A BIG DAY FOR THE ANIMALS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 276, 6 October 1944, Page 14

A BIG DAY FOR THE ANIMALS

E ACH year October 4 is celebrated by animal lovers throughout the world ~ as World Day for Animals. The annual celebrations were first inaugurated in 1928, and despite difficulties caused by the depression and the second world war, encouraging progress has been made in the campaign for promoting animal welfare. This particular date was chosen by men and women the world over because October 4 is dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi. In New Zealand, the period of celebration has for some years been extended to one week. This year "The Listener's" thoughts turned to the wild animals in captivity, so we sent a representative to make some inquiries from the curator of the Wellington Zoo. One question we omitted to ask was whether animals have a sense of humour-but our illustrations, for which we are indebted to the "New York Times Magazine," rather suggest that they have.

an elephant dies he treks alone to some dim inaccessible part of the country and there lies down to die on the bleached bones and gleaming ivories of his ancestors. If you should be lucky enough to find this sacred place you would become fabulously weathly, so ran the travellers’ tales. But it is very probable that the only foundation of truth in this legend is the fact that all animals possess the instinct to crawl away and’ die in obscurity. It would be only natural, as the centuries went by, that elephants should die on ground already holding the bones of elephants, but this coincidence can be traced not to an urging for an ancestral burying-ground, but simply to the fulfilment of the instinct for death in obscurity. Legends about animals die hard, but the instincts of animals die harder still. Even the most domes- _ ticated cat treads round in a circle before it sits down, instinctively pushing down the undergrowth which clogged the path of its ancestors, But what happens to animals in captivity? Can they still manage to live normally, even though most of their instincts are curtailed? Or do they develop a new intelligence which over-rides their instincts? To find the answer to such questions as these, we visited the curator of the Wellington Zoo and the veterinary surgeon who attended Nellikutha the elephant, and in Nelli we found part Of our answer. Nelli had died of intestinal ulcers after an illness of a fortnight, in which time she ,had received the most careful attention which keepers and veterinary surgeon could give her. Now it is the natural instinct for animals to struggle for preservation against man’s interference at all costs. has it that when

But the veterinary surgeon said, "Nelli was the most gentle big animal I have ever treated in my life. She was helpful and understanding. She looked at me when I came in and observed all my actions, as though she knew what I was doing. I could tickle her tongue without her showing any ‘agitation." An Elephant Sometimes Forgets The elephant could not be allowed to lie too long on one side during her illness because her great weight retarded her, circulation. Three times she was hoisted by block and tackle and turned over. "That was the most nerve-wracking time," continued the veterinary surgeon, "seeing her hanging suspended in the air. But still she didn’t fight. Her intelligence was_such that she knew and appreciated what we were doing." Now that was in contradiction to every instinct, for the sick animal in the jungle must fight for recovery alone, Even his companions of herd or pack turn against him. He is a danger to the community, therefore they kill him, or drive him forth from their midst. The wild animal trusts nobody. Yet in captivity he quickly learns, through kindness, to submit to any amount of handling. "On Sunday Nelli became sick,’ the veterinary surgeon was finishing. "On Tuesday, a week later, she dropped her head, rolled her eyes and died peacefully. And every one of us, and particularly her keeper, who had stayed with her day and night since she became ill, grieved to lose such a lovable animal." Coats, Colours and Bumps But we were still interested to know how else animals were affected by captivity, and the curator supplied us with some of the answers. The greatest difference between wild animals and zoo

animals as far as appearance goes is in the coats, he said. Zoo animals have a much better, thicker, coat altogether. They don’t suffer from aetiolation-that is, loss of colour of skin, hair and eyes to which wild animals are very much subjected. In the zoos the animals are able to have the maximum of sunshine and especially is this so with sick animals. In the wild a sick animal crawls away into @ cave, where it stays perhaps for weeks, It emerges a very pale and miserable animal, A wild lion has scarcely any mane at all, for the constant battle with thorns and- undergrowth tears the hair out, and no animal can live its span in the wild without having its coat badly mauled or torn by some snarling foe, at least once in its life. An interesting comparison between the coats of wild and captive animals can be seen in any museum, where most of the animals are taken from wild life, we were told. The coats of these animals cannot compare with those \of their brothers in the zoo. In spite of this, the zoos are constantly receiving letters from visitors complaining of the state of the animals — the hairless patches on the bison, for instance, or the lumps on the camel’s knees. The answer to such complaints is simple enough. Bison always moult in a strange fashion, losing their hair in curious patches, like a bad case of the moth. The lumps on the camel’s knees are not sores, ‘but merely cushions’ provided by Nature for kneeling pads. As far as these characteristics go, animals in captivity are no different from those in the wild state, though there are natural differences as a result of differ-. ences in climate. Animals transported from cold climates to temperate regions have not the need to change their coats or colours, but this is purely a climatic reason and not a result of captivity. In captivity deer still shed their antlers. The Wellington Zoo has two or three hundred sets stored away in a shed. The process is just the same. The flesh at the base of the antler becomes irritated and the deer rubs its head up against the buildings till the antlers fall off. Mating and Breeding Captivity makes no difference to mating and breeding. Tigers especially are most prolific, and they mate all the time. Last year in Wellington there were 12 tiger cubs to the two tigresses. This year the fallow deer bred twicein the wild it occurs only once in a year. Out of the 19 monkeys, only one is a female, and she is the prize of the biggest and ‘strongest. She manages to produce one baby a year. Polar bears are about the only animals that don’t

breed well in captivity, we were informed. There is only one case of a polar bear being raised in the temperate zones. In wild life the mother hibernates for the winter and the baby is born during this time. The mother has no responsibility, for the baby just curls up beside her and drinks its way through the winter, When spring comes, the baby is big enough to manage fairly well for itself. In captivity, the mother polar bear still wants to have no responsibilities, and if she goes so far as to have a baby, she very soon lets it die, But if the baby didn’t die of neglect, its unnatural father would probably see that it died some other way. Polar bears are in no way model parents. In the matter of mating and breeding, too, we were told, letters of complaint came from mealy-minded visitors who object. If these complaints were heeded, zoo animals would be deprived still further of their natural instincts and ways of life, and the zoos themselves would become depleted. Don’t Cough Over Animals There is a darker side to zoo life, however. Animals have no immunity to the host of human diseases, and a coughing public very soon spreads infection through the ranks of the zoo animals. Monkeys in particular are most susceptible to pneumonia and tuberculosis. It is not that they are particularly delicate, but they are unable to build up an immunity. The rarer types of monkey are very difficult to display in . captivity. They are generally kept in glass-fronted cages, which is a venture too expensive for many zoos. Some zoos have tried erecting notices entreating the public not to cough over the animals. The San Diego Zoo has gone so far as to inaugurate a weekly medical examination of their keepers, to ensure that no infection is introduced in that way. But in spite of all precautions, animals _ still catch diseases. The Wellington Zoo, with its 1500 birds and animals, however, can boast one of the lowest deathrates in the world: 314 per cent, compared with the average of 171 per cent. But as an offset to diseases, zoo animals are always well fed. They carry the right amount of flesh. For wild animals the food question is a matter of chance. If they starve they die, and there is no one to complain on their behalf. You might say, even if they do die they’re free to die where they like, and this lack of freedom is the great stumbling: block. But a warm, well-fed, comfortable animal in a zoo has a- long lead on a scraggy, fear-ridden, emptybellied creature of the wild.