BEAUTY AND BEASTS

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 293, 6 September 1932, Page 3

BEAUTY AND BEASTS

Model English Zoo WHIPSNADE PARK Surroundings Are Natural The present controversy over the Wellington Zoo lends interest to the following impressions of England slatest animal reserve, Whipsnade Park, by Gertrude Mack, in the “Sydney Mornthat a visit, to Whipsnade Park is worth the journey, is to say ‘a mouthful,’ ” she says. “For the journey by train and bus is one to test eu thusiasms— especially when a heat wave (temperature at 7odeg.) is over the laud. Provision is not made for warm weather in England. Windows of suburban trains (except the tops of carriage doors) are not made to open; they are the same stationary dummies of 20 years ago, and many buses admit air only through tiny fanlights. In this stuffy discomfort I travelled two and a half hours on a very hot day, from King’s Cross to Whipsnade, and during the journey I had dark thoughts regarding railway directors and bus companies. However, when once arrived, my revengeful thoughts melted away, and I even felt grateful to the stuffy bus which had shaken me out at the gate of the most beautifully situated zoo in the world. “Whipsnade is not stocked as are the Bronx Park, or Berlin Zoo, or our own delightful Taronga Park—three worldfamous zoos. It is more in the nature of a sanatorium, a country home for the animals of the London Zoo needing special care. The Park was a litter of rubbish and rubble when purchased by the Zoological Society, but now woods and grassy knolls have regained their natural loveliness. It extends over 500 acres of undulating country, of woods and fields stretching up and around a high ridge overlooking Dunstable Downs. The elevation rises 600 to 700 feet above the valley and the Downs, which have been purchased by the National Trust at Ivinghoe, for public playing grounds.

Fine Pastoral View. “From the glass-walled tea-house, built on the highest ridge and especially reserved for Fellows of the Zoological Society, one looks across miles and miles of pasture land and woodland, seeing far in the distance the ridge that is Ivinghoe Beacon. For a pastoral scene there can be no finer view ill England than from the heights of Whipsnade. “Advantage has been taken. of the contour of the laud, and of the trees and high hedges, so that wire fences are not noticeable, and one is scarcely conscious that the animals are in captivity. The shelters for animals are concealed from passing eyes; they are approached by hidden paths, only accessible to attendants of the Zoo. In this way the creatures will have sanctuary and live under more natural conditions. “Wolves slink and prowl among the tall dark trees of a dim pine forest; pygmy hippopotami wallow in a sunny pond, or roam at will over a vast field sweet with clover and buttercups; moufflon and bison share contentedly a 20-acre paddock running steeply from hill to valley, and peacocks spread their tails and. strut about in complete freedom. A, short cut to the lions’ enclosure took me round- by a rosecovered hedge where I was suddenly confronted by the head of a camel peering at me across the roses. “There is a bluebell wood and a foxglove dell, grassy glades golden with daffodils in springtime, and a centuriesold farmljouse converted into a pleasant restaurant that in no way spoils the picture or takes from the serenity of the scene. Up'to date, £160,000 has been spent on the land and necessary buildings, including a reservoir to hold half a million gallons'of. water for the needs of the Zoo. Disused chalk pits have been deepened and lined with concrete for bears and lions and tigers, each one at some distance from the other.

“The London Zoo, at Regent’s Park, though considerably enlarged since 1918, has only 35 acres, and if put in a corner of Whipsnade would hardly be noticed. In the freedom and quietude of their country home, sick animals soon return to normal health. Some of them were feeling the heat.; a polar bear was very unhappy and lay with eyes closed, panting for breath. But the wallabies were delighting in the sunshine and had a circle of admirers watching them spring about the rocks and scrub of their enclosure. A charmingly dressed woman was instructing her small son. ‘Look, John, those are baby kangaroos from Australia’—But John knew better. ‘No,, Mummie, those aren’t kangaroos,’ he told her, ‘they’re wallabies because they have rings on their tails.’

Lion in White Chalk. “On the southern hillside a small army of workmen were busy, digging at the white chalk subsoil. They were forming a white lion, which would be seen from train windows passing through Aylesbury, 11 miles away. The lion is to be 150 yards long, and the outline is already blocked in with white sandstone. The foreman directing operations told me it would take three months to build, and when finished should be visible, on a clear day, from the heights of Oxford, 30 miles distant. From the hill where we stood talking I. could see the slopes about Tring, six miles off, where Lord Rothschild has his private zoo and ornithological museum. “There was so much of interest and so much beauty to see that I was reluctant to leave it for a jolting bus and stuffy train. But it had to be, and I took my way along a grass-grown path leading to the lions’ enclosure. The lions had hidden themselves. Children and mothers and aunts were peering and craning their necks in an endeavour to catch a glimpse of them. Everyone wanted to see the three lion cubs, born a few weeks ago. But the pit was deserted, the cavern entrance empty. “It was too hot for exertion, and I walked on to the shelter of trees higher up, ,aud from there I spied the whole lion family. They were lying on the tree-shaded rocks, and all were soun I asleep. The three young ones lay bundled with heads nnd necks intermingled. and near them were Mr. anil Mrs. Lion, side by side. He lay with his hack to her, and she had her nose on his oar, and her right paw clasping his neck. A peaceful, domesticated family at home. And that is the purpose of "Whipsnade, to, as far as possible, make tlie animals at home. Yes, it was worth the journey.”