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46-423: The group was led by the hunter-tracker R. J. Cunninghame . Participants on the expedition included Australian sharpshooter Leslie Tarlton; three American naturalists, Edgar Alexander Mearns , a retired U.S. Army surgeon; Stanford University taxidermist Edmund Heller , and mammalologist John Alden Loring ; and Roosevelt's 19-year-old son Kermit , on a leave of absence from Harvard . The expedition also included

92-468: A Winchester 1895 rifle in .405 Winchester . Roosevelt also brought his Pigskin Library, a collection of 59 classic books bound in pig leather and transported in a single reinforced trunk. The party set sail from New York City on the steamer Hamburg on March 23, 1909, shortly after the end of Roosevelt's presidency on March 4. The Hamburg arrived at its destination at Naples , where the party boarded

138-627: A bar to his MC for service in Greece and France. Bell was discharged in April 1918 for medical reasons (stated on his discharge papers as 'nervous asthma') and was permitted to retain his rank of captain. After a period of time recuperating from illnesses contracted during the war, he returned to elephant hunting, shooting in Liberia, on the Ivory Coast, and travelling far inland by canoe, making

184-453: A Flight Commander in Europe, flying Bristol Fighters . Bell was the first in his squadron (No. 47) to score an air victory when he shot down a German two-seater aircraft over Salonika on 23 December 1916. He shot down a German Albatross fighter with a single shot, after which his machine gun jammed, and once shot an aircraft down with a machine gun that did not have its sights aligned with

230-566: A Lee–Enfield sporting rifle in .303 British and Mauser rifles chambered in .318 Westley Richards . He disliked the double rifles considered archetypal for the African hunting of his time due to what he considered recoil so heavy as to be detrimental to accuracy, their delicacy in the field, their weight, and the unreliable sporting ammunition of the day. He particularly praised a Mannlicher M1893 rifle chambered in 6.5×53mmR from George Gibbs that he used for most of his buck meat hunting in

276-475: A good working relationship with the native African peoples where he hunted, trading cattle for information as to where he could find good numbers of bull elephants. He believed that this co-operation with the local tribes was the main reason for his great success as an elephant hunter. He hunted in the warlike Karamojo area for five years without the killing of a single African in self-defence becoming necessary. One of Bell's closest African companions while hunting

322-432: A large number of porters, gunbearers, horse boys, tent men, and askari guards, as well as 250 local guides and hunters. Equipment included material for preserving animal hides, including powdered borax , cotton batting, and four tons of salt, as well as a variety of tools, weapons, and other equipment ranging from lanterns to sewing needles. Roosevelt brought a M1903 Springfield in .30-03 caliber and, for larger game,

368-712: A last elephant hunt in 1939, his plans were interrupted by the start of the Second World War. Bell retired to his 1,000-acre highland estate at Garve in Ross-shire, Scotland, named 'Corriemoillie', with his wife Katie (daughter of Sir Ernest and Lady Soares) to whom he had become engaged during the First World War. He published two books about his exploits in Africa, illustrated with his own sketches and paintings. 'Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter', which

414-620: A pioneer of wilderness conservation in the US, he fully supported the contemporary British government's attempts to set aside wilderness areas as game reserves, some of the first on the African continent. He notes (page 17) that "in the creation of the great game reserve through which the Uganda railway runs the British Government has conferred a boon upon mankind." Roosevelt helped establish a conservation attitude that eventually resulted in

460-462: A successful business in coal and shale oil and the Bell family resided in their stately home near Broxburn , as well as owning the surrounding estate and other country properties. He was brought up by his elder brothers but ran away from several schools, and he once hit his school captain over the head with a cricket bat. At the age of 13 he went to sea, and in 1896, at the age of 16, hunted lions for

506-607: A trip of 3,000 miles in 1921. On this expedition he was joined by his comrade from the Royal Flying Corps, R. M. Wynne-Eyton. His last safari was an automobile expedition through the Sudan and Chad with Americans Gerrit and Malcolm Forbes, of which he later remarked that 'little hunting was done'. Rather the aim was to travel as far and as fast as possible with the vehicles. After this expedition Bell did not return to Africa. Although he intended to travel by air to Uganda for

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552-577: A winter of shooting moose and deer with a .350 Farquharson single-shot, his partner cheated him of his earnings, leaving him nearly penniless. He sold his rifle for enough money to get back to Dawson. In order to return to Africa he joined the Canadian Mounted Rifles , seeing service during the Boer War . Bell was captured when his horse was shot from under him, but he escaped and managed to get back to British lines; upon doing that he

598-423: Is 512, of which 43 are birds. The number of big game animals killed, was 18 lion, 3 leopard, 6 cheetah, 10 hyena, 12 elephant, 10 buffalo, 9 (now very rare) black rhino and 97 White rhino . Most of the 469 larger non big game mammals included 37 species and subspecies of antelopes. The expedition consumed 262 of the animals which were required to provide fresh meat for the large number of porters employed to service

644-484: Is noted for using smaller calibre bullets rather than the heavy recoiling, larger calibre bullets that were popular with other big game hunters. Like many other professional elephant hunters of the time, he started hunting elephants with a sporting .303 Lee Enfield rifle, taking 63 elephant heads on his first safari. Later he outfitted himself for extensive hunting safaris in the Karamojo region of Uganda, preferring

690-552: Is pleasant to be made to realize in vivid fashion the progress the American negro has made, by comparing him with the negro who dwells in Africa untouched, or but lightly touched, by white influence." Roosevelt became a Life Member of the National Rifle Association of America , as President, in 1907 after he paid a $ 25 fee. He later wrote a detailed account in the book African Game Trails in which he describes

736-674: The Admiral , a German-flagged ship selected because it permitted the expedition to load large quantities of ammunition. While on board the Hamburg , Roosevelt encountered Frederick Courteney Selous , a longtime friend who was traveling to his own African safari, traversing many of the same areas. Throughout the expedition, the party traveled by train and steamboat, and sometimes even horse or camel. The party landed in Mombasa , British East Africa (now Kenya ) on April 21, 1909, and traveled to

782-1000: The Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo ) before following the Nile to Khartoum in modern Sudan . Financed by Andrew Carnegie and by his own proposed writings, Roosevelt's party hunted for specimens for the Smithsonian Institution , American Museum of Natural History in New York, and the San Francisco Museum. Roosevelt returned to the United States in June 1910. Roosevelt and his companions killed or trapped approximately 11,397 animals. According to Theodore Roosevelt's own tally,

828-622: The Karamoja sub-region in Uganda , which he travelled extensively, was a Scottish adventurer, big game hunter in East Africa, soldier, decorated fighter pilot, sailor, writer, and painter. Famous as one of the most successful ivory hunters of his time, Bell was an advocate of accurate shot placement with smaller calibre rifles, over the heavy large-bore rifles his contemporaries used for big African game. He improved his hunting skills by

874-1004: The Smithsonian Institution . Mearns co-founded the American Ornithologists' Union in 1883. He scientifically described several birds and other animal species , like the Taita thrush , the Apo sunbird , the Boran cisticola , the Chihuahuan grasshopper mouse , and the rufous-headed tailorbird . He died in Washington, D.C. , at the age of 60. Several animal taxa are named in honor of Mearns: five birds; seven mammals, including Mearns's pocket gopher ( Thomomys bottae mearnsi ); and Petrosaurus mearnsi . Karamoja Bell Walter Dalrymple Maitland Bell (8 September 1880 – 30 June 1954), known as Karamojo Bell after

920-539: The Uganda Railway using a single-shot rifle chambered in .303 British . Bell convinced his family to back him for a trip to Africa, where he obtained a job shooting man-eating lions for the Uganda Railway at the age of 16. In 1896 Bell travelled to North America, where he spent a short time panning for gold in the Yukon gold rush and earned a living by shooting game to supply Dawson City with meat. After

966-408: The .275 (7x57) chambered in a Rigby-Mauser rifle. Around 800 of his elephant kills were made with Mauser 98 rifles chambered for the 7×57mm Mauser / .275 (using the 1893 pattern standard military 11.2-gram (172.8 gr) grain round-nosed full metal jacket load). Bell preferred smaller calibers because they recoiled less, were lighter to carry, and in his estimation killed elephants just as well as

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1012-526: The American hunter Gerrit Forbes, a cousin of Franklin Roosevelt who accompanied him on three safaris for elephants between 1907 and 1913. He was also a personal friend of American gunwriter Townsend Whelen . Bell was one of the so-called "gentlemen adventurers" that "poached" the lawless Lado Enclave after Belgium withdrew from the region following the death of Leopold the Second in 1909, and prior to

1058-479: The Karamojo region was a Karamojoan named Payale, a member of a local tribe. They hunted together over several safaris in the region, and Bell accorded him great respect. Another of Bell's hunting companions was New Zealander Harry Rayne, who accompanied him on a safari to Sudan and the Karamojo in 1907, and who later became District Commissioner in British Somaliland. Bell was also a lifelong friend of

1104-473: The Karamojo. On one occasion in West Africa in the midst of a famine he killed a herd of 23 forest buffalo using a .22 Savage Hi-Power rifle with lung shots, in order to feed a local villagers who were starving. Bell used the brain shot on elephants extensively, as it did not disturb the herd as much when the elephants were killed instantly, whereas body shots would mean the animals would run and upset

1150-491: The Royal Flying Corps in East Africa, Greece, and France during the First World War. Bell was born into a wealthy family of Scottish and Manx ancestry, on the family's estate named Clifton Hall , (today a school) in Linlithgowshire , near Edinburgh in 1880. Walter was the second-youngest of eight children. His mother died when he was two years old and his father died when he was six. His father Robert Bell owned

1196-404: The bigger bore cartridges. Bell found that German 7x57 and English .303 military ammunition was the most reliable, which also encouraged him to use the smaller calibers. His favourite rifles were bespoke Rigby-made 7×57mm Mausers with which he shot the majority of his elephants, a 'wand-like' Mannlicher–Schoenauer 6.5×54mm carbine, which he abandoned due to failure of the available ammunition,

1242-518: The bore. With his observer Lieutenant Robert Mainwaring Wynne-Eyton, Captain Bell shot down a French SPAD by mistake, although the French pilot survived unscathed. Bell was mentioned in dispatches for the first time in 1916. By the end of the war he had received this distinction five times. He was awarded the Military Cross in June 1916 which was presented by General Smuts, and received

1288-523: The dissection and study of the skulls of elephants he shot. He perfected a technique of shooting elephants from the extremely difficult position, diagonally behind the target; this became known as the 'Bell Shot'. Although chiefly known for his exploits in Africa, Bell also travelled to North America and New Zealand, sailed windjammers , saw service in South Africa during the Boer War, and flew in

1334-430: The excitement of the chase, the people he met, and the flora and fauna he collected in the name of science. Roosevelt greatly enjoyed hunting, but he was also an avid conservationist. In African Game Trails , he condemns "game butchery as objectionable as any form of wanton cruelty and barbarity" although he notes that "to protest against all hunting of game is a sign of softness of head, not of soundness of heart". As

1380-654: The expedition. Tons of salted animals and their skins were shipped to Washington, D.C. The quantity took years to mount , and the Smithsonian shared many duplicate animals with other museums . Regarding the large number of animals taken, Roosevelt said, "I can be condemned only if the existence of the National Museum , the American Museum of Natural History , and all similar zoological institutions are to be condemned." Some context in considering whether

1426-718: The fauna and trees of the boundary between Mexico and the United States in his 1907 Mammals of the Mexican Boundary of the United States . In 1909 he retired from the army with a rank of a lieutenant colonel . Later that year Theodore Roosevelt invited Mearns to accompany the Smithsonian-Roosevelt African Expedition as naturalist. From 1911 to 1912 he was a member of the Childs Frick expedition in Africa to collect and prepare specimens of birds that Frick later presented to

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1472-591: The figure included about four thousand birds, two thousand reptiles and amphibians, five hundred fish, and 4,897 mammals (other sources put the figure at 5,103). Combined with marine, land and freshwater shells, crabs, beetles, and other invertebrates, not to mention several thousand plants, the number of natural history specimens totals 23,151. A separate collection was made of ethnographic objects. The material took eight years to catalogue. The larger animals that were shot by Theodore and Kermit Roosevelt are listed on pages 457 to 459 of his book African Game Trails . The total

1518-544: The following cartridges: 6.5x54 Mannlicher, 7x57 Mauser (.275), .303 British, .318 Westley Richards, .350 Rigby Magnum, .416 Rigby and .450/400. The most elephants he shot in one day was 19. The most bull elephants killed for their ivory in one month was 44. The largest amount of money made from ivory taken in a single day was 863 pounds sterling. He wore out 24 pairs of boots in a year and estimated that for every bull taken, he had walked an average of 73 miles (117 km). Bell has become famous for his superb marksmanship. He

1564-472: The form of today's game parks in East Africa. Edgar Alexander Mearns Edgar Alexander Mearns (September 11, 1856 – November 1, 1916) was an American surgeon , ornithologist and field naturalist . He was a founder of the American Ornithologists' Union . Mearns was born in Highland Falls, New York , to Alexander and Nancy Reliance Mearns (née Clarswell). His grandfather Alexander

1610-566: The hunters were not collecting specimens for museums but were occasionally employed by landowners to clear animals from land that they wanted to use for plantations and frequently as ivory hunters with or without hunting permits or licenses. Although the safari was conducted in the name of science, it was as much a political and social event as it was a hunting excursion. Roosevelt interacted with renowned professional hunters and landowning families, and met many native peoples and local leaders, which he contrasted to African Americans , saying: "...it

1656-525: The large mammals collected had a negligible impact on the great herds of game that roamed East Africa at that time. Apologists for the Roosevelts have pointed out that the number of each big game species shot was very modest by the standards of the time. Many hunters of that period, for example, such as Karamoja Bell , had killed over 1,000 elephants each, and the Roosevelts between them killed just eleven. In making that comparison, it must be remembered that

1702-572: The military as a surgeon. From 1899 to 1903, he was a medical officer in several army institutions. From 1903 to 1904 and from 1905 to 1907, he traveled to the Philippines; he had to interrupt his journey in 1904 because he came down with a parasitic disease. In 1905 a trip led him to Guam . As major and surgeon in the army, Mearns was appointed medical officer to the International Boundary Commission; he reported on

1748-669: The outbreak of the First World War , Bell was hunting in the French Congo and immediately headed back to England and began to learn to fly. He enlisted in the Royal Flying Corps , becoming a reconnaissance pilot in Tanganyika (present day Tanzania). It is reputed that in the early days he sometimes flew without an observer so that he could take pot-shots at the enemy with his hunting rifle. Later, he became

1794-464: The outbreak of the Second World War. He also stalked red stags in the Scottish hills with a Winchester Model 54 chambered in the .220 Swift cartridge, of which he wrote articles describing its superior effect on deer due to the high velocity of the bullet. After suffering from a heart attack in 1947 which limited his activities, Bell spent his last years on his estate. Only a few days after posting

1840-474: The quantity of animals taken was excessive is that the animals were gathered over a period of ten months and were procured over an area that ranged from Mombasa through Kenya, to Uganda and the Southern Sudan. The distance traveled, with side trips, was several thousand kilometers. The diversity of larger mammal species collected was such that few individuals of any species were shot in any given area, and

1886-525: The rest, causing them to stampede. With the brain shot he was able to shoot several animals before the herd became restless or took flight. He mastered an oblique shot from the rear on fleeing elephants, which was angled through the neck muscles and into the brain. This difficult shot has become known as "The Bell Shot" on elephants. After the First World War, he began to use the .318 Westley Richards calibre almost exclusively, observing his 'inexplicable misses' then stopped. In all WDM Bell shot elephants with

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1932-579: The territory becoming part of Sudan . Bell himself was already hunting in the Lado with a legal license from the Belgians when Leopold died, and was not poaching. In the Karamojo Bell carried a Mauser C96 , equipped with a shoulder stock and chambered in 9mm Mauser Export calibre, which although never used against human targets, he "kept them dodging for 400 or 500 yards" according to Bell. At

1978-808: Was made a scout. After the Boer war ended in 1902, Bell remained in Africa, becoming a professional elephant hunter . Over sixteen years spent in Africa, he hunted elephants for their ivory in Kenya , Uganda , Ethiopia , Sudan , the Lado Enclave , French Ivory Coast , Liberia , French Congo , and the Belgian Congo . He became known as " Karamojo " Bell (sometimes spelt Karamoja ) because of his safaris through this remote wilderness area in North Eastern Uganda. Bell shot 1,011 elephants during his career; all of them bulls apart from 28 cows. He

2024-583: Was of Scottish origin and moved to Highland Falls in 1815. Edgar Mearns was educated at the Donald Highland Institute (Highland Falls). He attended the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons , graduating in 1881. In 1881, he married Ella Wittich of Circleville, Ohio . The couple had one son and one daughter. Their son was born in 1886 and died in 1912. Mearns became a doctor in the U.S. Army. From 1882 to 1899 he served

2070-555: Was once witnessed shooting fish jumping from the surface of a lake, and he wrote of shooting flying birds out of the sky with his .318 Westley Richards rifle, in order to use up a batch of faulty ammunition. In addition to elephants, Bell had to supply his African porters and their families with meat and also hides - for their own use and also to trade for other supplies from the local peoples. He shot over 800 cape buffalo with his small calibre rifles, as well as countless other plains game, including rhinoceroses and lions. Bell preserved

2116-676: Was serialised in Britain's Country Life magazine, 'Karamojo Safari', and several articles about aspects of shooting and firearms in the NRA's American Rifleman in the USA. His third book, Bell of Africa , was published posthumously. Bell and his wife Katie spent their later years sailing competitively. They commissioned the first steel-hulled racing yacht, Trenchmere (37 tons), in Scotland in 1934 and sailed her in transatlantic ocean racing until

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