“The unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable”
– Oscar Wild, A Woman of No Importance (1893)
When tired of hunting the fox, the dear and the otter, the unspeakable go after more exotic meats. They call it Big Game Hunting. But it’s not a sport; it’s not a fair fight. The dice, like the guns, are loaded:
INDIA – CIRCA 1864: The Prince of Wales photographed with his traveling companions and a tiger, killed during the hunt, in India – Date of Photo: 1864 (Photo by John Murray/Alinari via Getty Images)
circa 1895: A hunter has his foot on a dead rhino in a big game hunt in East Africa.
A local guide climbs up a pole to search for a likely quarry during a big game hunt in Africa, circa 1895.
circa 1890: Hunters with a dead lion they have killed.
Skinning a dead tiger, shoot of the Maharajah of Cooch Behar, India, 1900s
The Italian explorer Vittorio Bottego, surrounded by local people armed with spears, posing seated on a hippopotamus killed along the banks of the Juba. Ethiopia, 1890s
circa 1890: A hunter with a rhinoceros he has killed.
Africa, East Africa, Uganda, hunter with killed buffalo, date unknown
German (colonial) East Africa : Big game hunter with killed rhinoceros . without date, about 1905
German East Africa, Victoria Nyanza: white hunter with a young rhinoceros. – 1907
circa 1907: Officers from the British Army take part in a tiger hunt.
Africa: Hunting with the help of a cheetah – cheetah is sitting on a carriage before the hunt – 1908
1908: The corpse of a 9 foot 6 inch tiger, shot after a successful hunt in Nepal.
Theodore Roosevelt 1909
circa 1910: Competitors and guests at a local shoot in India during the days of the British Raj.
American big game hunter and museum patron Henry A. Snow holds a Winchester M1895 rifle and squats by the mouthparts of an African savannah elephant (Loxodonta africana) that he has shot during his several year safari to obtain specimens for a natural history museum in Oakland, California, somewhere in Africa, late 1910s. Snow collected over 150 mammals and 1,500 birds for the collection. Four local men sit behind Snow.
21st December 1910: An African villager takes aim at a leopard which has attacked a youth.
King George V inspects the day’s kill after a tiger hunt in India during his royal visit to celebrate his accession to the throne. Original Artwork: From the ‘King Emperor’s Indian Durbar Tour of 1911 -1912’
George V shooting tigers, India, 1911, (1935). The King and Queen Mary travelled to India in 1911 to attend the Delhi Durbar, held to commemorate their coronation. A print from King Emperor’s Jubilee, 1910-1935, by FGH Salusbury, Daily Express Publications, London, 1935. (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)
circa 1912: King George V with the day’s kills on a tiger hunt, during his Indian Durbar Tour. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Nepal, 1912, After the hunt, lunch in the jungle, at King George V of England’s table. (Photo by Photo12/UIG/Getty Images)
India, elephant hunting. Mahouts, forest officers and tame elephants. – probably in the 1910s
circa 1915: Three black troopers with rifles stand on top of a slain rhinoceros in Kenya.
A party of big game hunters leaves Croydon airport, bound for Africa, 1928. They are Captain Drew (pilot), Mr Whatley (mechanic), Mr Thistlewaite, Mr Brand and Commander Glen Kidston. (Photo by Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Osa Martin (right) touches the head of a dead male lion that their hunting party shot, 1929. Kenya.
Captain Osman shooting from a tree with the aid of straps, India, 1900s.
Tiger hunters, Tonkin, Vietnam, 20th century(?).
Roosevelt Theodore, sons: James Simpson Roosevelt Field Museum Hunting Expedition to Central Asia (Theodore R. jr. and Kermit R.) – Tiger hunt: Mrs. Kermit Roosevelt (Belle Wyatt Willard) with a killed Tiger (Nepal or India) 1925
A dead lion lies strapped to the hood of a car after being shot during a hunt, ca.1930s. Kenya.
30th October 1933: A hunting party chopping the tusks off an elephant while others are standing on the giant corpse. Original Artwork: Photograph displayed at the 1933 International Conference for the Protection of Wildlife in Africa.
KENYA – NOVEMBER 14: Zebras Killed By A Western Being Carried By Africans After A Safari Near Mount Meru In Kenya On October 14, 1946.
Dead gorillas displayed after a 1951 hunt in what was then French Equatorial Africa.
A view of two rooms of the Big Game Museum which displays over 300 animals mostly shot by British Monarchs at Sandringham Estates in London,England. April 16th,1973.
(Photo by Fox Photos /Hulton Archive /Getty Images)
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