Peter Hathaway Capstick

Peter Hathaway Capstick (1940-1996) was a famous hunter and author. Born in Orange, Essex County, New Jersey on January 11, 1940 and educated at University of Virginia, he left Wall Street at the age of nearly thirty and hunted in Central and South America before going to Africa, where he held pro hunting licenses in Ethiopia, Zambia, Botswana, and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He spent most of his life in Africa, the land he called his "source of inspiration." Though he spent a lifetime hunting some of the most dangerous big game animals on the planet, his death did not come from a lion's jaws or an elephant's tusks. A chain-smoker and whiskey drinker, he died after complications following heart surgery in a Pretoria hospital in March 1996.

After a short career on Wall Street in the securities brokerage business, he headed to Central and South America. He traveled widely while hunting, fishing and mastering the Spanish language. After a few years he returned to New York where he started a hunt booking agency which he quickly sold and took a position as Hunting & Fishing Director of Winchester Adventures of New York. In that capacity he made his first trip to Africa in 1968 when he went wing shooting in Morocco and hunting in Ethiopia.

Following Winchester Adventures, Capstick began working in safari operations in Zambia, Botswana and Rhodesia. He began writing in 1968 and had numerous articles published in various sporting magazines. In 1977, his first book, "Death in the Long Grass" was published.

Capstick met his wife, Mary Catherine Coughlan, in 1981 along the Letaba River near Kruger National Park in South Africa; they were married shortly thereafter (on 29 September 1982 in Collier County, Florida). Mary was born in South Africa; she became an officer in the South African armed forces and was seconded to the military intelligence division as a multilingual translator and interpreter.

Capstick was a keynote speaker at the annual Safari Club International convention when he collapsed in his hotel room, was hospitalized, diagnosed with exhaustion. Upon his return to South Africa on 5 February 1996 he was immediately hospitalized in the cardiac care unit of a Pretoria hospital. He underwent the first bypass procedure on 4 March and had still further surgery on 10 March to the arteries in his neck. Capstick died just before midnight on 13 March 1996 from massive thromboses and other complications resulting from heart bypass surgery.

In accordance with his last will and testament a very small, private ceremony was held. His wife, Fiona Claire then flew to northeastern Botswana where his ashes were scattered over the Chobe River. In 2006 Fiona Claire married Adelino Serras Pires, a Portuguese big game hunter and safari guide who had lived in Mozambique and worked throughout southern Africa.

The .470 Capstick rifle cartridge, developed by A-Square's Colonel Arthur B. Alphin in 1990, bears his name.

Bibliography

• A Man Called Lion
• African Adventurers: A Return To Silent Places, The
• Death in a Lonely Land
• Death in the Dark Continent
• Death in the Long Grass
• Death in the Silent Places
• Last Ivory Hunter, The
• Last Horizons
• Maneaters
• Peter Capstick's Africa : A Return To The Long Grass
• Sands of Silence
• Safari: the Last Adventure
• Warrior: the Legend of Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen

Filmography

• Capstick - Botswana Safari
• Capstick - Hunting the White Rhino
• Capstick - Hunting the African Elephant
• Capstick - Hunting the African Lion
• Capstick - Hunting the Cape Buffalo
• Capstick - Botswana Safari
• Capstick's Last Safari

References

Capstick, Peter (1990). Death In A Lonely Land. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-03810-6.

Alphin, Arthur B. (1996). Any Shot You Want: The A-Square Handloading & Rifle Manual. Kentucky: On-Target Press. ISBN 0-9643683-1-5.