Animal Marriage Bureau

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31841, 20 November 1968, Page 20

Animal Marriage Bureau

Rare species of animals may be saved from extinction if a scheme announced in Britain comes to fruition. It is a sort of animal marriage bureau. Mates will be found for animals from the many zoos in this country. The offspring, if any, will be shared out among the zoos, and if numbers increase it may be possible to re-establish extinct wild species in their native haunts.

As George Short pointed out in a 8.8. C. broadcast, the sad fact is that wild animals everywhere are decreasing, and we may live to see the disappearance of many familiar ones orang-utans, giant pandas, even Indian tigers. Already the animal marriage bureau—thought to be the first in the world—has arranged half-a-dozen matches. With 27 zoos in Britain the possibilities are great. Later, perhaps, international animal marriages might be arranged—although failure to mate the giant pandas of London and Moscow was not a good precedent. Even if matings are suc-

cessful, the rearing of young animals in captivity is sometimes fraught with unexpected difficulties. An expert from the London Zoo recently explained the failure of captive polar bears to rear their cubs. The cubs, he said, died of exposure. In Britain? Yes, said the expert. Despite the mildness of the climate compared with the bears’ Arctic habitat, the cubs got cold because the mother, instead of keeping them snug and warm through the winter in a snow den, kept leaving them to prowl round the cage. In future, the man-made dens of London polar bears will have electric under-floor heating.

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