Wildlife Is Not a Trophy
- Isabelle Kenyon
- 3 hours ago
- 2 min read
The novel taking aim at trophy hunting
A wild animal is not a trophy.
It is not a mounted head, a photograph, a skin or a number on a hunter’s list. It is a living, sentient being with a family, a social life and a vital place in the natural world.
Yet trophy hunting continues to turn wildlife into targets and commodities.
The Pan African Sanctuary Alliance has warned of the threat trophy hunting poses to African primates, while Humane World for Animals reports that the United States accounted for 80% of internationally traded primate hunting trophies between 2007 and 2016…more than 800 primate trophies a year. (Source)
Behind every statistic is an animal that was once alive and thriving.
Now, bestselling novelist and zoologist John Ironmonger is taking the issue to the page.
The Angel of St Piran
John Ironmonger’s new novel, The Angel of St Piran, is a powerful anti-trophy-hunting story set between Cornwall and Tanzania.
Young researcher Angel Restorick travels to Tanzania to study chimpanzees and develops a profound bond with the animals. But when trophy hunters enter the forest, the chimpanzees she has come to know are placed in terrible danger.
This is not a novel in which trophy hunting is simply a backdrop…It is the villain.
The book confronts the idea that killing wild animals can be entertainment, sport or conservation — and asks us to look differently at the animals we share this planet with.
Why John Ironmonger?
John isn't simply a novelist writing about wildlife.
He is a retired zoologist born and raised in East Africa. He has researched elephant populations in Kenya, taught zoology on the edge of the Sahara and spent much of his life fascinated by the natural world.
His fiction has taken readers into questions of science, nature and humanity. His breakthrough novel, The Notable Brain of Maximilian Ponder, was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Prize and the Guardian's Not the Booker Prize. The Whale at the End of the World became an international bestseller, followed by The Coincidence Authority and The Wager and the Bear.
With The Angel of St Piran, his scientific knowledge and lifelong love of animals come together in his most direct challenge yet to trophy hunting.
As John recently told The Observer, he has a “profound love for chimpanzees” and a deep hatred of trophy hunting.
Why stories matter
We have the statistics. We have the scientific evidence. We have the campaigns.
But stories can make us care.
It is one thing to hear that hundreds of primate trophies enter international trade. It is another to meet a chimpanzee as an individual — to see its intelligence, its relationships and its place within a family.
That is the power of The Angel of St Piran.
It asks readers to stop seeing wildlife as something that can be owned, hunted or displayed, and to start seeing it as something worth protecting.
Wildlife belongs in the wild…not on a wall.
The Angel of St Piran is available now!
Read the book. Share the message. Stand against trophy hunting.
Wildlife is not a trophy.
Wildlife is worth more alive.
Want to take this further? Check out the Ban Trophy Hunting Campaign below - perfect for International Primate Day today!
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