Samuel Baker - Hunting Authority

Hunting Authority

Samuel Baker lived as a reputed Victorian Nimrod and was a milestone in the history of modern hunting through his works and deeds. He was proud of his British heritage and was an advocate of the virtues of his nation, and a fighter against slavery.

An acclaimed sportsman, he likely started hunting in the Scottish Highlands; his skills were renowned, and he once gave a demonstration to friends in Scotland of how he could, with dogs, successfully hunt down a stag armed only with a knife, he did the same with the large boars in the jungles of Ceylon. He hunted consistently until his last years, in Europe, Asia, Africa and North America.

He forged his skills chasing asian elephants and sambar deer in Ceylon, a place where Rowland Ward's records account him for some of world largest wild boar trophies. He travelled looking for sport in Asia Minor in 1860, in Scotland in 1869 for red stag, in the Rocky Mountains in 1881 downing elk, grizzly and buffalo. In 1886 he was in the French Alps, looking for brown bear and many times in India in 1885 and 1887–1889 pursuing tigers and blackbuck. His most memorable cynegetic (hunting-related) exploits remained the episodes in Africa and Ceylon, where he returned again towards the end of his life in 1887. He also visited for sport, Transylvania for bears, Serbia for wild boars, Hungary for deer, Cyprus in 1879, China and Japan.

He left a wealth of study in the science of hunting firearms and ballistics, and accounts as one of the world's few hunters that used the two bore rifle, the world's largest gun calibre for the purpose. He described in great detail his observations of the animal world, account in which, his book Wild Beasts And Their Ways (1890) ranks highest.

In 1863, the German zoologist Theodor von Heuglin, named a subspecies of Roan antelope in his honour: Hippotragus e. bakeri or Baker's antelope. In Sri Lanka the Baker's Falls bears his name, and in 1906 Luigi Amedeo, Duke of the Abruzzi while in Ruwenzori, Uganda named Mount Baker in his honour.