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I've been reading Teddy Roosevelt's classic the past few nights. It had been a lot of years since I last picked it up. One thing I didn't remember from the first time I read it was the amount of animals wounded and lost. Roosevelt has no issues talking about his poor shots, and it seems as though he wounded more animals than he killed. Looked at through the standards we hold ourselves today, it's actually kind of sickening, especially the number of "hail mary" shots he let fly at long range. Did anyone else have this reaction? Pete | ||
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I just finished the book back in the summer. It bothered me a little too. But they thought nothing of running an animal down with a horse. Its just a different set of ethics. Galdly us hunters in general have developed a greater respect for our quarry than the hunters of ole. I have walked in the foot prints of the elephant, listened to lion roar and met the buffalo on his turf. I shall never be the same. | |||
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I do realize that it was a much different time. I guess my thought was just that I'm glad that unlike many aspects of human behavior, at least our "hunting ethics" seem to have improved over the past 100 years! | |||
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I certainly hope so. ...I say that hunters go into Paradise when they die, and live in this world more joyfully than any other men. -Edward, duke of York ". . . when a man has shot an elephant his life is full." ~John Alfred Jordan "The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance." Cicero - 55 BC "The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities." - Ayn Rand Cogito ergo venor- KPete “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.” ― Adam Smith - “Wealth of Nations” | |||
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Remember, it was all open iron sights back then. I read the book a long time ago, but as I recall there were no scopes on any of their rifles. STAY IN THE FIGHT! | |||
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I recall reading that President Roosevelt had poor vision and was not a very good shot. Perhaps no one was backing him up, perhaps he took difficult shots. Folks who liked African Game Trails might also enjoy In Brightest Africa, by Carl E. Akeley. Akeley was a member of the Roosevelt expedition as taxidermist. He is the inventor of modern taxidermy, using mannikins. He did the elephant diorama (and many others) in the Museum of Natural History in New York. The book is lvely. There is an amazing story of how his wife saved his life when their bearers were about to abandon them, with Carl badly wounded. The book is out of print, but copies are available from dealers. Check out Abe Books. | |||
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It didn't bother me one bit. It was a different time. Teddy Roosevelt was one of, if not the greatest conservationist and promoters of hunting in the past 100 years. | |||
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Those were the days my friends! Remember also that lions were considered vermin, and one can shoot as many as one wishes! I bet Aaron would have had a field day then  | |||
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I don't think we can take the moral high ground, as Saeed says, the game was much more plentiful then and the rules, if there were any, much more relaxed. I'm sure if we had the same situation today, many 'modern' day hunters would do much the same. It has been said that despite their writings generally to the contrary, the old hunters we admire, Taylor, Bell, Selous, etc, etc, also wounded and lost lot of game but naturally like most hunters, just did not write home about it. | |||
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This reminds me of what my grandfather told me many years ago when he was still alive and I hunted with him. He often talked about how great it was with good scopes and how it made the shooting much more accurate and less wounded animals. Long time before I got born he depended on hunting to provide for his family and he just had to take the best shot he could get, even if it was a high risk of just wounding the animal. From what I cold understand was wounding animals rather common among hunters back then because of long shots with open sights and often in poor light conditions. And often on running animals too. Was just a natural part of hunting to wound animals back then. When I hunted with him, he was very careful about making sure to only making 100% shots and he made sure to tell me it was totally wrong taking risky shots as we didn't NEED the meat or the fur. It is not for us to judge what hunters did many years ago as the times were totally different from now. We should only judge what we as hunters do today. | |||
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