“MAN SCENTS.”

Shannon News, 26 August 1924, Page 1

“MAN SCENTS.”

DREADED BY BEASTJB. : Lens, the London Zoo lioness, is rearing her second litter of cubs: The secret of. success with lion-cubs born in captivity seems to lie in this simple rule: No human being must lay a finger on the whelps while they are in their mother’s charge. In the past keepers, men of' science, and‘privileged visitors could take a peep at the cubs when the mother has been “fed away” from the nursery. The cuddlesome spotted infants were not moved into the cold air, but who could resist giving them a pat or a caress? Well, that affectionate stroking was their death sentence, writes L. G. Mainland in the “Daily Mail.” It left t'he dreaded “man-scent” on their soft coats.

For hundreds of thousands of years man has been the arch-enemy of all wild creatures. Some he was obliged to kill in self-defence, and others he hunted tor food. It follows that the smell of the destroyer raises an instinctive terror in the mind of an animal.

The tolerance acquired by a captive beast for the smell of man comes because the alternative is starvation. The primitive instinets in a nursing mother bring back primitive fears. Therefore, when the lioness returns to the nursery and scents the dreaded taint she cither destroys her babies or leaves them to die. A wolf-mother at the Zoo once proved herself unequal to the task of rearing a family. When the next litter arrived the Zoo called in a motherly collie. There were four cubs and four puppies.

As an experiment, it was decided to leave one cub with the wolf-mother, and, in addition, to give her three of the puppies, to see if she would rear them. She was shut out of her dark sleeping box while the change was made, and the puppies were given more than. an hour to snuggle in the cubs’ nest of hay and get thoroughly “wolfy” in scent). Then the wcflfmother was readmitted.

There were four sniffs; and three snaps—and only the wolf-cub lived. Another cas e in point. While the usual keeper of the Zoo deer was away, a substitute found a baby fawn tottering in an open paddock during bad weather. The man picked it up and carried it into shelter... From that moment the mother refused to go near her' baby, and the mite had to be reared by hand. Even the tame domestic rabbit will kill-or abandon her young should the owner handle them in the nest and leave a trace of the fatal “man-scent.” Leave all baby animals to their mothers, and don’t touch them unless you mean to take them away for good.