A 75-year-old American big-game hunter, Ernie Dosio, was killed after being crushed by a group of elephants while on a hunting expedition in Gabon. The incident occurred last Friday in the Lope-Okanda rainforest, where Dosio and his guide unexpectedly encountered five female elephants and a calf. The guide suffered serious injuries, the safari operator Collect Africa confirmed; the Daily Mail reported the operator’s statement.
Dosio, a vineyard owner originally from Lodi, California, had been hunting yellow-backed duiker, a species of antelope, when the animals were surprised by the party’s presence. He owned Pacific AgriLands Inc., which manages about 12,000 acres of vineyard land around Modesto and provides services and equipment financing to wine producers. He was also known within the Sacramento Safari Club and had amassed a large collection of hunting trophies, including elephants and lions.
A retired hunter who knew Dosio told reporters that Dosio had hunted since youth and that his hunts were legally licensed and registered, described by that source as part of conservation-oriented culling programs. The same source said the elephants had been startled by the hunters’ appearance.
U.S. embassy officials in Gabon are coordinating the repatriation of Dosio’s remains to California, the Daily Mail reported. Collect Africa confirmed the client’s death and noted the professional hunter guiding Dosio was seriously hurt in the encounter.
Gabon’s forests are estimated to shelter roughly 95,000 forest elephants, constituting a substantial portion of the species’ global population; forest elephants are considered highly endangered. Trophy hunting remains a controversial global industry: tens of thousands of wild animals are legally killed each year through hunting operations, and legal hunting tours in parts of Africa continue to attract wealthy clients. Estimates of the economic value of South Africa’s trophy-hunting sector have ranged from about $68 million to $120 million in different years, according to the EMS Foundation.
The topic of trophy imports has also been politically charged in the U.S. During his first presidential term, Donald Trump convened a wildlife advisory board to advise on federal rules for importing heads and hides of African elephants, lions and rhinoceroses; critics said the panel favored trophy hunters over conservationists and it was disbanded in 2020 following legal challenges.
Last year, another American hunter was killed after being gored by a buffalo while on a hunting trip in South Africa, underscoring the risks involved in close encounters with large wild animals.