TR

[ligonierbill]

Teddy Roosevelt is one of my heroes and certainly one of the most famous American hunters. The more I read about him, the more facinating he becomes. But recently I have been reading two of his books: Hunting Trips of a Ranchman (1885) and The Wilderness Hunter (1893). Of course TR was one of our greatest conservationists, but in these books he seems to accept that game animals will be wiped out in a short time (he certainly did his part to make that true). Thankfully, he was wrong. He also subscribed to the "if there's lead in the air, there's hope" approach to shooting at game. If you can get past the Victorian prose, these books are worth reading. Different times.

 

[Ben Towe]

I suggest Edmund Morris' three volume biography of Roosevelt if you haven't read them (The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Rex, and Colonel Roosevelt). Men of his time and class were generally prolific hunters. He was almost correct about the loss of game to future generations. Men still live who can remember a time when there were few deer and turkey in this part of the country. In my lifetime we've seen the reintroduction of elk in Kentucky and a few other eastern states. Roosevelt himself saw the near extinction of the buffalo.