California businessman killed by elephants during antelope hunt in Gabon

Ernie Dosio, a 75-year-old businessman from Lodi, Calif., was killed in Gabon when a hunting party pursuing a rare forest antelope stumbled into a herd of elephants, a fatal encounter that has reignited debate over trophy hunting in Africa.

Dosio was tracking a yellow-backed duiker in the Lope-Okanda forest, in Gabon’s Lope region, on April 17 when five female elephants and a calf emerged from dense brush and charged. Collect Africa, the safari operator that arranged the hunt, confirmed his death and said Dosio’s professional guide was seriously injured in the encounter. Reports said Dosio was on a licensed guided hunt valued at about $40,000 and was carrying only a shotgun supplied by the safari company.

The incident is especially striking because Gabon’s forests hold a large share of the world’s remaining forest elephants, a species considered highly endangered. That collision between a wealthy foreign hunting party and one of Central Africa’s most vulnerable animals has sharpened a familiar divide: supporters of trophy hunting argue that expensive hunts can bring money into remote regions and pay for wildlife management, while critics see the practice as an ethical affront that puts already threatened species at further risk.

Dosio was far from a casual tourist. Friends and local accounts described him as a longtime big-game hunter and a prominent Northern California businessman who owned Pacific AgriLands Inc., a Modesto-based company that manages about 12,000 acres of vineyard land and provides services to wine producers. He lived in Lodi and was remembered in hunting and agricultural circles as a generous supporter of conservation and humanitarian projects. Tributes from friends in the Sacramento Safari Club said he had traveled to Africa multiple times and had previously hunted elephants, lions, leopards, rhinos and buffalo.

The U.S. Embassy in Gabon was coordinating the return of Dosio’s remains to California. His death leaves behind a sharp and unsettling reminder of the risks attached to big-game hunting, where the same forests marketed to foreign hunters as a trophy destination are also home to endangered wildlife, local communities and dangerous wildlife encounters that can turn lethal in seconds.