Archduke Franz Ferdinand Collected Animal Heads
Most people recognize the name Archduke Franz Ferdinand because his assassination was the catalyst to begin World War I. But before he died, he was known for being a hunter who felled nearly 275,000 animals throughout his life. He kept meticulous records of every animal he slaughtered. His record was 2,140 animals in one day. According to those who knew him, Ferdinand “radiated an aura of strangeness and cast a shadow of violence and recklessness.” Of course, it wasn’t enough for him to just shoot birds or deer. He collected exotic animals from hunting trips around the world. His Uncle, Franz Joseph, the Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, called it “mass murder.”
Some people might wonder what an avid hunter is doing on a list of hoarders. While many of his “prizes” were used to eat meat, he also collected taxidermy pieces of these animals in his home. After his world tour in 1893, he brought back an entire ship filled with the animal bodies he hunted like tigers, koalas, kangaroos, and so much more. There were so many pointy antlers hanging on his walls that he reportedly needed a servant to help him walk down the hallway so that he wouldn’t get “impaled by antlers”. Some of his trophies were really grotesque, like the foot of an elephant that was turned into an ashtray.