Too-Generous Zoo Visitors Trouble Staff

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 582, 7 February 1929, Page 8

Too-Generous Zoo Visitors Trouble Staff

Monkey Who A.te Not Wisely But Too Well

TWIN TIGER TODDLERS

S-s-sh! Walk quickly. Milton, the hooded monkey, has been eating, not wisely, but too well. He is in pain. In the monkey house at the Zoo gloom holds sway. Particular gloom in Milton’s corner, for he is treated by the assistants much the same as little Johnnie, who ate too much Christmas pudding. For illness is not unknown at the Zoo. Superintendent Aldridge and his staff are usually required to attend some hapless animal or other. But they have been fairly fortunate lately. There has not been the customary number of names on the sick list. During the holiday season, the Zoo staff is not surprised if many of the animals are laid low. All sorts of mysterious foodstuffs are fed surreptitiously through the bars of the cages. The monkeys are the most frequent sufferers at the hands of overconsiderate holiday-makers. Milton’s pains may have been directly due to his success in a fight with Jean, his half-cousin, for the possession of all those chocolates thrown through the bars. Poor Milton! The Zoo staff generally doctors the smaller animals, but, when the larger animals fall victims to disease, veterinary assistance is sought. The Zoo has several honorary medical advisers. JUM UNA’S TOENAILS Then, the ordinary toilette of the animals needs attention. Jumuna, the elephant, is finicky about her nails. She likes them filed now and again. Even members of the cat family have had toe-nail treatment. Operations during which animals have had to be put under chloroform are not unknown in zoo work. Auckland’s Zoo has no actual hospital, but there is a nursery. Perhaps it is as well that sickness has not been rife lately, for continual attention has to be given recent additions to the Zoo population. There are Clarence and Ethel, the tiger twins, for instance. They are nearly a month old now and are thriving. Within the next day or so they will be able to walk reasonably steadily. They have to be few from a bottle with special food six times a day. An assistant rarely leaves them. Just like children, Clarence and Ethel; but then, young monkeys suffer from complaints which trouble human beings. They even know what codliver oil is like.

But these over-generous visitors—if they could know what the assistants think of them!