Disappearance of Wild Animals.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 207, 18 June 1887, Page 3

Disappearance of Wild Animals.

What is to become of the wild animals of the world ? This is a question which the hunters of " big game " will very soon have to ask themselves with all seriousness, for every year that passes witnesses a serious depreciation of their numbers. We can all remember the thrill of romantic awe with which we perused the acounts of the lions or tigers, or other ferocious beasts, which were shot by Livingstone, Oswald, Gordon Cuniming, and other adventurous travellers ; bufc all this is rapidly becoming a tiling of the past. Lions are noAvhere very numerous, and the elephant is so rapidly on the wane that Mr Thompson and other recent travellers look forward to a period, not very distant, when it will no longer pay to hunt it or go into the wilds in search of its ivory. During fourteen months spent in the immense area of the African Great Lake region, uuring 1878-80, an explorer mentioned that he never saw a single elephant, though twenty or twenty-five years ago they roamed over these countries unmolested, and in Livingstone's day they were so abundant at the south end of Tanganyika that they came about his camp and entered the villages with impunity. Every likely spot for them was ransacked ; yet the same tale was told. After all, however, there is this consolation for us, that though adventurous Sportsmen may suffer in the disappearance of these deadly animals, humanity will gain on the whole by the enhanced security it will enjoy.