Guys,



This is my first attempt at posting a picture so please bear with me. This is the 4 walls of my office.



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Hope this turns out okay!



Rich Elliott

Here you go Rich...









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Don't know where the extra code came from but you only need to click on "Image" under the "Instant UBB Code" and past or type in your pic's address and then hit <return> or "OK" to post the pic.

Hobie,

Yeah, whatever!

Thanks!

Rich Elliott

The room is beautiful! Great pics!

I don't know what's up with the code. I had to edit several times and still the one pic won't work right. Extra code is being added by some "unknown entity". Is your room haunted?

Well, the picture that won't print is a duplicate anyway. There are only four . One is duplicated above as well. I spend a lot of time in that office. No ghosts I know of...... oh, maybe a few critter ghosts!

Rich Elliott

Very Nice!

Wow!!!

That is an awsome set of trophies you've got there Rich. What species of animal is the one over the door in the first pick? What about the one to the right of the leopard? That is one of the greatest trophie rooms I have ever seen! Who does your taxidermy? It's beautiful! Thanks for posting.

Sevens

Rich, that's quite a trophy room!

Love it! looks like you have collected some great east African trophies!
Many look as if they would score very high in SCI.

Thanks for sharing.
Regards,
Dave

The one over the door in the first picture is a White eared kob taken in extreme Western Ethiopia in 1984. We are reopening that area soon. The one to the right of the leopard is a Mt. Nyala 36 3/4" taken also in 1984 in the Tcher Tcher mt's of Ethiopia. A lot of the taxidermy was done by Schwarz Studio in St. Luois. They are no longer in business. That was an old outfit...fourth generation.
Mike Simpson (this years Weatherby Award Winner) did the full mount on the leopard.
I've been hunting in Africa since 1978 so I got a good start on it. Worked for the Ethiopian Company since 1986.

Rich Elliott

Awesome room!! You need to knock out a wall and expand.

Mike

Mr Elliott

Impressive to say the least.

Cheers
/ JOHAN

It's a rare set of trophies, Rich. Very nicely done.

I also had no clue as to the identities of the white eared kob and the mountain nyala. One hardly ever sees those.

Plus, two sets of elephant tusks! What are the stories behind those, if you don't mind sharing them?

Nice room, BTW how did you get started guiding in Ethiopia? I know the safari business is pretty small there, has there been any attempts to set up some kind of "campfire" project like in Zimbabwe?
Do you still shoot trophies at the current ridiculous rates?
Lastly, what would you say are the chances that 100lb+ elephants still exist on the sudan border?

Elephant tusks...actually there's 4 sets here. And yes each has a story. The 50 lbs pair around the picture and gerenuk heads is the one that did his best to kill me. Shot him from underneath lying on my back after I'd failed to stop a charge. At the same time there was a shot from the PH in his side so luckily he fell on his right side instead of crumpling on me. Had he been a mere 25 pounder I still would have had no choice but to shoot.
When Ethiopia reopened to hunting in 1982 my wife and I were amoung the first clients of the new company, Ethiopian Rift Valley Safaris. The country was so diverse, so different, and had so many different ecosystems that we returned 2 more itmes. When Mr. Roussos commented on the many booking problems he was having and the need for a company agent on the outside who knew Ethiopia my wife volunteered me. I thought is a joke but 2 weeks after returning home I got this phone call asking me to do it. That was 20 years ago. There's sort of a campfire project in place. Since the hunting reopened in 1996 15% of the license fees goes to the Federal Agency, The Ethiopian WIldlife Conservation Organization...their Game Department. The other 85% goes to the province where the hunting takes place theorectically going on to the local community. THe Concession fees also go to the province..not the Federal Gov't. The operator is also responsible for helping the loccal communityies and provides employment for several of those natives. We even put in a water line at the Odo Bulo camp. Cold fresh water piped from a spring halfway up the mountain directly to the village. To our camp as well, I might add Hundred pounders...I'd like to think so but when the elephant hunting ceased in 1992..the Sudanese poachers moved in. There was no longer anyone there to stop them. Who knows if any of the big boys survived in the swamps?
There were some elephants spotted in the arial surveys for Gambella but nothing exceptional.

I've shot eveything there is to shoot in Ethiopia with the exception of Nile Lechwe and Chanlers Mt. Reedbuck. I think I'm finished..no more room and I don't want to bulid another trophy room. This office is my third attempt at it. Not too bad if I say so myself.

Rich Elliott

Rich, Very nicely done. I need to ask, what is the dimensions of your office. I am to the point of having to add on. I am just getting started in the planning stages. Just looking for ideas.
Mike

Wow! Is a good word! Very impressive.

What is the skin/rug below and to the left of the buff?

Thanks for sharing.

McCray,

That's a black backed or sometimes called silver backed Jackal.

Mike,
It's 24' X 16'. It's 12 ' at the apex and that, along with the 10' walls is important. The stairwell coming up here has some pictures, a warthog head, and a Hartmann's MT. Zebra rug along the walls. The Bedroom has some European mounts and a Chapmans (Burchells) Zebra rug on one wall. Even a few Euro mounts in the bathroom. no wasted space.
Thanks for your interest.

Rich Elliott

Very nice Rich. I love the Roan with those big donkey-like ears, and some nice Bushbuck too, they make such wonderful mounts.

What a great room!
I guess you have some of the most hard-earned trophies in the hole world there...
What kind of bushbucks do you have..? Menelik, Abyssinian, Harnessed (doesn`t exist in Etiophia or..)?

Bushbuck's
Menelik's, and Nile on either side between the Cape Bauffalo and warthog. Abyssinian next to the lion rug.
I had a Chobe from Zimbabwe but lost it somewhere along the way.
Rich Elliott

Very impressive!

Rich,

Absolutely stunning. Thanks for the post. I'd like to say I aspire to a similar display and collection, but that would be nothing if not presumptuous.
I am really impressed that your trophy room is not huge in dimensions, just huge in quality.
Thanks again for the great post.

Bill

llamapacker,

Thanks. I really didn't have much room to build here . I'm at the south end of a 10 acre lake wedged between a creek and a hillside. It's the last place in the county to thaw out! The office is above a 2 car garage, shop, and reloading area. There's a bathroom and a bedroom with a walk in closet ( for all my wifes clothes up here as well. The stairwell has a Hartmann's Mt. Zebra rug and some elephant pictures (where they fell) on the wall. The bedroom has some odds and ends..mostly European Mt.s, Beisa oryx, lesser kudu, impala, etc. and a Burchells zebra on the wall. I had to get rid of a bunch of heads when I sold my outfit and had to vacate the office. It was a sort of trophy room as well. Anyway, I must be through hunting cause I'm out of room! Downstairs is modest collection of North American stuff. Hope to add a Mt.Goat head this fall. There's a Woodland Caribou head in process at a taxidermist up in Newfoundland and I arrowed a #158 whitetail on my farm last October that will grace the entranceway. Maybe I need to figure out how to build a third story?

Rich Elliott

Rich, it's been said before, but it can be said again: Amazing!

I'm sure that you never get lonely in your office, and have a great possibility to be reminded of interesting hunts and adventures at a glance! Very impressive!

Give my regards to Ethiopia next time you're there, drinking Tej. It's a country that for differant reasons I both loved and hated at the same time, and look forward to returning to!

Erik D.

www.dunia.no

ErikD
Thanks. As for Ethiopia, I'll be back there for a month 4 weeks from tonight.

Rich Elliott

Rich,

I kind of sped through the posts so forgive me if this was covered. You mentioned that most of the mounts had been done in St. Louis by an outfit no longer in business. I forget the name but is your new outfit in St. Louis? If not, are you aware of any you'd recommend in the area?

Thanks in advance.

Reed

Hey Ritch, do you put your clients up in the Hilton in Addis, or are they the lone occupied rooms you see in the Sheraton?? I swear hundreds of rooms and nothing but airline stewardesses....maybe that's not so bad
Hey, do you have difficulty getting the natives to eat the meat of animals which haven't been slaughtered in the prescribed fashion...or are the people in Omo valley not Copts.

Reed,

Actually I was wrong about that. The company was sold to the foreman who had done most of the work anyway. I think it still goes under Schwarz Studios. I'm looking for the letter they sent.
Found it!
Frank Wagner, Jr. 8520 Gravios Rd. St. Luois, MO 63123-4606
314 631 0515

The last batch I had done was just the bush pig, wildebeest, and the full mount leopard done by Conroe Taxidermy because my old friend, Mike Simpson, agreed to do it for me himself. I'm sure Frank could do a decent job too.

Rich Elliott

Boghossian,

I've been both routes in Addis Ababa. The Hilton is more Ethiopian. The SHeraton is rapidly becoming the Hotel of choice for the clients. The place looks like one of Sadamm's palaces. But the girls are definitely highland Ethiopian! I might add for those who don't know that they are among the most beautiful women in the world.

Our tribes in the Omo Valley...Hammer, Karo, Ari, Bumi, Mursi, and Bodi will eat anything that doen't eat them first. In the case of the Bodi and Mursi that also includes each other...post humous of course!
The Galeb, a bit farther south..are Muslim so everything has to be Hallalled (sp?). We don't hunt down there anyway. We used to have a Federal Game Scout who was rather particular about the Coptic rituals. He would just nick the leg of a fresh kill and say some sort of chant or prayer. That made it okay to eat. I'll be back in the Omo Valley 2 weeks from tommorrow.

Rich Elliott

WOW! ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC!

Well, I'm glad you guys like it. I'm sitting in it right now.

Rich Elliott

Rich, You are correct about Schwartz. I just received the last of my trophies from a Chete safari in '02 last week. All taxidermy was performed by Frank at Schwartz.

Alby

HI,

WOW, that is sweet. Kev