horse breeder, and philanthropist. Biography Known by his middle name, Sterling Clark served in the United S ...
's expedition from the
Yellow River The Yellow River or Huang He (Chinese: , Standard Beijing Mandarin, Mandarin: ''Huáng hé'' ) is the second-longest river in China, after the Yangtze River, and the List of rivers by length, sixth-longest river system in the world at th ...
into Shensi and then to
Kansu Gansu (, ; Chinese postal romanization, alternately romanized as Kansu) is a provinces of China, province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative dis ...
province to collect specimens, between then and 1915 he made four separate expeditions into Manchuria and Mongolia. Serving in the British Army during the Great War, in the early 1920s Sowerby found that his chronic arthritis was preventing him from making any more expeditions. Sowerby wrote several books about his sporting experiences, including ''Fur and feather in North China'', ''A sportsman’s miscellany'' and ''Sport and science on the Sino-Mongolian frontier''. Over the course of his career Sowerby shot leopard, wolf, bear,
argali The argali (''Ovis ammon''), also known as the mountain sheep, is a wild sheep that roams the highlands of western East Asia, the Himalayas, Tibet, and the Altai Mountains. Description The name 'argali' is the Mongolian word for wild sheep. I ...
, boar,
goral The gorals are four species in the genus ''Naemorhedus''. They are small ungulates with a goat-like or antelope-like appearance. Until recently, this genus also contained the serow species (now in genus '' Capricornis''). Etymology The original ...
, wapiti, roe deer, musk deer, sika deer and numerous small game species.


Australia


Paddy Cahill

Patrick "Paddy" Cahill (c.1863–1923) was an Australian buffalo shooter, farmer and protector of local
Indigenous people Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
. Born in
Laidley, Queensland Laidley is a rural town and locality in the Lockyer Valley Region, Queensland, Australia. In the , the locality of Laidley had a population of 3,808 people. Geography Laidley is situated within the Lockyer Valley of South East Queensland east o ...
, in 1883 Paddy and his brothers joined Nat Buchanan in droving 20,000 head of cattle from
Townsville Townsville is a city on the north-eastern coast of Queensland, Australia. With a population of 180,820 as of June 2018, it is the largest settlement in North Queensland; it is unofficially considered its capital. Estimated resident population, 3 ...
, Queensland to
Wave Hill Station Wave Hill Station, most commonly referred to as Wave Hill, is a pastoral lease in the Northern Territory operating as a cattle station. The property is best known as the scene of the Wave Hill walk-off, a strike by Indigenous Australian w ...
in the Northern Territory, a task that took 54 weeks. Attracted by reports of up to 60,000 buffalo running wild on the plains of the Alligator River, during the dry season Cahill and his partner William Johnston hunted buffalo for their hides and horns from semi-mobile camps with a workforce of
Aboriginal Australians Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Islands ...
; at the time buffalo hides were worth £1 each. Cahill later bought a
pearling lugger Pearling in Western Australia includes the harvesting and farming of both pearls and pearl shells (for mother of pearl) along the north-western coast of Western Australia. The practice of collecting pearl shells existed well before European s ...
and in 1906 he settled on a farm at Oenpelli (present-day
Gunbalanya Gunbalanya (also spelt Kunbarlanja, and historically referred to as Oenpelli) is an Aboriginal Australian town in west Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia, about east of Darwin. The main language spoken in the community is Kunwi ...
), deeply interested in and empathetic to the local Aboriginal people, he sought to minimize their contacts with Europeans, particularly missionaries, and in 1912 was appointed a '
Protector of Aborigines The role of Protector of Aborigines was first established in South Australia in 1836. The role became established in other parts of Australia pursuant to a recommendation contained in the ''Report of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Abori ...
' and manager of a reserve based on Oenpelli. Cahill hunted buffalo mostly from horseback, he killed 1605 buffalo in his most successful season, his most successful day hunting saw 48 buffalo killed, he attributed much of his success to his fast intelligent horse ''St Lawrence''.


Tom Cole

Thomas Edward "Tom" Cole (1906–1995) was an English-born Australian stockman, horse-breaker, brumby runner, drover, buffalo shooter, crocodile shooter, coffee grower and author. Arriving in Australia in 1923, Cole worked on various
cattle station In Australia and New Zealand, a cattle station is a large farm ( station is equivalent to the American ranch), the main activity of which is the rearing of cattle. The owner of a cattle station is called a '' grazier''. The largest cattle stati ...
s in Queensland and the Northern Territory before taking up droving for a year, then breaking horses at
Banka Banka Station Banka Banka Station is a location in the Northern Territory of Australia, 100 kilometres north of Tennant Creek along the Stuart Highway. The historic cattle station was the first operational pastoral lease in this region, and a supply camp dur ...
. After a short time running
brumbies The ACT Brumbies (known from 2005–2022 as simply the Brumbies) is an Australian professional rugby union team based in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory (ACT), The team competes in Super Rugby and named for the brumby, feral horses whi ...
on
Inverway Station Inverway Station is a pastoral lease that operates as a cattle station in the Northern Territory of Australia. Location It is situated approximately north west of Lajamanu and south west of Daguragu in the Victoria River district. The pr ...
, in 1932 Cole started hunting buffalo for their hides. In 1933 Cole purchased 100 square miles of land on the
Wildman River The Wildman River is a river in the Darwin Coastal bioregion of the Northern Territory, Australia. Location and features Formed by the confluence of the East and West Branches of the Wildman River, the river rises southwest of Kapalga in the Kak ...
and took to hunting buffalo professionally, also shooting
crocodiles Crocodiles (family Crocodylidae) or true crocodiles are large semiaquatic reptiles that live throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. The term crocodile is sometimes used even more loosely to include all extant memb ...
for their skins. After a brief period of service World War 2 Cole tried running a laundry and dry cleaning business in Sydney, before becoming
Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...
's first professional crocodile shooter. Cole hunted buffalo mostly from horseback with a
.303 British The .303 British (designated as the 303 British by the C.I.P. and SAAMI) or 7.7×56mmR, is a calibre rimmed rifle cartridge. The .303 inch bore diameter is measured between rifling lands as is the common practice in Europe which follows th ...
service rifle, he killed 1600 buffalo in his most successful season, his most successful day hunting saw 36 buffalo killed. In 1988 Cole published an autobiography, ''Hell west and crooked'', which sold over 100,000 copies.


Joe Cooper

Robert Joel "Joe" Cooper (1860–1936) was an Australian buffalo hunter. Born near Riverton in South Australia, between 1878 and 1881, with his brother Harry, Cooper arrived in the Northern Territory and for several years engaged in timber-getting and buffalo shooting on the
Cobourg Peninsula The Cobourg Peninsula is located east of Darwin in the Northern Territory, Australia. It is deeply indented with coves and bays, covers a land area of about , and is virtually uninhabited with a population ranging from about 20 to 30 in five ...
and surrounding areas. In 1893 the brothers and Edward Robinson made an exploratory foray to Melville Island where, despite hostility from the local Indigenous population, they found thousands of buffalo. In 1895 Cooper returned to Melville Island as Robinson's manager, he was speared in the shoulder but abducted four Tiwi islanders, escaping with them to the mainland. Befriending his captives and learning their language, in 1905 Cooper returned with them and twenty Indigenous people from
Port Essington Port Essington is an inlet and historic site located on the Cobourg Peninsula in the Garig Gunak Barlu National Park in Australia's Northern Territory. It was the site of an early attempt at British settlement, but now exists only as a remote ...
and settled on the island. Cooper remained on Melville Island for ten years, shooting over 1000 buffalo a year for their hides and horns as well as cutting Cyprus pine and fishing for trepang. Known as 'The King of Melville Island', in 1915 Cooper left after accusations of cruelty by him and the Port Essington Indigenous people towards the local Tiwi islanders.


Edward Robinson

Edward Oswin Robinson (1847–1917) was an English-born Australian customs officer, trader, buffalo shooter, pastoralist and miner. Arriving in Australia before 1873, Robinson tried pearling at
King Sound King Sound is a large gulf in northern Western Australia. It expands from the mouth of the Fitzroy River, one of Australia's largest watercourses, and opens to the Indian Ocean. It is about long, and averages about in width. The port town ...
,
trepanging Trepanging is the act of collection or harvesting of sea cucumbers, known in Indonesian as ''trepang'', Malay těripang, and used as food. The collector, or fisher, of ''trepang'' is a trepanger. Trepanging is comparable to clamming, crabbing, ...
on
Croker Island Croker Island is an island in the Arafura Sea off the coast of the Northern Territory, Australia, northeast of Darwin. It was the site of the Croker Island Mission between 1940 and 1968. Indigenous peoples At the earliest time of European co ...
, managing a cattle station at Port Essington and from 1881 was for several years a customs officer collecting duties and licence fees from
Macassan Makassar (, mak, ᨆᨀᨔᨑ, Mangkasara’, ) is the capital of the Indonesian province of South Sulawesi. It is the largest city in the region of Eastern Indonesia and the country's fifth-largest urban center after Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan ...
trepangers. Whilst a customs officer, Robinson's main source of income was buffalo hides, he shot buffalo on the Cobourg Peninsula from the early 1880s and in 1884 he was the first to hunt buffalo commercially near the Alligator River. By 1897 Robinson claimed to have exported 20,000 buffalo hides from the mainland and another 6600 from Melville Island. Purchasing the lease for Melville Island in 1892, he appointed Joe Cooper as manager and supported his hunting on the island.


Europe


William the Conqueror

William I William I; ang, WillelmI (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first Norman king of England, reigning from 1066 until his death in 1087 ...
(c.1028–1087) was
King of England The monarchy of the United Kingdom, commonly referred to as the British monarchy, is the constitutional form of government by which a hereditary sovereign reigns as the head of state of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies (the Bailiw ...
from 1066 to 1087. Few hunting details have survived about William except that he was a keen huntsman whose introduction of
royal forest A royal forest, occasionally known as a kingswood (), is an area of land with different definitions in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The term ''forest'' in the ordinary modern understanding refers to an area of wooded land; however, the ...
s and forest law to England (including the creation of the
New Forest The New Forest is one of the largest remaining tracts of unenclosed pasture land, heathland and forest in Southern England, covering southwest Hampshire and southeast Wiltshire. It was proclaimed a royal forest by William the Conqueror, featu ...
) have left an enduring impact on the ecology of that country to the present day.
William of Malmesbury William of Malmesbury ( la, Willelmus Malmesbiriensis; ) was the foremost English historian of the 12th century. He has been ranked among the most talented English historians since Bede. Modern historian C. Warren Hollister described him as "a ...
stated William’s hunting was a form of relaxation to escape the pressures of daily business, the chronicler
Ordericus Vitalis Orderic Vitalis ( la, Ordericus Vitalis; 16 February 1075 – ) was an English chronicler and Benedictine monk who wrote one of the great contemporary chronicles of 11th- and 12th-century Normandy and Anglo-Norman England. Modern historia ...
wrote that William enjoyed his regular hunting expeditions to the
Forest of Dean The Forest of Dean is a geographical, historical and cultural region in the western part of the county of Gloucestershire, England. It forms a roughly triangular plateau bounded by the River Wye to the west and northwest, Herefordshire to the n ...
and the ''
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the ''Chronicle'' was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alf ...
'' stated he loved the red deer "as if he were their father."
John Manwood John Manwood (died 1610) was a barrister of Lincoln's Inn, gamekeeper of Waltham Forest, and Justice in Eyre of the New Forest under Elizabeth I of England. He was a close relative, probably a nephew, of Sir Roger Manwood, Lord Chief Baron of ...
listed the five animals protected by law for the early Norman kings as the
hart Hart often refers to: * Hart (deer) Hart may also refer to: Organizations * Hart Racing Engines, a former Formula One engine manufacturer * Hart Skis, US ski manufacturer * Hart Stores, a Canadian chain of department stores * Hart's Reptile W ...
, hind (both
red deer The red deer (''Cervus elaphus'') is one of the largest deer species. A male red deer is called a stag or hart, and a female is called a hind. The red deer inhabits most of Europe, the Caucasus Mountains region, Anatolia, Iran, and parts of wes ...
),
boar The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The species is no ...
,
hare Hares and jackrabbits are mammals belonging to the genus ''Lepus''. They are herbivores, and live solitarily or in pairs. They nest in slight depressions called forms, and their young are able to fend for themselves shortly after birth. The ge ...
and
wolf The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, and gray wolves, as popularly u ...
, and it is assumed from the few hunting accounts of William's sons that the royal hunt was conducted on horseback with hounds. The royal accounts of 1136 from
Henry I Henry I may refer to: 876–1366 * Henry I the Fowler, King of Germany (876–936) * Henry I, Duke of Bavaria (died 955) * Henry I of Austria, Margrave of Austria (died 1018) * Henry I of France (1008–1060) * Henry I the Long, Margrave of the No ...
detail payments to over 100 hunt servants and archers as well as payments for numerous horses and hounds, the hounds were divided into the wolf pack, the king's pack and the main pack, the first two for the king's recreational hunting, the last for use by royal servants for supplying game to the royal table.


Louis XV of France

Louis XV Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reache ...
(1710–1774) was
King of France France was ruled by monarchs from the establishment of the Kingdom of West Francia in 843 until the end of the Second French Empire in 1870, with several interruptions. Classical French historiography usually regards Clovis I () as the first ...
from 1715 to 1774. To the King hunting was an all-absorbing affair, in 1722 he drove from his coronation to his first hunt in the
Villers-Cotterêts Villers-Cotterêts () is a commune in the Aisne department in Hauts-de-France, France. It is notable as the signing-place in 1539 of the ''Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts'' discontinuing the use of Latin in official French documents, and as the ...
forest and by 1725 he hunted 276 days in the year and in that same year he was at the death of 362 kills, having ridden 3,121 leagues (12,166 km) behind his hounds. The King hunted with a huge pack of hounds called ''The Great Pack'', made up of 40 to 90 couples (80 to 180 hounds) of different breeds, the number increasing during his reign. The pack was actually three packs divided between the game hunted, wild boar, wolf and red deer, and employed a staff of over 500 noblemen (each being on duty for 3 months at a time) and 250 horses, with a further 2,000 horses available for the use by the King, his courtiers and guests. Between 1743 and 1767 the kills of red deer alone by the Great Pack was 2,651 stags.


Victor Emmanuel II of Italy

Victor Emmanuel II Victor Emmanuel II ( it, Vittorio Emanuele II; full name: ''Vittorio Emanuele Maria Alberto Eugenio Ferdinando Tommaso di Savoia''; 14 March 1820 – 9 January 1878) was King of Sardinia from 1849 until 17 March 1861, when he assumed the title o ...
(1820–1878) was
King of Sardinia The following is a list of rulers of Sardinia, in particular, of the monarchs of the Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica from 1323 and then of the Kingdom of Sardinia from 1479 to 1861. Early history Owing to the absence of written sources, little ...
from 1849 to 1861 and
King of Italy King of Italy ( it, links=no, Re d'Italia; la, links=no, Rex Italiae) was the title given to the ruler of the Kingdom of Italy after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The first to take the title was Odoacer, a barbarian military leader, ...
from 1861 to 1878. The King is credited with saving the
Alpine ibex The Alpine ibex (''Capra ibex''), also known as the steinbock, bouquetin, or simply ibex, is a species of wild goat that lives in the mountains of the European Alps. It is a sexually dimorphic species: males are larger and carry longer, curved h ...
from extirpation from the Alps by creating the Royal Hunting Reserve of the Gran Paradiso in 1856. At the time of its creation there were estimated to be only 60 animals remaining in the Alps, the creation of the park and the appointment of a staff of 55 game keepers to watch and ward the remaining animals saw their numbers climb to between 500 and 1,000 head by 1877, this in spite of the King shooting on average 50 head a year. In 1920 the Royal Hunting Reserve formed the basis of
Gran Paradiso National Park Gran Paradiso National Park (Italian: ''Parco nazionale del Gran Paradiso''; ), is an Italian national park in the Graian Alps, between the Aosta Valley and Piedmont regions. The park is named after Gran Paradiso mountain, which is located in the ...
by which time it held over 4,000 head of ibex. An enthusiastic alpine sportsman, the King is believed to have shot around 232 male ibex, 22 female ibex and over 700 chamois in his life.


Ernest II, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha

Ernest II (1818–1893) was the
Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (german: Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha), or Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (german: Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha, links=no ), was an Ernestine, Thuringian duchy ruled by a branch of the House of Wettin, consisting of territories in the present-d ...
from 1844 to 1893. The Duke held various extensive sporting estates including
Reinhardsbrunn Reinhardsbrunn in Friedrichroda near Gotha, in the German state of Thuringia, is the site of a formerly prominent Benedictine abbey, the house monastery of the Ludovingian Landgraves of Thuringia abbey extant between 1085 and 1525. Later used as ...
near
Gotha Gotha () is the fifth-largest city in Thuringia, Germany, west of Erfurt and east of Eisenach with a population of 44,000. The city is the capital of the district of Gotha and was also a residence of the Ernestine Wettins from 1640 until the ...
, Schloss Rosenau near
Coburg Coburg () is a town located on the Itz river in the Upper Franconia region of Bavaria, Germany. Long part of one of the Thuringian states of the Wettin line, it joined Bavaria by popular vote only in 1920. Until the revolution of 1918, it was ...
, an estate at Hinterriß and a boar forest in
Alsace Alsace (, ; ; Low Alemannic German/ gsw-FR, Elsàss ; german: Elsass ; la, Alsatia) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In 2020, it had ...
and much of his year was spent hunting; he was also a frequent guest of his brother Prince Albert at
Balmoral Castle Balmoral Castle () is a large estate house in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and a residence of the British royal family. It is near the village of Crathie, west of Ballater and west of Aberdeen. The estate and its original castle were bought ...
. The Duke shot 3,283 red deer and over 2,000 chamois in his life, as well as numerous boar, roe deer and small game, much of the shooting was stalked although in the forests of
Thuringia Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million. Erfurt is the capital and larg ...
the deer was usually driven and as the Duke aged, the chamois at Hinterriß were also driven. The Duke's favourite rifle was a
.450 Black Powder Express The .450 Black Powder Express also known as the .450 3-inch BPE was a popular black powder cartridge in the late 19th and early 20th century. Design The .450 Black Powder Express is a rimmed, straight walled, centerfire rifle cartridge desig ...
by Alexander Henry with which he shot running deer out to .


John George I, Elector of Saxony

John George I (1585–1656) was the
Elector of Saxony The Electorate of Saxony, also known as Electoral Saxony (German: or ), was a territory of the Holy Roman Empire from 1356–1806. It was centered around the cities of Dresden, Leipzig and Chemnitz. In the Golden Bull of 1356, Emperor Charles ...
from 1611 to 1656. The Electors of Saxony were by ancient hereditary "Lord High Masters of the Chase" of the
Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire was a Polity, political entity in Western Europe, Western, Central Europe, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, dissolution i ...
, and John George I and his son John George II were possibly the greatest slaughterers of big game in history. Over the course of his life John George I shot 35,421 red deer, 1,045 fallow deer, 11,489 roe deer, 31,902 wild boar, 238 bears, 3,872 wolves, 217 lynxes, 12,047 hares, 19,015 foxes, 37 beavers, 930 badgers, 81 otters and 149 wild cats. These huge numbers of game were killed by a system of elaborate palisades and hundreds of game beaters who drove the game in enormous numbers to within range of the hunters and their still primitive muzzleloading firearms. John George I was also an enthusiastic organizer of area
blood sport A blood sport or bloodsport is a category of sport or entertainment that involves wikt:bloodshed, bloodshed. Common examples of the former include combat sports such as cockfighting and dog fighting, and some forms of hunting and fishing. Acti ...
s for the amusement of his court, using the great open market of Dresden as the stage he would pit
aurochs The aurochs (''Bos primigenius'') ( or ) is an extinct cattle species, considered to be the wild ancestor of modern domestic cattle. With a shoulder height of up to in bulls and in cows, it was one of the largest herbivores in the Holocen ...
brought from Poland against bears or wild boar and stag against wolves and occasionally the Elector would enter the arena himself to dispatch an animal with a spear, these events usually culminated in members of court participating in some
fox tossing Fox tossing (german: Fuchsprellen) was a competitive blood sport popular in parts of Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. It involved throwing live foxes and other animals high into the air. It was practiced by members of the aristocracy in an e ...
. It is said that John George I rejected the offer of the throne of
Bohemia Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...
because the deer in Bohemia were smaller and fewer than those of Saxony.


John George II, Elector of Saxony

John George II (1613–1680) was Elector of Saxony from 1656 to 1680. John George II followed his father's love of slaughtering huge numbers of driven game, over the course of his life he shot 43,649 red deer, 2,062 fallow deer, 16,864 roe deer, 22,298 wild boar, 239 bears, 2,195 wolves, 191 lynxes, 16,966 hares, 2,740 foxes, 597 beavers, 1,045 badgers, 180 otters and 292 wild cats. In 1665 John George II rebuilt at enormous expense a high palisade fence originally built by his ancestor
Augustus, Elector of Saxony Augustus (31 July 152611 February 1586) was Elector of Saxony from 1553 to 1586. First years Augustus was born in Freiberg, the youngest child and third (but second surviving) son of Henry IV, Duke of Saxony, and Catherine of Mecklenburg. He cons ...
in the preceding century and had fallen into disrepair. The fence ran the entire length of the border between Saxony and Bohemia and was rebuilt to prevent the Elector's stags from straying from his country.


James VI and I of Scotland and England

James VI and I James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until ...
(1566-1625) was
King of Scotland The monarchy of the United Kingdom, commonly referred to as the British monarchy, is the constitutional form of government by which a hereditary sovereign reigns as the head of state of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies (the Bailiw ...
as James VI from 1567 to 1625 and
King of England The monarchy of the United Kingdom, commonly referred to as the British monarchy, is the constitutional form of government by which a hereditary sovereign reigns as the head of state of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies (the Bailiw ...
and
Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
as James I from 1603 to 1625. James' reign was marked by his passion for hunting, he reimposed many previously relaxed game and forest laws, took a close interest in the royal forests and claimed the royal right to hunt all game all over England. Providing James with good days hunting was seen as a valuable way to curry favour with the king, although his secretaries often complained of delays in getting his signature due to his frequent lengthy absences hunting and various foreign ambassadors were on occasion kept waiting for weeks while James was away on an extended hunting trip. James born small and unable to walk properly or hold himself upright without experiencing pain in his legs, but he had considerable stamina mounted and he maintained to his couriers and ministers his need to hunt frequently to protect his health. James usually hunted stag and hare mounted with a pack of hounds.


Alfonso de Urquijo

Alfonso de Urquijo (1920–1994) was a Spanish big-game hunter, writer and banker. Born in one of the most illustrious families of Spain, he was introduced to hunting from young age. His hunting adventures were interrupted by the outbreak of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
and his enlistment to the
Blue Division The Blue Division ( es, División Azul, german: Blaue Division) was a unit of volunteers from Francoist Spain within the German Army (''Wehrmacht'') on the Eastern Front during World War II. It was officially designated the Spanish Volunteer D ...
, for which he fought throughout the
Winter campaign of 1941–42 Winter is the coldest season of the year in polar and temperate climates. It occurs after autumn and before spring. The tilt of Earth's axis causes seasons; winter occurs when a hemisphere is oriented away from the Sun. Different cultures ...
, achieving the rank of
Lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations. The meaning of lieutenant differs in different militaries (see comparative military ranks), but it is often sub ...
. Urquijo was a great expert in botany, a country lover and particularly fond of hunting, who suddenly found in the Aragonese Pyrenees the paradise of his hobby, although he also toured much of the world in pursuit of the most beautiful and remote hunting species. He was one of the first Spaniards to organise an expedition to the then territory of the
Spanish Sahara Spanish Sahara ( es, Sahara Español; ar, الصحراء الإسبانية, As-Sahrā'a Al-Isbānīyah), officially the Spanish Possessions in the Sahara from 1884 to 1958 then Province of the Sahara between 1958 and 1976, was the name used f ...
, on the back of a camel. He was a prolific hunting writer, as well as of customs of the countries he visited. He published a large collection of biographical works, primarily of his hunting expeditions, and listed the 1,143 ''
finca In English usage, a ''finca'' (; ) refers to a piece of rural or agricultural land, typically with a cottage, farmhouse or estate building present, and often adjacent to a woodland or plantation. Overview Especially in tourism, the term has ...
s'' or hunting estates that existed in Spain at the time. Already in the fullness of his life, he acquired the famous finca "Nava el Sach" in
Sierra Morena The Sierra Morena is one of the main systems of mountain ranges in Spain. It stretches for 450 kilometres from east to west across the south of the Iberian Peninsula, forming the southern border of the ''Meseta Central'' plateau and providi ...
, which he managed in an exemplary way, making it a meeting place for the great international hunters. In addition, he was a member of the Royal Spanish Hunting Federation, and a member of the National Board of Homologation of Hunting Trophies and introduced the
International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation (CIC) The International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation (CIC) (French: ''Conseil International de la Chasse et de la Conservation du Gibier'', German: ''Internationaler Rat zur Erhaltung des Wildes und der Jagd'') is a politically independe ...
in Spain, an international body of which he was president for three years (1981-1984).


North America


Holt Collier

Holt Collier Holt Collier (c. 1848 – August 1, 1936) was a noted African-American bear hunter and sportsman. While leading a hunt for U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt in November 1902, Collier unwittingly set the stage for the event th ...
(c. 1848 – 1936) was a onetime
slave Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
, soldier,
cowboy A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the '' vaquer ...
and famed bear hunter. Collier was born a slave of the Hinds family of
Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...
; from a very young age he cared for the family's pack of hounds, and at the age of 10 he moved to their Plum Ridge Plantation in a rugged wilderness area of Washington County, where he was responsible for providing meat for the plantation's workers, he is believed to have killed his first bear that time. At the age of 14 Collier ran away to follow his owners, Howell and Thomas Hinds, into the
Confederate Army The Confederate States Army, also called the Confederate Army or the Southern Army, was the military land force of the Confederate States of America (commonly referred to as the Confederacy) during the American Civil War (1861–1865), fighting ...
(against their express orders because of his age), he was the only black man to serve in the Confederate Army from Mississippi, later serving in the
9th Texas Cavalry Regiment The 9th Texas Cavalry Regiment was a unit of mounted volunteers that fought in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. The regiment fought at Round Mountain and Bird Creek (Chusto-Talasah) in 1861, Pea Ridge, Siege of Corinth ...
. After the war Collier worked briefly as a cowboy in Texas before returning to Mississippi and to hunting; he is credited with killing over 3,000 bears, hunting bears and cougars with a pack of hounds. Collier gained national fame when he took Theodore Roosevelt bear hunting, having promised a bear for Roosevelt he single-handedly captured and tied a large black bear to a tree, Roosevelt's refusal to shoot the bear as unsportsmanlike led the press to coin the nickname "
Teddy bear A teddy bear is a stuffed toy in the form of a bear. Developed apparently simultaneously by toymakers Morris Michtom in the U.S. and Richard Steiff under his aunt Margarete Steiff's company in Germany in the early 20th century, the teddy bear, ...
".


General Wade Hampton

Lieutenant General Wade Hampton (1818–1902) was a
Confederate Confederacy or confederate may refer to: States or communities * Confederate state or confederation, a union of sovereign groups or communities * Confederate States of America, a confederation of secessionist American states that existed between 1 ...
soldier,
South Carolina )''Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no) , anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind" , Former = Province of South Carolina , seat = Columbia , LargestCity = Charleston , LargestMetro = ...
politician and plantation owner. Inheriting a significant fortune and significant landholdings in South Carolina and
Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...
, Hampton was a very keen hunter of wild game on his plantations, particularly one plantation located near Greenville in northern Mississippi. Over the course of his life, Hampton is thought to have been at the death of over 500 black bears, at least two-thirds of which he killed himself, and a similar number of deer. Hampton did all of his hunting mounted on horseback with a large pack of Southern
American Foxhound The American Foxhound is a breed of dog that is a cousin of the English Foxhound. They are scent hounds, bred to hunt foxes by scent. History In 1650, Robert Brooke sailed from England to Maryland with his pack of hunting dogs, which were th ...
s, with which in addition to bears and deer he killed around 16 cougars, several wolf as well as lynx and grey fox. Hampton was described by Theodore Roosevelt as "the mightiest hunter America has ever seen", he usually shot his prey after the hounds had brought it to bay, although he also killed 30-40 bear by hand with a knife, letting the hounds distract the bear whilst he walked up behind it to stab its throat.


Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Miller Hemingway (1899–1961) was an American novelist, short story writer, journalist and sportsman. Introduced to fishing and hunting by his father when he was four years old, Hemingway maintained a lifelong love of both pursuits, trout fishing and duck shooting in various locations, deep sea fishing for marlin and tuna in the
Gulf Stream The Gulf Stream, together with its northern extension the North Atlantic Current, North Atlantic Drift, is a warm and swift Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic ocean current that originates in the Gulf of Mexico and flows through the Straits of Florida a ...
and big-game hunting in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming as well as conducting two safaris in East Africa with Philip Percival as his guide. Hemingway shot brown bear, black bear, wapiti, deer and bighorn sheep in America and lion, leopard, rhinoceros, buffalo, kudu, roan antelope, zebra and numerous gazelle in East Africa, his sporting experiences gave him material for many of his short stories and novels. Hemingway hunted with a 6.5x54mm Mannlicher-Schönauer and a
.30-06 Springfield The .30-06 Springfield cartridge (pronounced "thirty- aught-six" ), 7.62×63mm in metric notation, and called the .30 Gov't '06 by Winchester, was introduced to the United States Army in 1906 and later standardized; it remained in military use ...
sporter both by Griffin & Howe, a 10.75×68mm Mauser, a
.470 Nitro Express The .470 Nitro Express is a rifle cartridge developed by Joseph Lang in England for dangerous game hunting in Africa and India. This cartridge is used almost exclusively in double rifles. It is in wide use in the Southern and Central-East Afr ...
double rifle and a
.577 Nitro Express The .577 Nitro Express is a large-bore centerfire rifle cartridge designed for the purpose of hunting large game such as elephant. This cartridge is used almost exclusively in single-shot and double express rifles for hunting in the Tropics or h ...
double rifle by Westley Richards (with which he also hoped to sink a German U-boat during World War II) as well as several .22 Rimfire rifles and shotguns for small game hunting.


Agnes Herbert

Agnes Elsie Diana Herbert (née Thorpe) (c.1880–1960) was a Manx writer, traveller and sportswoman. Raised on the
Isle of Man ) , anthem = "O Land of Our Birth" , image = Isle of Man by Sentinel-2.jpg , image_map = Europe-Isle_of_Man.svg , mapsize = , map_alt = Location of the Isle of Man in Europe , map_caption = Location of the Isle of Man (green) in Europe ...
, Herbert found the prospect of a life of domesticity confining so, with her cousin Cecily Baird, she set out for the
Canadian Rockies The Canadian Rockies (french: Rocheuses canadiennes) or Canadian Rocky Mountains, comprising both the Alberta Rockies and the British Columbian Rockies, is the Canadian segment of the North American Rocky Mountains. It is the easternmost part ...
where the pair taught English cookery to Chinese kitchen workers and gained their first exposure to big-game hunting. Upon their return to Britain the cousins secretly began planning a solely sporting expedition, this time to Africa. In 1906 the pair arrived in Somaliland, shooting numerous game including lion, rhinoceros and various antelope, Herbert was mauled by a lion and one of her native guides was killed by a rhinoceros. The pair conducted two more major sporting expeditions, one to
Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...
where they hunted bear, walrus, caribou, Dall sheep and moose and another to the
Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historically ...
where they hunted tur, bear, ibex, deer and wild boar, Herbert published an account of all three trips. For their trip to Somaliland, an uncle provided them with a battery of rifles from his personal collection, including three 12 bore rifles, two
.500 Black Powder Express The .500 Black Powder Express was a series of Black powder cases of varying lengths that emerged in the 1860s. Development The cartridge was offered in several case lengths including 1-inch, 2-inch, 2-inch, 2-inch, 3-inch and 3-inch,several were ...
double rifles, a .35 Winchester repeater and two 12 bore double-barrelled shikar pistols. Herbert's favourite rifle was a 12 bore firing soft spherical bullets and 5 drams (9.7 g) of powder which she considered ideal for lion and other dangerous game. For the Alaskan trip the pair took a .256 Mannlicher, a
.375 Flanged Nitro Express The .375 Nitro Express 2 inch Velopex , was a nitrocellulose (smokeless) powder cartridge introduced in 1899. Overview A hunting cartridge produced for single-shot and double rifles, the .375 Flanged NE is a slightly longer version of the .303 ...
double rifle and two
.450 Nitro Express .450 Nitro Express also known as the .450 Nitro Express 3-inch is a rifle cartridge designed for hunting dangerous game such as elephant, rhino, cape buffalo, lion, and leopard. This cartridge is used almost exclusively in double rifles for hunti ...
rifles, for the Caucasus trip they took .256 Mannlicher rifles and a pair of 12 bore shotguns.


Elmer Keith

Elmer Merrifield Keith (1899–1984) was an Idaho rancher, firearms enthusiast, author and sportsman. Keith became known as a regular contributor to ''
Guns & Ammo ''Guns & Ammo'' is a magazine dedicated to firearms, hunting, competitive shooting, reloading, and other shooting-related activities in the United States. The magazine offers reviews on firearms, ammunition, optics and shooting gear. Also includ ...
'' magazine as well as authoring a number of books on rifles, pistols, hunting and shooting. Keith lived in the wilds within hiking distance of bear, wapiti, deer, mountain goat and moose, from boyhood he hunted these and other American big game species including caribou, bighorn sheep, dall sheep, antelope, bison, arctic game, cougar and jaguar, making frequent hunting trips to the remotest parts of
British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
,
Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...
,
Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...
and
the Yukon Yukon (; ; formerly called Yukon Territory and also referred to as the Yukon) is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It also is the second-least populated province or territory in Canada, with a population of 43,964 as ...
. An expert on shooting pistols and hunting rifles, Keith’s preference was for cartridges with a caliber of and heavy-for-caliber bullets from up, for African big-game hunting he used a
.476 Nitro Express The .476 Nitro Express, also known as the .476 Westley Richards, is a British rifle Cartridge (firearms), cartridge introduced by Westley Richards around 1907. Development The .476 Nitro Express is one of several rounds (including the .500/465 ...
double rifle by Westley Richards and a
.500 Nitro Express The .500 Nitro Express is a rifle cartridge designed for hunting large and dangerous game animals in Africa and India. This cartridge was primarily designed for use in double rifles though various single shots were produced on the Farquarson act ...
by Charles Boswell. Keith designed and used many unique cartridges for his North American hunting pursuits, his wildcat rifle cartridges are seen to have influenced the development of many modern hunting cartridges including the
.338-06 The .338-06 is a cartridge based on the .30-06. It allows heavier .338 caliber bullets to be used from the .30-06 non-belted case. This can be a suitable choice for heavy bodied game such as moose, elk, and brown bear. The number and variety of ...
,
.338-378 Weatherby Magnum The .338-378 Weatherby Magnum started out as the wildcat cartridge, .338-378 Keith-Thomson Magnum during the early 1960s. Keith and Thomson are Elmer Keith and R.W. "Bob" Thomson. The 338-378 Keith-Thomson Magnum is a quarter of an inch short ...
and
.340 Weatherby Magnum The .340 Weatherby Magnum rifle cartridge was introduced in 1962 by creator Roy Weatherby to fill the gap between the .300 Weatherby Magnum and the .378 Weatherby Magnum, and in response to the .338 Winchester Magnum released in 1958. The .34 ...
, he is credited with inspiring
Winchester Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...
to develop the
.338 Winchester Magnum The .338 Winchester Magnum is a caliber, belted, rimless, bottlenecked cartridge introduced in 1958 by Winchester Repeating Arms. It is based on the blown-out, shortened .375 H&H Magnum. The is the caliber at which medium-bore cartridges are co ...
.


Jack O'Connor

John Woolf "Jack" O'Connor (1902–1978) was an American author, outdoorsman and big-game hunter. After a brief Army career, O'Connor commenced teaching whilst moonlighting as a reporter. Moving on to writing magazine articles about hunting and rifles, he became best known as a writer for and later the shooting editor of ''
Outdoor Life ''Outdoor Life'' is an outdoors magazine about camping, fishing, hunting, and survival. It is a sister magazine of ''Field & Stream''. Together with ''Sports Afield'', they are considered the Big Three of American outdoor publishing by Money (m ...
'' magazine, he also wrote several books about hunting, shooting and game animals. Over the course of his life O'Connor shot among other animals brown bear, black bear, cougar, bighorn sheep, dall sheep, mountain goat, moose, wapiti, caribou, mule deer, coues whitetail deer and pronghorn in North America; lion, leopard, elephant, rhinoceros, buffalo, kudu, sable antelope, oryx and various other antelope in Africa; tiger, ibex, urial, red sheep and blackbuck in Asia. O'Connor used and wrote very highly of the
.257 Roberts The .257 Roberts, also known as .257 Bob, is a medium-powered .25 caliber rifle cartridge. It has been described as the best compromise between the low recoil and flat trajectory of smaller calibers such as the 5 mm (.22") and 6 mm (.24"), and ...
, 7x57mm Mauser,
.30-06 Springfield The .30-06 Springfield cartridge (pronounced "thirty- aught-six" ), 7.62×63mm in metric notation, and called the .30 Gov't '06 by Winchester, was introduced to the United States Army in 1906 and later standardized; it remained in military use ...
, .375 H&H Magnum,
.416 Rigby The .416 Rigby is a rifle cartridge designed in 1911 by London based gunmaker John Rigby & Company, for hunting dangerous game. It is the first cartridge to use a bullet of .416 inch (10.57 mm) diameter. The rifles, as built by John Rigby & Co ...
and the .450 Watts Magnum, although for North American hunting he was an advocate of lighter flatter shooting projectiles and his name is synonymous with the .270 Winchester, his favourite cartridge.


Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...
(1858–1919) was an American statesman, author, soldier, big-game hunter, naturalist and President of the United States. An extremely enthusiastic hunter-naturalist, before his presidency Roosevelt hunted extensively during his ranching days, writing several books about these experiences including ''Hunting trips of a ranchman'', ''Ranch life and the hunting trail'' and ''The wilderness hunter''. Throughout his life Roosevelt strove to save wildlife through the protection of natural habitat, during his political career he quadrupled the acreage of America’s public forests, he built the United States Forest Service which came to administer one twelfth of the land of the United States and he created 55 wildlife refuges, expanded national parks, organized conservation conferences, and popularized a sensibility of respect for nature and preservation of the wilderness. After his presidency Roosevelt embarked on two major hunting expeditions to collect international wildlife specimens for American museums, the 1909–10
Smithsonian–Roosevelt African Expedition The Smithsonian–Roosevelt African Expedition was an expedition to tropical Africa in 1909-1911 led by former United States president Theodore Roosevelt, funded by Andrew Carnegie and sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution. Its purpose was to ...
to East Africa to collect for the National Museum of Natural History and the 1914–15 Roosevelt–Rondon Scientific Expedition to the Paraguayan and the Brazilian Amazon to collect for the American Museum of Natural History. Over the course of his life Roosevelt shot cougar, grizzly bear, black bear, buffalo, moose, wapiti, caribou, white tailed deer, black tailed deer, mountain goat, big horn sheep and pronghorn in North America; lion, hyena, elephant, white rhinoceros, black rhinoceros, hippopotamus, zebra, giraffe, warthog, eland, oryx, roan antelope, wildebeest, topi, waterbuck, lechwe, hartebeest, kob, impala, gerenuk and gazelle in Africa; jaguar, tapir, peccary and wood deer in South America as well as numerous smaller game in all three continents. In his early days in the American West, Roosevelt hunted with a heavy .45-120 Sharps rifle and an English
.500 Black Powder Express The .500 Black Powder Express was a series of Black powder cases of varying lengths that emerged in the 1860s. Development The cartridge was offered in several case lengths including 1-inch, 2-inch, 2-inch, 2-inch, 3-inch and 3-inch,several were ...
double rifle, due to their weight cumbersome nature he promptly swapped both for a .40-90 Sharps rifle, a .50-115 Bullard express 6 shot repeater and a Winchester rifle#Model 1876, Winchester Model 1876 chambered in .45-75 Winchester (a favourite). In later years he used a M1903 Springfield chambered in .30-03 (another favourite), which he supplemented for his African expedition with a
Winchester Model 1895 The Winchester Model 1895 is an American lever-action repeating firearm developed and manufactured by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company in the late 19th century, chambered for a number of full-size military and hunting cartridges such as 7.62 ...
chambered in
.405 Winchester The .405 Winchester (also known as the .405 WCF) is a centerfire rifle cartridge introduced in 1904 for the Winchester 1895 lever-action rifle.Cartridges Of The World, Frank Barnes, Krause Publications It remains to this day one of the most pow ...
and a .500/450 Nitro Express double rifle by Holland & Holland.


Townsend Whelen

Townsend Whelen, Colonel Townsend "Townie" Whelen (1877–1961) was an American soldier, hunter, writer, outdoorsman and rifleman. Retiring from a career in the Army in 1936, Whelen became a leading outdoor writer, contributing to various sporting publications including ''American Rifleman'', ''Field and Stream'', ''
Guns & Ammo ''Guns & Ammo'' is a magazine dedicated to firearms, hunting, competitive shooting, reloading, and other shooting-related activities in the United States. The magazine offers reviews on firearms, ammunition, optics and shooting gear. Also includ ...
'', ''
Outdoor Life ''Outdoor Life'' is an outdoors magazine about camping, fishing, hunting, and survival. It is a sister magazine of ''Field & Stream''. Together with ''Sports Afield'', they are considered the Big Three of American outdoor publishing by Money (m ...
'' and ''Sports Afield'', as well as writing a number of books on hunting and firearms. Whelen hunted all his life, taking his first deer in 1892 and his last 66 years later, over his life he shot numerous big game animals including brown bear, black bear, moose, wapiti, caribou, white tailed deer, mule deer, black tailed deer, bighorn sheep and mountain goat all over Canada, throughout the Rocky Mountains and in the Adirondacks. Whelen developed a number of rifle cartridges based on the .30-06 Springfield, including the .25 Whelen, .35 Whelen, .375 Whelen and the .400 Whelen.


South America


Sasha Siemel

Sasha Siemel, Alexander "Sasha" Siemel (1890–1970) was a Latvian born South American adventurer, guide, actor, writer and jaguar hunter. At a young age, Siemel followed his brother Ernest to Argentina, in 1914 he moved on to the Pantanal of Brazil. Killing his first jaguar (with a spear) in 1925, Siemel became a bounty hunter for ranchers who had suffered severe losses of cattle to jaguar predation. An avid self-promoter, Siemel was famous in his own lifetime through numerous newsreels and articles, in 1953 he published a very popular autobiography ''Tigrero!''. Siemel played a role in the 1937 series ''Jungle Menace'' and he was the subject of an abortive mid-1950s film project starring John Wayne (as Siemel) and
Ava Gardner Ava Lavinia Gardner (December 24, 1922 – January 25, 1990) was an American actress. She first signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew critics' attention in 1946 with her perform ...
before filming was abruptly stopped whilst in the Amazon. Siemel hunted jaguars with a spear, a bow and arrows and with a rifle, using a pack of hounds to locate his quarry. By 1948, Siemel had killed 281 jaguars, 30 with a spear, 111 with a bow and arrows and the remainder with a rifle, as well as capturing 22 alive, this was 7 years before his retirement from hunting and it is believed he killed over 300 jaguars in his life.


See also

* Big-game hunting * Hunting * White hunter


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Famous big game hunters Hunters Hunting-related lists