AFRICAN THREAT

Dunstan Times, Issue 3517, 13 April 1931, Page 6

AFRICAN THREAT

VANISHING GAME MENACE GF SETTLEMENT Dark had shut down on the jungle. Tht* blackness brought peace. The sense of quiet and calm was so persuasive that the whir and murmur of jungle life was just a pleasant ripple in the vast silence and the howl of the hyena, merely a harmonious crescendo in the orchestra of night. The moon gleamed down from the velvet vault, and the white men and their blacks sat’relaxed in the boma, twenty-live feet up in the crotch of a spreading tree. A kill was staked on the ground just outside a patch of moonlight near a neighbouring tree and as they listened and watched a leopard slid steathiiy out of the dark and softly sniffed and crouched around the carrion. Sensing no enemies, the 1e.,; cat began to pul! at the Mesh of the dead animal, but tin* hunters in tin* tree had not lured him from his lair to watch the leopard dine or to kill him with their gnus. The game had been planted to arouse the leopard's appetite, and the men were anxious to keep him hungry so they could draw him hack in daylight and photograph him while he ate, As the leopard began to devour tin* carcass the watching hunters tried to disturb the beast and drive him away. They did not shout, as they wished to conceal the presence of a safari, but they threw at him all the stones they had gathered for such ammunition and fired off a gun. The leopard hesitated, withdrew cautiously, and then returned to his food, but, hearing other noises from the jungle, ho thought it wisdom to disappear compl et o! y. SKKN BE FOR IT “ This was not our first sight of the leopard,” said Colonel C. Wellington Furlong, explorer and author, who has just returned from an 8,000-mile trek by motor lorry, boat, and afoot through Eastern and Central Africa, in an interview with the ‘ San Francisco Chronicle.’ “He had been around during the* day, and the natives who were hidden in the boma reported him when lie came hack to this shelter just I*efore darkness. “ While we were waiting in the morning my native gun bearer, the only person with mo, noticed a movement in the grass. -There was a barely perceptible motion, but if one’s eyes were trained on the spot it was possible to catch the rippling strip on Ids skin as ho stalked the carrion. “ Fading his inspection, the leopard moved to the trunk of an adjoining tree. He sniffed around it and seemed to bo preparing to climb up. This was getting dangerous. A long branch of the tree snaked its way into the foliage of the tree where we were crouching. /‘-Inst as lie appeared to make up his mind and flexed his muscles for the first spring up the trunk, I fired. He dropped without a move.” This was the second leopard Colonel Furlong had shot. He also bagged two lions and one elephant on the expedition. He declared lie considered the leopard the most clangorous animal in the African jungle, because of his marvellous co-ordination as a piece of animal mechanism, his intelligence, quickness, and courage. “He is a different ’type of fighter from the lion.” said Colonel Furlong, “ and apparently the lion and tire leopard have a healthy respect for each other. ! I a leopard should he devouring a kill and had had about enough to eat and a lion came along, it is probable that the leopard Avonld withdraw and permit the lion to have his place at the feast. “ And the lion would probably do the same for the leopard. If the animal at the. carcass was very hungry, i .am not quite stye what would happen, although 1 have never heard of anyone being witness to a battle between a leopard and a lion. BETTER THAN A Id OX. file lion tights like a man with a single-track mind. If he springs at a man he is likely to continue to claw and tear at him until either one is vanquished before lie will turn to another attacker nearby. But the leopard will claw .and cuff at one man after another like one man against a mob, and he seems better than a lion m this kind of battle. “ The leopard might he classed as a middle-weight in the lighting ranks of the jungle cats. He has both strength and speed in addition to fighting skill. Leopards average from Mull* to'~:>(l()|b. “The leopard’s favourite method of fighting is to drop on the back of bis enemy from a tree, tear at the throat with liis teeth, and rip with bis claws. If be fights with a man face to face he will use his forelegs for ripping embrace, lunge at the throat with' Ids teeth, and attempt to climb up the body with his hind legs tearing out the stomach. A leopard is so strong that some o( my expedition saw one ot these cats swing an antelope in its teeth and swiftly scramble up into a tree, leaving the game in a forked branch out of reach of the earthbound jungle llcsheaters. “ The deadly character of the leopard was impressed upon me hr run ning across eleven persons within -;x weeks who had been maim d by leopards, two trios having li.ru torn b\ single leopards who did not hesitate to come to close quarters with emic than one against them. The leopard’s claws arc rlangeruns, not onlv Ca-Mre of the* depth of the wound, but Iwra use hinails are fun! willi shreds of decayed flesh, and a septic infection must 'be guarded against," STB 1)1 FI) I’HIM! FA. This is not the first lime Colonel Furlong. has been exploring Lb,, primitive. He is a native and resident of Boston, but he was the first American (o crews the heart of Tierra del I-uego at Lie Lip of South America, having also done extensne exploration m ~j;■ parts o) (his continent, lb- disco-.-, ivd tbe wreck of the trig.ate Bhiladclpbia, sunk by Lieutenant P-rilrr 1,1 Vi-Ij.oii Harbour in ist(l-) ; va- a member of'tbe ores ir lent a i staff at the Peace Conic;--ence, and was a member of the American Plebiscite Commission in rim Taena-Arica arbitral ion by the special request of ficiies-i ITi'shing. Although Colonel Furlong in civilian j clothes looks more like a university prolessor, which lie once was, his wirv iuiil'l and alertness of movement suggest tin* leader of a safari. He ’.-.cars upon bis right wrist one of the onvie I distinctions of the hunters of In.- cam,.. It js a thin black bracelet like a mr

I clot of leather worn by the pigmies of I two hairs of an elephant’s tail, it is a cord which identities him to sportsI men as a man who has brought down his bull elephant. The study of the pigmies of the I tun forest was one of the accomplishments of the expedition. Ho lived and slept jn their camps, and was told that lie was tho first white man to achieve that experience. Colonel Furlong explained ids welcome by the pigmies, who are from 3ft to 4ft tall in maturity, by saying that he was genuinely interested in primitive peoples, that ho did not look down upon them from any superior height, and that his friendliness and sympathy evoked reciprocal feelings from these tribes. “ I found tho pigmies to be gentlefolk; many of them had the kindly sympathetic characteristics winch we describe under the term ‘ gentleman,’ ” he said, “ and i have the greatest regard for them, because I consider the pigmies the finest, if not the most expert woodsmen and hunters in the jungle. Their size is a protection to them in tho hunting oi game, and they find their way through the jungle with the same faciiicy that wo travel on the lighted streets. LFSS CAMF. “ They will bring down an elephant with their iron-tipped spears. They get to leeward of the elephant and creep up behind the logs of the animal and thrust their spears into the inu-.eles ol the bind legs, hamstringing the masj sive creature. When he turns in pain ■ and anger they do not run and put themselves at the mercy of his rage, but as ho swings his forelegs around to locate his attackers, tho pigmy hunters keep turning with his hind logs and hack at tho muscles. “ Some of them will dart under the body and rip into his stomach with their weapons.. “ Three factors are causing a steady decrease in certain types of game in Africa,” declared Colonel Furlong. “ The rinderpest, which is fatal to the native cattle, also harries such wild animals as the buffalo and the other wild members of the cow family. The widespread hunting of game wit i highpower rilles has not cut deeply into the herds, although it has had an effect undoubtedly, on lions and elephants, hut the steady expansion of the settled areas has robbed tbe denizens ut tho jungle of vast stretches of territory and also disturbed the wild life on the fringes of the settlements.” He cited the decline in hull elephants as an example of the effect ol ivory hunting in connection with tins game-. “Ten years ago,” declared Colonel Furlong, “ the hunter was not satisfied with less than a fUUIb tnskci : five years ago he was fortunate to get an 801h tusker, and now he js lucky if he gets 501b tusks. The Slum Company representative told mo that he is shipping as much as thirty tons o! ivory out of Juba, on the Nile, in one month. Yon can figure for yourself how many animals that means, and how last they have been wiped out. “ Fortunately, great game preserves are being set aside by the various European Governments who control African territory, and the s' noting there is rigidly controlled.”