Taxidermia El Ciervo, homologación de trofeos de caza

Rowland Ward has a long and prestigious history and tradition in the hunting world. It is now well over a century since the first book containing horn measurements was published. Rowland Ward’s objective was to start a record of trophies which led him to publish Horn Measurements and Weights of the Great Game of the World in 1892. It is this objective that has sustained this book over the years. This was the first work of its kind and remained the only one for many years. It was not designed to be a scientific work but was compiled for sportsmen as well as scientists who were interested in seeing comparable measurements at a glance. The measurements were naturally listed in order of size; this however was not intended to have any competitive connotation.

James Rowland Ward was born in London in 1847. Although details of his early years are sketchy, it is clear that from a tender age he was extraordinarily interested in all aspects of natural history.

His father, Henry Ward, was a noted taxidermist and student of nature who had gained considerable renown as an intimate friend of John James Audubon. He accompanied the famed artist on some of his travels in search of new species, and many years later Rowland Ward took particular delight in tracing some of his father’s footsteps in America. Rowland Ward left school at the age of 14 to begin his apprenticeship at his father’s taxidermy studio. He enjoyed his work immensely and it was clear that he was gifted as a sculptor as well as an illustrator. After ten years apprenticeship he was commissioned by a wealthy businessman to produce a number of life-size heads of animals to be cast and treated as sculptor’s work. These were to be used in the decoration of a big house in the country. With the resulting fee he earned, he started his own business. With sheer hard work and determination this innovative, highly artistic taxidermist soon turned the business into a profitable concern.

The Jungle, as his final premises became known, was situated in London’s fashionable Piccadilly district, and became an essential calling place for all sportsmen. Huge success, awards and commissions followed culminating in a vast tableau called “Jungle Life” built for the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886. Over one hundred specimens were used ranging from a full mount of an elephant to stuffed snakes hanging from artificial foliage. Such was its success that this theme was repeated in 1895 and 1896. Rowland Ward’s exhibits were mounted with great ingenuity and endless attention to detail. They were the forerunners of museum dioramas showing animals in their natural habitat. He was so skilled and creative that he influenced fashion trends of the day and developed products known as Wardian furniture for decorative use. Rowland Ward’s creativity was not limited to the production and marketing of animal novelties. He was responsible for the development of a number of techniques which revolutionized taxidermy, and his innovations are still widely used today. He knew many of the famous naturalists and all the great sportsmen of his time and considered hunters such as Fred Selous, Sir Samuel Baker and Arthur Neumann as his friends. Intelligent though he was, he regularly asked knowledgeable people for their suggestions on how to improve his craft. Their input combined with his abilities permitted him to raise taxidermy to a new level. Although his talent as an artist and sculptor helped him immensely in his work, he also had a distinctly scientific bent and many new species of birds and animals were named after him such as a subspecies of the Asiatic ibex Capra sibirica wardi, a subspecies of reedbuck Redunca redunca wardi and a subspecies of the Malayan bear Ursus malayanus wardi.

Rowland Ward also published sporting books and these titles are now treasured collectors’ items. He published his autobiography A Naturalist’s Life Study in the Art of Taxidermy in 1913 (reprinted in 2002). Examples of other books on big-game hunting published by him are Fred Selous’s Travel and Adventure and Sunshine and Storm in Rhodesia; R. Lydekkers’s Game Animals of Africa; and H.A. Bryden’s Great and Small Game of Africa to name a few. In fact, his first written work was the Sportsman’s Handbook to Practical Collecting, Preserving, and Artistic Setting-up of Trophies and Specimens which was published in 1880. This book contained valuable information required to skin and preserve trophies. It has been updated through the years and the 15th edition, published in 2004, included lists of the two largest trophies of all species in the world. The second edition of horn measurements was published in 1896 under the name Records of Big Game and it has been known by this name ever since. The first edition contained measurements taken by Rowland Ward himself and from this edition measurements were supplied by many people around the world and this is still the case today. All subsequent editions up to and including the 9 th edition (1928) contained records of trophies from all continents of the world. However, the 10th edition, often considered to be the most important one, covered Africa and Asia only. The 11 th to the 19 th editions were restricted to Africa. The 20 th edition again included Africa and Asia, and the 21st covered European trophies only. The 22 nd to the current publication, the 26th edition, are World editions covering all the continents.

After Rowland Ward’s death in 1912, the taxidermy and publishing businesses continued. During the inter-war years the business flourished under the management of J.B. Burlace. In 1946, an Old Etonian named Gerald Best assumed a controlling interest in the company. He re-built the business following the Second World War and ran it successfully for over twenty years. During this time he developed an extensive foreign clientele particularly in America. This lucrative market was eventually taken over by the steadily improving American taxidermists, such as The Jonas Brothers of Denver, who began to exceed Rowland Ward’s in the quality of their work. When Gerald Best died in 1969 the business was divided into its different trading sections and left to his sons, Anthony and Tim. During the heyday of big game hunting, shoots organised by the Maharajah of Cooch Behar, for example, accounted for at least 365 tigers and he was only one of Rowland Ward’s customers. A post war resurgence in African big game hunting led to Rowland Ward opening a shop in Nairobi in 1950 where it received on average three lions per week for mounting. But, by the time of Gerald Best’s death, the good times were over and large mounts were becoming increasingly scarce. The taxidermy workshops closed in the mid 1970s and the company was formally wound up in 1983 on the petition of a French creditor, Jacques Vettier of Paris. The rights to the Rowland Ward publications, which includes the Records of Big Game, was sold to Game Conservation International of San Antonio, Texas in 1982. This is a conservation foundation formed by a group of prominent American sportsmen, including Harry Tennison, Todd Hunt Sr. and Phil Williamson. Harry Tennison mentioned recently that his interest in maintaining the authenticity of the Record Book was the main reason for his involvement. After one edition, the 19th, the editing and publishing was done by Stephen Smith in Johannesburg, South Africa until his untimely death in 1993. The rights to the publications have now been bought by the Halse family and the Record Book continues to be edited and published in South Africa.

The Records of Big Game has been and will continue to be about the animals. This is an historical record containing a vast amount of valuable information including the name of each species, the size of the specimen and the extent of its geographical range. It is the opinion of many hunters that Rowland Ward is the acceptable standard of trophies, particularly for African species. The minimum measurements required to qualify for entry into the Record Book are high in order that only the finest specimens are recorded. These standards encourage the hunter to select as his trophy mature males who have already left their contribution to the gene pool and this protects the genetic future of the species. The evidence of this can be found in the large number of new trophies qualifying for inclusion in the Book each year.

volver a homologaciones

tornar a homologacions