Teddy Roosevelt

[Colorado Cowboy]

He is one of my Hero's and I have an extensive collection of his books and books about him. I found an old Executive Edition of his book Hunting Trips of a Ranchman/Hunting Trips on the Prairie and the Mountains to add to my collection. I just finished reading it for the 2nd time and found a couple of great quotes on Elk hunting.

"The true still-hunter should be a lover of nature as well as of sport, or he will miss half the pleasure of being in the woods."

"No sportsman can ever feel much keener pleasure and self-satisfaction than when, after a successful stalk and good shot, he walks up to a grand elk and looks at the massive and yet finely molded form, and at the mighty antlers which are to serve in the future as the trophy and proof of his successful skill."


He was a real visionary about hunting and sportsmanship. We owe much for his attitude and foresight about hunting.

 

[mosquito]

Amen cc

 

[mallardsx2]

There is a stark difference between him and the "politicians" of today.

Thanks for the quotes!

 

[El Serio]

Several of the species that we currently hunt were teetering on the edge of extinction when Teddy Roosevelt took office. Without the conservation policies that he enacted, I wonder if we might have lost some of them?

 

[Hilltop]

I really applaud many of the things he accomplished. Without him, hunting may not be the same today. However I struggle to read some of the accounts from his hunts. It was common to shoot something and just take the antlers leaving the meat to spoil.
https://www.bartleby.com/52/9.html

 

[JimP]

You have to figure that at the time of his hunting adventures that most of the meat would spoil one way or another without refrigeration. That and I would wager that most of his hunting was done in the late summer/early fall except for when he would go out in the spring of the year for bears.

It's a lot like when you hear that the Native Americans were true conservationist. That is until you go to the Dakotas and see where they would run whole herds of bison off of cliffs and then gorge themselves on the meat, then go do it again. I also read that if a animal presented itself to a hunter that it had to be shot or the gods would frown upon the hunts since the animal was offering itself to the hunter and the hunter didn't take advantage. Those were the true days of feast and famine.

 

[Colorado Cowboy]

He was not a very good shot (probably because of his eyes) and there were lots of animals that escaped that were wounded.

The book I cited was from his ranching days in the Dakotas. Most of the animals taken during that period were used as food for his ranch hands. Later during the hunts with friends and guests, it was true that they could not eat everything that that was taken and Jim is right about preserving the meat.

 

[ScottR]

I love Teddy Roosevelt for his conservation work, some of the weird eugenics stuff that came from that era were rough though. Just like everything else, take the good and bad.