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Question: Who killed all the animals on the walls?

Answer: Hunters (mostly).

The majority of the animals that decorate the inside of Ralph & Kacoo’s on Bluebonnet Boulevard were killed by Ralph and Kacoo Olinde, the restaurant’s kindly founders. The remaining animals are donations from LSU, which means, according to Kacoo Olinde, “They were all killed by someone.”

The Olindes were once big-game hunters. There’s no consensus on how many were in the restaurant when it opened 35 years ago or how many there are now since ownership has changed hands. Nobody’s quite sure either where the 12-and-a-half- foot alligator came from, but the Olindes didn’t put it there. The tiger in the LSU room was donated by LSU along with various other animals.

Whatever the grand total, the animals are regularly dusted by restaurant employees and cleaned by a taxidermist. Kacoo Olinde says the “funny-looking deer by the fireplace” from Anacosta Island prompted the most questions from customers.

General Manager Perry Martin says occasionally a customer will ask not to sit near any mounted animals, but most request to sit near specific animals, especially the tiger, alligator and black bear. (No word yet on how many hush puppies have been launched at the moose.)

The Olindes continue to add to their home collection. Kacoo’s favorite animal is an elk she shot at the White Mountain Apache Reservation in Arizona seven years ago. “It was the biggest one until the next year when my husband beat me by two points,” she says. “So he got the mantelpiece, and I got the back of the room.”

Their living room also features animals from an African hunting trip they took with friend Carlisa Bargas six years ago. The three shot animals such as a waterbuck, a zebra, a wildebeest, an impala, an eland, a gemsbok and a kudu. Lately the Olindes haven’t done much trophy hunting, reserving their hunting for time spent with grandchildren in Texas. Thanks to Kacoo Olinde and Perry Martin for the wildlife wisdom.