Although he was known as the conservationist president, he was also, ironically, a hunter. However, he made a conscious effort to strike a balance between hunting and conserving wildlife and attempted to influence the public in a similar way. His love for the wild and his hunting experiences are some of the things that have guided his life values.
At 12 years old, he shot a couple of winged species on a family trip to Egypt. He hunted and continued to gain experiences for his field in natural sciences. Roosevelt was often the most at ease when he was surrounded by the outdoors and he delved deeper into hunting when he left for Dakota Territory after the death of his mother and first wife. He started operations for a cattle ranch in Dakota Territory. This was followed by a second ranch. However, he eventually sold his ranches due to overgrazing and bad weather which lead to financial losses.
He also founded Boone and Crockett Club (1887) which aimed to promote manly sport with the rifle. This seems to imply that hunting could be a sport for enjoyment and inevitably animals would be at risk. However, Roosevelt’s aims for the club were to spread the ideals of ethical hunting and an interest in natural science, in order to advocate for wildlife preservation. He emphasised that all hunters should be nature lovers, instead of wasteful slaughterers, and work towards conservation of wildlife.
These are the animals he has killed with his son, Kermit, during the Smithsonian African Expedition (1909).
List of game shot from African Game Trail [digital image]. (1910). Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/africangametrail00rooseve/page/n35
It may appear contradictory that this safari trip was proposed as a conservation mission as Roosevelt described the thrill of the hunt with great enthusiasm in his books. However, he included this in a paragraph of African Game Trails: “Kermit and I kept about a dozen trophies for ourselves, otherwise we shot nothing that was not either used as a museum specimen or for meat… the mere size of the bag indicates little as to a man’s prowess as a hunter, and almost nothing as to the interest or value of his achievement.”. Most of the animals were donated to science and several of them are displayed at the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum.
Roosevelt did not hunt just for the thrill of killing. During a bear hunt, he refused to shoot an injured old bear. Hence the naming of toy bears as “Teddy Bears” came about. Roosevelt saw hunting as a noble sport that could potentially provide people with a chance to study wildlife and contribute to preserving wildlife and the environment. He wrote several books regarding his observations, such as Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail, and African Game Trails. Roosevelt definitely had an eccentric approach towards conservation.
“In a civilised and cultivated country, wild animals only continue to exist at all when preserved by sportsman.” -Theodore Roosevelt, The Deer Family