And so ... we went to Africa

David A. Lowry, a donor to the museum, and his wife Barbara went on safari in 1959 with professional hunter Sidney Downey. The film documents the Lowrys' vacation trip, starting from Nairobi, through Amboseli National Park and Garba Tula in Kenya to Tanzania's Lake Manyara National Park, Ngorongoro Conservation Unit, and Serengeti National Park. The Lowrys hired professional filmmaker Allen Bendig and editor Charles R. Senf to make a film of the safari. Excellent views of a wide variety of mammals and birds comprise the bulk of the footage. Specific animals shown include: rhinoceroses, giraffes, reticulated giraffes, elephants, oryxes, impalas, baboons, crowned cranes, black ibis, white ibis, stilts, secretary birds, wild dogs, wildebeests, Cape buffaloes, flamingoes, servels, egrets, Grant's and Grevy's zebras, hippopotamuses, eland, hyenas, lions, cheetahs, waterbucks, bat-eared foxes, topis, hyraxes, mongooses, klipspringers, warthogs and leopards. The narration addresses the decimation of African animals, stating that indigenous peoples and poachers were responsible. AMNH mammalogists who reviewed the script of the film prior to its completion believed the role of trophy hunters in the destruction of wildlife was vastly underestimated.