In all likelihood, the one organized in 1909 by then-American President Theodore Roosevelt, passionate about nature and hunting. Roosevelt left for Africa just two months after leaving the presidency, returning a year later with 11,397 dead or captured animals . He decided that his trip was not only hunting, but also granted a scientific purpose: to collect specimens for the Smithsonian Institution in Washington and other museums .
The expedition traveled through Kenya, the Belgian Congo – today the Democratic Republic of the Congo – Uganda and followed the Nile to Sudan . It was financed by the millionaire Andrew Carnegie and the income that the ex-president obtained with his articles.
Only he and his son Kermit shot 512 animals. Among the victims, seventeen lions and elephants. Roosevelt, who carefully prepared the safari so that the collected pieces could fill the museum collections, declared: "I can only be condemned if the existence of the National Museum, the American Museum of Natural History and all similar zoological institutions is also condemned ."
