This is a sad moment for me personally to announce that the legendary French Chasseur Professionnel Alain Lefol has passed away on March 7th of pancreatic cancer. He was 74 years old. He has left behind his lovely and devoted wife Eliane and his son Kewin (who is a sponsor here on AH
@LEFOL SAFARIS). Alain is a personal family friend since my first memories and someone who I have hunted with many times, mostly in France but also in Africa. When they made Alain they certainly broke the mould. I have never met a man that was tougher and more tenacious, hard working and energetic! He hunted hard right up to the very end and lived a life of extraordinary adventure.
Alain Lefol (right)
Alain & Eliane (middle)
With the help of his son Kewin here is a bit of the storied history of Alain's exceptional life along with some photographs.
Alain was born in Saint-Seine-L'Abbaye on the 11th of December 1948 in Bourgogne, France. He came from a family of hunters and had always dreamed about Africa since he saw a movie from a hunter who went to Africa in the village he was from. Many of us are not lucky or brave enough to follow our dreams but he was...
As a young man he joined the elite military Chasseurs Alpins (army mountain troops). Once he was out of the service he got his license for high mountain guiding and also became a professional ski instructor. He opened his first company with a friend for heliskiing but it was outlawed in the following years.
Always the adventurer at 27 years of age he decided to live out his childhood dream and headed to Kenya in 1976 with his rifle and no contacts. Once in Kenya he found an outfitter in town and went on a safari as a client. The first animal he took was a Cape Buffalo that was running and he took him down with a single shot behind the ear. He returned to France and brought back some of his previous skiing clients to hunt but the PH got very sick so he took his place and guided his first African safari. Shall we say that was the beginning of the rest of life. However Kenya unfortunately closed hunting down shortly thereafter in 1977.
Alain in his early days (right)
Seeking greener pastures he was drawn to Chad where he saw the most animals he had ever seen and hunted an Elephant for the first time. He also started hunting in what was then called Rhodesia. Not content to just hunt one or two areas he also started to take hunting clients to CAR beginning in 1979 in the eastern part of the country, the gold triangle of ivory, just South of where they are still hunting today.
He stopped hunting in Chad when the war started and was then hunting in Ouanda Djalle in CAR after that and in 1980 the President of CAR closed Elephant hunting. In the mid 80's he started hunting the elusive bongo with the pygmies in the dense forests of the western part of the country. He opened his own company on the Aouk River on the border with Chad as well.
After years of hunting in what is now Zimbabwe he moved on instead to hunt in Tanzania in the early 90's.
He returned to Chad in 1998 for Aoudad and Western Greater Kudu and other species and reopened Ouanda Djalle CAR 2004-2006. Alain stopped hunting in the West part of CAR in 2005 and started again in the East in 2006. Stopped Chad in 2006.
Alain opened concessions in Vovodo in 2009 which was never hunted before and they still operate there. Alain also hunted in Zambia in 2011. Together with his prodigy son Kewin they became Lefol Safaris in 2014 when Kewin followed in his father's footsteps to become a PH himself. May Alain's legacy continue in the capable hands of his son.
Kewin Lefol (right)
I wish to express my deepest condolences to Eliane, Kewin and the rest of his family, he will be missed by many and never forgotten!
