Wilbur D. May

was a rich rancher in the Reno area in the 1920s. In 1929 he finally was able to hire the
Hon. Denys Finch Hatton as the leader of his safari in Africa. This so called "white hunter" was very popular with British high society and had accompanied the prince of Wales in the year before. You might have "seen" him in the movie "Out of Africa" ( w. Meryl Streep and Robert Redford)

This is one half of May's trophy room, that he donated to the town of Reno after his death. All of the animals you see here have been hunted and killed during that safari that lasted nearly one year. This picture should be seen in large to admire the beauty of the beasts. Let them not have died for nothing...
It is a little museum now , this room and his bedroom are only a small part of it. He also financed an arboretum both in Reno and in Las Vegas.

Before going on that safari, May had sold all his stocks and bought government bonds for the money. When he came back after a year , the stock market had crashed and little later he was able to rebuy his former stocks for 1/20 of their former value. After that he became incredibly rich and continued hunting in Asia and India. It was a gentlemen's sport at the time and game seemed so plentiful that nobody thought that entire races could be extinct. By the beginning of the Fifties, exactly this had happened and even people like Mr. May realized that they had to change their ways. He supported after that many attempts to protect and regrow the animals in Africa, Asia and India.

Thank you for your feed back on yesterdays Blip. Most kind!

I nearly did not post anything today, as nearly all of my pictures turned out badly. On top of that I had thought for 3/4 of the day that I did not want to post at all. Give myself a break. There is so much else to do. Well, that might still happen, for a little while at least. We'll see :-)