In those years Pearson travelled throughout Australia extensively, working in various occupations including as a surveyor's assistant in Gippsland, a shearer in New South Wales and Queensland and a miner at Broken Hill.

The illegal hunters of the Lado typically earned £3,000 to £4,000 profit from a six-month poaching expedition into the territory and Pearson was considered one of the most successful of them, amassing a small fortune.

The British Army requested the services of men with extensive knowledge of the East African bush and experience in dealing with local tribesmen, Pearson readily enlisted.

[2][3] In an effort to combat the destruction to cropping and fencing caused by elephant that prevented the development of agriculture, in 1924 the Ugandan Government created the Uganda Game Department.

Pearson was assigned the West Nile province which included the southern part of the old Lado Enclave, an area he knew intimately, and a salary of £50 a month, to further improve their lot in 1925 the Governor of Uganda, Sir William Gowers, made them Colonial Civil Servants by official decree, ensuring a lifetime pension.

In 1928 Pearson, again with Salmon, was charged with organising an 8-day hunting safari for the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII) during the Uganda leg of his East African royal tour.

Pearson had confided in Sir William Gowers that upon his death he would like a small monument to his memory in the Bakumi district on an escarpment that overlooks Lake Albert at a place beside the road between Masindi and Butiaba.

Pearson was said to lead a spartan life, enjoying only one luxury being fine champagne, every time he returned from safari he would drink a large number of bottles.

[2][3][8] Pearson left no detailed accounts of his hunting career and was loath to discuss the total number of elephants he shot or the largest tusks he ever harvested.