Birth Date: 29 Jan 1888 Germany
Death Date: 12 Apr 1971 Nairobi
Profession: Eminent Taxidermist, he first went to EA with a game shooting safari, but later opened a Taxidermist business initially on Sclaters Rd. opposite the plot later occupied by the Mayfair hotel, and latterly at Ruaraka (today’s Zimmerman estate).
Studied as Naturalist and Dermoplastiker Museum of Phylogeny University of Jena; Army Service 1914-19; Phylogeny Museum Jena; Museum of Natural History Wiesbaden, Zoological Museum Hamburg University; Chief Dermoplastiker Umlaff Studios Hamburg; came to Nairobi 1929, built up taxidermy branch for Chas A. Heyer & Co., took over taxidermy branch 1934; Technical Director Zimmerman Ltd since 1961.
He built the second largest taxidermy factory in the northern plains of Nairobi, and his death was also a big blow to the art of making hunting trophies. Zimmerman Ltd was internationally known. Almost all the animals mounted for display in old Kenyan hotels, at State House Nairobi, and in many clubs originated from the factory. Today, Nairobi’s Zimmerman Estate stands on the same grounds that the company made its name before the national ban on hunting in 1977 deprived it of animals. One of its last projects was the mounting of Ahmed, the Marsabit elephant that had been protected by a presidential decree and which still stands at the National Museums of Kenya’s exhibition gallery. His is the story of Kenya as the destination of big-game hunters and how they made capital out of the country’s wildlife. Of all those who made millions of dollars making trophies, Zimmerman, or Bwana Simama to his workers, was in a class of his own. Kenya had been attracting some of the largest game hunting safaris, some of them sponsored by the Smithsonian Institute. Among the biggest collectors remained former US President, Theodore Roosevelt.
As big game hunting prospered during the colonial period, Zimmermann Ltd fed the insatiable appetite of princesses, kings, queens, presidents and museums. It was one of the country’s main exports apart from coffee and tea. Private galleries would snap animal trophies as they rolled out of the factory and every week truckloads of dead animals would be offloaded at Zimmermann.
Zimmermann Ltd was the second largest taxidermy company after the Jonas Brothers of Denver Colorado, and had a workforce of about 100. They used to mount an average of 30 heads a day and two to three fully mounted animals. A lot of these were lions, wildebeests, and buffaloes.
In 1970s, Phillipines President Ferdinard Marcos gave Zimmermann Ltd a huge order to make mounted animals for museum in his country.
In 1977, after 33 years of raving success, Zimmerman’s Ltd was given months to close shop following the ban on hunting. The government also ordered all licensed hunters to turn in their weapons to the Central Firearms Bureau.
It was the end of Zimmerman Ltd and since he did not need all that land, he sold it and from these emerged the modern day Zimmerman estate.
