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animals as trophies, not in conservation of wildlife. As a result, concerted efforts were made to hunt giant panda in the Chinese mountains as big game was hunted in Africa.
The Roosevelt brothers
The first successful expedition to shoot a giant panda in its natural habitat was sponsored by the Field Museum of Chicago in 1928. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, sons of the irrepressible Teddy, undertook the task to "collect the strange raccoon bears in the mountains of Yunnan and Sichuan". It was a journey troubled by hostile weather, and equally treacherous terrain, further disturbed by intermittent encounters with marauding bandits. Local officials proved to be singularly unhelpful. Information provided by the populace turned out to be unreliable as well. The expedition gave credit to members of a local semi-agrarian Tibeto-Burman tribal people, the Lo-lo, for leading them to their prey on April 13, 1928.
On that day, the men had followed tracks on snow for three hours, finally detecting a giant panda asleep in a fir tree. Kermit Roosevelt wrote in an article in the Journal of the American Museum of Natural History:
'Three hours' trailing through dense jungle brought us to the spot which (the giant panda) had selected for his siesta. We (Kermit and Theodore) caught sight of him emerging from the hollow bole of a giant fir tree, and fired simultaneously.
Their prize, the pelt of this giant panda, the first ever of the species to be shot by outsiders, was put on exhibition at the Field Museum. The Roosevelt brothers were hailed as innovative explorers who had contributed greatly to the advancement of zoological knowledge”.
Thereafter, similar expeditions sponsored by other learned institutions were launched.
The Sage expedition
In 1934, an expedition was sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Led by Dean Sage Jr., the expedition