PRECAUTIONS AT ZOO

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23537, 15 January 1942, Page 6

PRECAUTIONS AT ZOO

Danger in Air Raids PROTECTIVE MEASURES TAKEN (P.A.) WELLINGTON, January 14. Precautions have been taken at the Wellington Zoo, Newtown, for the protection of patrons in the event of a raid during visiting hours. Keepers in charge of carnivorous animals will shut the beasts in their pens before taking shelter themselves, and at the sounding of a preliminary all-clear, the men. armed with rifles and provided with special nets, will patrol the park. Any dangerous escaped animals they fail to capture will be shot. The dangerous animals—lour lions, three adult tigers, and three cubs, two Polar bears, and a leopard—are housed in five cages. All are close together, and in the event of a raid there will be at least two armed keepers for each cage. All 14 men on the zoo staff belong to the Emergency Precautions Services, and their duly in a raid is to take up prearranged positions at the zoo. The supply of rifles has been increased, and a large number of extra nets procured. Concerning other animals, such as deer, goats and pigs, the zoo authorities would not greatly worry if they escaped from their enclosure, as they would not harm anybody. The zoo has its own fire service, and there is ample first-aid equipment both at the zoo and in the curators residence in the grounds. There are slit trenches nearby in Newtown Park, and it is intended to open up two old bear-pits near the zoo gates. These arc made of solid concrete, and will provide excellent protection. There are plenty of banks to get behind and other protection for zoo visitors in an air raid. “For heaven’s sake don’t scare the public,’’ said the curator of the zoo, Mr C. J. Cutler, when asked about the precautions being taken and whether the dangerous animals would be shot as had happened to a number of cir - cus animals in Sydney. He had been asked repeatedly what would happen if the animals escaped, said Mr Cutler. and he had assured the inquirers that the animals would be dead before they > got out of the cages anh that if one did escape it would never got out of the grounds. Zoos Carrying On "What people don’t seem to realise,” he added, "is that if there had been any real danger, animals in zoos in the war zones would have been immediately destroyed, but this has not happened. Till America entered the war, we had news about the German zoos in Berlin, Munich, and Hamburg, and they were carrying on. When Poland was overrun, the animals from the Warsaw and Cracow zoos wore immediately shipped to the three main zoos ir. Germany, and 60 per cent, of the Paris zoo has been sent to Berlin and Vienna. “The London Zoo has been repeatedly bombed, but very few of the animals have been killed. One of the giraffes died of shock and a zebra which escaped was later caught, but it died from bomb splinter wounds Twelve sacred baboons were killed by a direct hit on their cage.” There were a large number of bomb craters in the grounds of the London Zoo, and these were being turned into fish ponds. Professor Sir Julian Huxley, secretary and director of the zoo. was making 80 or 90 more fish ponds in bomb craters, but said that unfortunately some would not be where ho would have placed them from the aesthetic point of view. “I don’t think there is the slightest danger of the animals here escaping.” said Mr Cutler. “The cages are not like circus cages, but are fitted with iron bars three-quarters of an inch thick. Also, these animals arc not nearly so hard to handle as many people seem to imagine. The most important point, however, is that if a bomb sufficiently powerful to burst open one of the cages, fell in, the zoo. it would almost certainly kill the animal outright, or render it unconscious long enough for it to be killed by the keepers.”