ZOOS IN SIEGE TIME

Bruce Herald, Volume LII, Issue 23, 23 March 1916, Page 3

ZOOS IN SIEGE TIME

ANIMALS KILLED FOR FOOD. . It would be interesting to know what is happening in the German zoos at the present moment, when flesh meat is so extravagantly dear in the Fatherland, where potatoes are golden; and fat almost ..as scarce as radium, (says the London 'Chronicle'). One gathers that in certain gardens the big carnivores, such as lions and tigers, have been slaughtered, owing to their expensive keep, while the elephants have _ been turned out to earn their own living on the fringe of the battle areas. The camels, too, we hear have left Hagenbecks for the front, in order to tutor the German officers in the art of bestriding their "backs for the coming Egyptiancampaign.

But what of the non-utilitarian exhibits? Some of us are old enough to remember reading,with breathless interest during the 187Q war of the melancholy days 'at the gardens in Paris, and'the accounts -by Sala and others, describing the shooting of elephants, camels and bears and of the way hungry 'peasants crowded the butchers' shops purchasing «joint s of kangaroo and prime cuts from the elephant, which hung amid festoons of dogs, cats and rats."'' Have the German .(orthodox) butchers # handled any such joints as these? ' ■>■ ••