Royal Hunter
On a trip to Nepal several years ago, I was making my way apprehensively along a maze of trails to a remote tent camp in the Chitwan area. Adding to my anxiety, I had passed several fresh pugmarks of tigers, and as the light began to fade I imagined a big cat watching...
Trouble with Lions
For weeks on end, deadly man-eaters would plague Arthur Neumann’s safari. The English hunter, Arthur Neumann, was still recovering from a terrible mauling by an angry cow elephant in the Lake Rudolph area of British East Africa (now Lake Turkana, Kenya). The year was...
The Final Charge: Roosevelt’s Bull Moose
A loner by nature, the eastern bull moose is a completely different animal during the rut, when it wages savage fights for dominance with other males. In the fall of 1915, 57-year-old Theodore Roosevelt went big game hunting for the last time. It would prove to be one...
Safari Origins: The First Seeds of Conservation
Involving dozens of porters and other native helpers, the early safaris were lavish affairs that only the wealthiest sportsmen could afford.
Roosevelt’s Smoldering Savannah
A raging wildfire threatens to bring President Roosevelt’s safari to a quick and untimely end. It was a terrifying sight that greeted Theodore Roosevelt as he stepped from his tent that morning in 1910, and it was something that could have brought a costly and...
Rising Buffalo
Instead of just two bulls, Theodore Roosevelt and his party were suddenly confronted by a huge herd of angry Cape buffalo. The buffalo rose like massive black warriors from the papyrus swamp. Theodore Roosevelt and his party had just come face-to-face with one of...
To Bite the Bullet
An overturned jeep, no water, and a charging elephant in the night. What else could go wrong?
Ice Bound: Stranded in Antarctica
He sat in the makeshift camp on the polar ice as a cold wind heralded the approaching long dark winter. Soon the sun would not be seen for three months. He and his men had been trapped on the ice for nearly a year. As the winter darkness descended, he could hear the...