WAR IN THE WILDS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 696, 22 June 1929, Page 26

WAR IN THE WILDS

SLAUGHTER OF ANIMALS SANCTUARIES FOR RARE BEASTS “There are few parts of the world in which modern firearms, modern facilities for travel, the spread of civilisation, the extension of agriculture, as well as reckless methods of ‘sport’ and ruthless commercial exploitation are not restricting the numbers and bringing danger even to the existence of wild animals,” writes Dr. Chalmers Mitchell, in his book on the centenary history of the Zooligical Society of London. “Extinct . . . Extinct” ‘‘ln 1912, in my presidential address to the Zoological Section of the British Association, I discussed this subject, and gave as one example out of many what had happened in the Transvaal since the Rand was opened in an area -which only recently had supported a prodigious wild fauna. ‘Lions are nearly extinct. The hyena has been trapped and shot and poisoned out of existence. The eland is extinct. The giraffe is extinct.. The elephant is extinct. The rhinoceros is extinct. The buffalo is extinct. The bontebok, the red hartebeeste, the mountain zebra, the oribi and the grysbok are so rare as to be practically extinct. Since then some of the animals which were ‘very rare’ are now extinct. “Similar conditions are rapidly producing similar results over a large part of our Empire. There is only one sure way of preserving those species which still survive. That way is the formation and maintenance of reserves and sanctuaries for wild animals. . . Reserves for Game “These sanctuaries and reserves, as I urged in 1912, should not be mere recuperating places for game, but are destined to become the finest Zoological Gardens of the future. Since the war there has been an increasing sense of responsibility among the nations which own territories still con-

taining - wild animals. In the United States of America, in Canada, in Australia and New Zealand, in the Union of South Africa, in Nyasaland, British East Africa, Uganda, the Sudan and Nigeria, reserves have been established and are being maintained with a struggle against the demands of settlers.

“The Congo Free State has recently created a magnificent reserve in the high volcanic region on the frontier of Uganda where, among other interesting creatures, gorillas are being absolutely protected. Zoological societies all over the world should do their utmost to assist those who are striving to retain this already seriously reduced heritage from the past for the benefit of future generations. When the -wild animals have learned that they are in sanctuary many of them will allow the presence of human visitors armed with camera and notebook and field glass. “But I do not doubt that in time protected stations will be established in the reserves, in which, opposed to the usual custom in zoological gardens, the human visitors and not the animal inhabitants will be behind ban or protected by deep ditches.”