JOHANNESBURG (AP) – In 1909-10, Theodore Roosevelt headed a Smithsonian hunting and trapping expedition in Africa that included colleagues who prepared the wildlife he killed for shipment back to America. The former U.S. president and his son, Kermit, shot hundreds of animals.
“Really, I would be ashamed of myself sometimes, for I felt as if I had all the fun,” Roosevelt later said in a speech. “I would kill the rhinoceros or whatever it was, and then they would go out and do the solid, hard work of preparing it. They would spend a day or two preserving the specimen while I would go and get something else.”
Despite the killing spree, Roosevelt also advocated “a happy mean” between hunting and preserving wildlife sanctuaries, foreshadowing today’s debate on hunting that has become more polarized as poaching and human encroachment have vastly reduced wildlife in sub-Saharan Africa. An international outcry erupted after an American dentist killed a well-known lion named Cecil in Zimbabwe last month in an allegedly illegal hunt. Wildlife authorities in Zimbabwe on Sunday reported another allegedly illegal lion kill involving a different American in the same area in April.
Many “Big Five” hunters believe that what they do is a legitimate sport, conserves wildlife by funneling funds back into game reserves and can be the ultimate personal challenge in a natural setting.
“Hunters are normal, living, nature-loving people,” said Adri Kitshoff, chief executive officer of the Professional Hunters’ Association of South Africa. “They’re not bloodthirsty killers.”