TRADE IN WILD BEASTS.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXI, Issue 8768, 21 March 1907, Page 4

TRADE IN WILD BEASTS.

' Mr Carl Hagenbeok, of Hamburg, tlie greatest dealer in wild animals, has been giving a representative of the World’s Work some interesting particulars of the work of catching his ‘ ‘ goods. ’ ’ The lion is caught as a cub and brought up on goat’s milk. Natives remove the cubs when the mother is away. If the mother is there she is speared. The cubs are ’ reared by the natives till they are tliree months old, and then sent to the coast on the backs of camels. Nubia is the principal source of lions, and an adult Nubian is worth £3OO. Elephants come from Oeylon; only five have been imported into Europe from Africa since ISBO. Giraffes are getting very scace. It is impossible to secure an adult, for even it it were caught it could not be held. Natives hunt the young ones until they are exhaushted,_on quick Abyssinian ponies. The various species of Siberian deer are 1 driven by the natives into deep snow . into which the young ones sink so | deeply that they cannot extricate j themselves. The most pathetic fea- , ture of wild-beast collecting is hunt- ; iug gorillas. The traveller first' shoots the mother and then secures • the little one, and the distress of the youngster is harrowing. |The. gorilla cannot stand captivity; it breaks his heart. Mr |Hagenbeck is trying to secure some gorillas when only one or two days old in the hope that, not having become accustomed to the life of the forest, they will not mind captivity. He is now completing what has been the ambition of his life, the erection of an ideal j zoo. Protests have been made from time to time against the inhumanity | of shutting up wild beasts in cages j to make an English or a German or a French holiday. Mr_ Hagenbeok is constructing a zoo in which all j animals are to be placed in surroundings as natural to their native haunts as possible. All such devices as iron bars and cages are done away with. Lions and- tigers are placed in a groat open enclosure, fashioned to resemble a rocky- desert, and are separated from the public by a deep ditch. One looks into a den of lions from a footpath with no iron bars or other obstruction in front of one. This will bo the most original garden ever made, and commissions from all parts of the world have intimated their intention of visiting it. Mr Hageubeck’s business is a huge one. In a single,year lie has sold to zoological gardens alone as many as 60 elephants, 85 lions, tigers and other big oats, 70 bears, and over 1000 monkeys.