When googling, most sources say that safari originally meant hunting animals, but today it means viewing animals. When did this shift occour?
The etymology is from an Arabic word meaning “travel”. So I think I’d want to see convincing evidence that the English meaning ever necessarily entailed hunting.
But that may be difficult to disentangle, if culturally it was less common to just want to look and take photos in the past.
(My bold))
I would expect that to be the case, since the technology for hunting far preceded the technology for photography.
Even after cameras were invented, they were originally useless at capturing moving objects. If you wanted a souvenir to memorialize your trip, you had to capture or kill it.
The Oxford English Dictionary does not clearly distinguish between the two senses:
A journey; a cross-country expedition, typically in an African country, esp. for exploration and (in the past) hunting, or (now) to see wild animals in their natural habitat.
Of the quotations it cites, the ones from 1860, 1893 and 1907 use it to just mean “journey”. Quotations from 1928 and 1935 are specifically about hunting. A 1989 quotation is ambiguous. A 2005 quotation is about sightseeing.
I can remember in the WAG 1970/1980s there being the term “photo-safari” to distinguish the unusual ones where hunting wasn’t part of the plan. At that time the unadorned term “safari” was assumed (at least by me) to mean going hunting for exotic game in Africa.
…or the 1960’s term “surfin’ safari”?
I agree with @LSLGuy: if safari started meaning in English (and German and Spanish and…) a trip to an exotic location, mostly Africa, to hunt big game, then in the '70s branched into safari as before and photo-safari, which gradually went safari → hunting safari on the one hand and photo-safari → safari on the other, as environmental concerns and decolonisation grew and killing animals became less heroic (which I never understood anyway, as I fail to see the prowess of shooting animals from a distance, aided by local underpaid guides). So when did this shift happen? Gradually, between the '70s and the '90s at the very latest, would be my guess.
" Surfin ’ Safari is the debut studio album by the American rock band the Beach Boys, released October 1, 1962 on Capitol Records."
You can never mention safaris and hunting and surfing without including this cinematic classic:
A surfin’ safari also implies a hunt (for good surf); not just a journey.