page_title: John Faunthorpe
section_title: Shooting and hunting
hierarchical_section_title: John Faunthorpe / Shooting and hunting
caption_attribution_description: A.S. Vernay (left) and J.C. Faunthorpe in India in 1923
context_page_description: Colonel John Champion Faunthorpe MC was a British Army officer, big game hunter and sport shooter. Apart from serving in the Indian Civil Services in the United Provinces, he also worked in World War I in the intelligence and was in charge of controlling the press. After working briefly in the United States as part of the British Embassy, he returned to India to join Arthur Stannard Vernay on an expedition to collect specimens of South Asian mammals for the American Museum of Natural History and the taxidermy mounts were then exhibited in what was named the Vernay-Faunthorpe Hall.
context_section_description: Faunthorpe was an accomplished shooter from college days. He represented the British team at the 1924 Summer Olympics he finished fourth in the team 100 metre running deer, single shots competition and 21st in the individual 100 metre running deer, single shots event. Faunthorpe believed that many bright young men entered the service in India simply because of the appeal of hunting that would be available to them. As a big game hunter, he shot tigers in India especially when he was posted in Naini Tal, went on numerous pig sticking hunts and on one hunt is noted for spearing a leopard. He killed nearly a hundred leopards in the Muzaffarnagar area where he was posted in 1905. 
  While in the United States, Faunthorpe visited the American Museum of Natural History and wrote to its president Henry Fairfield Osborn that he could help in making a collection of Indian animals as the few Indian specimens exhibited were in a poor state. He also met A.S. Vernay who was then planning travels around the world. Although Faunthorpe used monocles (until he heard that they were unpopular in the United States) and came to be called "Old Blind Eye" he was renowned for his sharp shooting. When in Nepal with Arthur Vernay, a tigress leaped onto the head of the elephant on which they were riding. It was shot by Faunthorpe before it could attack Vernay. Another time, he shot a tiger with a single shot from a swaying elephant top at 200 yards. During the Vernay-Faunthorpe Expedition (1922-1923) he worked with princely states and local governments to collect specimens including those of lions in Kathiawar, tigers, leopards, and elephants in Kheri, Bhopal, and Mysore. These were prepared by the taxidermist John Jonas (his brother Louis Jonas worked on the museum mounts) and were later exhibited in the Vernay-Faunthorpe Hall of the American Museum of Natural History. Faunthorpe also wrote on hunting and the status of wild animals in India. He believed that cheetahs had declined due to predation by Indian wild dogs. He also obtained a pink-headed duck specimen (which he had noted as being extremely rare even then) for the AMNH.
caption: Vernay (left) and Faunthorpe shooting in India, 1923
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