I was wondering if anyone can help me satisfy my curiosity.

I recently read the 1958 book "The Wildest Game" about animal collecting in the 1950's by Swiss born Peter Ryhiner. I can't help but wonder what ever happened to Peter during the 30+ years that have followed since publication.

I turned up absolutely nothing on Peter Ryhiner after a 1958 New Yorker Magazine feature.

At that time he was recently divorced, fighting financial trouble and drank a lot. Does anyone have any idea what ever happened to him? Did he die penniless of an unknown jungle fever and lay in an unmarked grave? Did he remarry and retire to quietly run his private zoo that he always hoped for?

I thought that there might be more information available about him in a non-english language search engine.

Thank you in advance if anyone can help,
Mike

@Mike

Well here some of the information You are looking for. Sorry, only in German...

Good shooting and good hunting
Collani

quote:

Versuchen, zuletzt als Safari Begleiter
in Kenia, kehrte er gänzlich verarmt in die Schweiz zurück und schied 1975 in der psychiatrischen Klinik von Préfargier aus dem Leben.

Attempted, lastly as a Safari Guide in Kenya, he returned to Switzerland penniless, departing this World in 1975 at the Préfargier Phychiatric Clinic.

quote:

Er war Held, Abenteurer, Romantiker und Trinker. Eine Art moderner Allan Quatermain

A Hero, Adventurer, Romantic, and Drinker; a type of modern Allan Quartermain ..... those aren't bad credentials in my Book .....

Thank you very much! That is exactly what I was looking for.

He was quite a fellow. "He was hero, adventurer, romantic and drunkard. A kind of modern Allan Quatermain. His journeys led him around the whole world, straight through South America, Africa and Asia. He caught and sold thousands of animal in approximately twenty years."

As a side note his wife Mercia who he found working as a penniless hotel clerk in Singapore, eventually married Sir Rex Harrison.

Peter certainly lived a life of adventure. I suspect that he had few regrets and hope that he was happy in the end. Here's a toast to his memory even though I never met him!

Mike

The page linked above has a link to a film about Peter (in German I think).

The most beautiful concert hall was for it the jungle, said the Basler Peter Ryhiner. In this enormous free air hall it listened to the music of the wilderness in the fifties-years however not only, but it caught here Nashörner, elephants, apes, birds and all kinds of other majority game, which it sold particularly to zoo-logical gardens in the whole world. Ryhiner, called Pief, was one of the old pellet and grain, one of those men, whom there are not today any longer, like his first Mrs. Mercia in Mike Wildbolz' Documentary film “Ryhiner' s Business” means: Pief was hero, Charmeur, adventurer and drunkard. Actually Peter Ryhiner Zoologie wanted to study, instead he became “a savage Tierfänger” (in such a way appropriate his small daughter in an essay designated him). It not only the money sold the wild animals because of. An animal welfare activist in the today's sense was it surely not, however also no hunter and Wilderer. Ryhiner was convinced of the fact that by the breed in zoos surviving of gefährderter kinds could become secured. He filmed, like he the animals caught, he held lectures, wrote books, from radio stations was invited. It supplied among other things the two Indian Panzernashörner, which provided world-wide for the first new generation in captivity to the Basler with zoo. But with the increasing preventive measures for game animals in their natural habitats Ryhiner' lost; s Businesses its authorization and his basis. It became from the individualists to the social outsider and separated 1975 voluntarily from the life. Mike Wildbolz does not go it in its documentary film primarily around bringing up for discussion ethical questions around the occupation of a Tierfängers. With the memories of relatives, friends and teammates, with old and new film and pictorial material of the places, at which Ryhiner stayed, with Piefs, the producer of the schillernden personality of the Baslers follows to diary recordings and cutouts from radio interviews and reconstructs in a critical homage stations of a moved life, which summarized Pief ironically on one of its visiting cards: “Peter Ryhiner NO money NO home NO ADDRESS NO of hair dryers”. Direction Mike Wildbolz Book Hans Rohner, Mike Wildbolz Camera Thomas hard Meier Music Ibo Antognini Production CH 1998 Duration 89 min. Category Doku © Karin Mueller.

„Peter Ryhiner no money
no home no adress no phone“