Tony Sànchez-Ariño
Tony Sánchez-Ariño was born 16 February 1930 in Valencia, Spain. He is the son of a famous surgeon, and Tony himself finished his own medical studies before going to Africa in 1952 for his first hunting safari at the age of twenty-two. (It was in Spanish Guinea, today Equatorial Guinea.)
He has been a professional hunter in Africa for over five decades, and during that time, he became fascinated by the African Big Five, but especially the elephant. He is also a great admirer of the bongo. In his capacities of professional white hunter he has guided clients in Cameroon, the C.A.R., Namibia, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Zaire, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and many other countries. He has even undertaken an expedition to eastern Siberia for brown bear.
Tony has made a lifelong and enthusiastic study of African hunting history, especially elephant hunting, and he has collected an enormous amount of material on the early ivory hunters. He is also a prolific author whose works include On the Trail of the African Elephant and its revised Elephants, Ivory, and Hunters; Last of the Few; Elephant Hunters, Men of Legend; Great African Calibers; Between the Congo River and the White Nile; and his Country Series—Hunting in Botswana, Hunting in Ethiopia, Hunting in Kenya, Hunting in South Africa, Hunting in the Sudan, Hunting in Tanzania, Hunting in Zambia, and Hunting in Zimbabwe.
He is a founder and life member of the International Professional Hunters’ Association, a full member of L’Association de Chasseurs Professionels de l’Afrique Francophone, and a past member of the former East African Professional Hunters’ Association.
Besides loving big-game hunting and elephants, he is also an enthusiastic stamp collector and an aficionado of Italian opera and classical music. Certainly no one can accuse Tony of not having versatile interests.
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