President Theodore Roosevelt enjoyed a reputation as a fervent naturalist and conservationist. As a result, the Smithsonian Institution commissioned Roosevelt and his son Kermit to travel to Eastern Africa in 1909, along with other zoologists, to harvest examples of various exotic wildlife for display and study in the United States.
The expedition brought back over 11,000 specimens, including insects and plants. However, T.R. and his son personally killed 512 vertebrates, including seventeen times as many lions as Dr. Walter Palmer, the Minnesota dentist who recently got in hot water for hunting the big cat in Zimbabwe. A full casualty list of the two Roosevelts is attached below. Some of the animals are still on display at the Smithsonian.
There is no doubt that Theodore Roosevelt was a devout conservationist who really enjoyed killing animals. This is not necessarily a contradiction, as evidenced by the fact that deer hunting is an important aspect of keeping herds from becoming so large that they end up dying from lack of food. However, it should be noted that several of the Roosevelt trophies included white rhinos (called "square-mouthed" on Roosevelt's list), which even in 1909 were on the brink of extinction and certainly did not need harvesting in order to prevent mass starvation.
For a brief synopsis of the 1909 expedition, please click here. To read the book written by T.R. on the subject, African Game Trails; an Account of the African Wanderings of an American Hunter-Naturalist, click here.
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