AFRICAN THREAT

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 73, 27 March 1931, Page 16

AFRICAN THREAT

VANISHING GAME

MENACE OF SETTLEMENT

LIONS AND LEOPAIIDS

Dark had shut down cm the jungle. Tho blackness brought peace. The sense of quiet and calm was so persuasive that tho whir and murmur of jungle life was just a pleasant ripple in the vast silence and tho howl of the hyena merely a harmonious crescendo in tho orchestra of night. Tho moon gleamed down from the velvet vault, and the white men and their blacks sat relaxed in the boma, twenty-five feet up in the crotch of a spreading tree. A kill was staked on tho ground just outside a patch of moonlight near a neighbouring tree, and as they listened and watched a leopard slid stealthily out of tho dark and softly sniffed and crouched around the carrion. Sensing no enemies, the big cat began to pull at tho ilesh of tho dead animal, but the hunters in tho tree had not lured him from his lair to watch tho leopard dine or to kill him with their guns. The game had been planted to arouse tho leopard's appetite, and tho men were anxious to keep him hungry so they could draw him back in daylight and photograph him while he ate. As the leopard began to devour the carcass the watching hunters tried to disturb the beast and drivo him away. They did not shout, as they wished to conceal the presence of a safari, but they threw at him all tho stones they had gathered for such ammunition and fired off a gun. The leopard hesitated, withdrew captiously, and then returned to his food, but, hearing other noises from the jungle, he thought it wisdom to disappear completely. SEEN BEFORE. "This was not our first sight of tho leopard," said Colonel C. Wellington Furlong, explorer and author, who has just returned from an 8000-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 tho natives who were hidden in the boma reported him when he eamo back to this shelter just before darkness. "While wo were waiting in Hie morning my native ■ gunboarcr, the only person with me, 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 tho rippling strip on his skin as he stalked tho carrion. "Ending his inspection, the leopard moved to tho trunk of an adjoining tree. lie sniffed around it and seemed ;to be preparing to climb up. This was getting dangerous. A long branch of I the tree snaked its way into the foliage of tho tree wliero we were crouching. "Just as ho appeared to make up his mind and flexed his muscles for Uio first spring up tho trunk, I fired. He dropped without a move." This was tho second leopard Colonel Furlong had shot. Ho also bagged two lions and one elephant on the expedition. Ho declared he considered tho leopard the most dangerous animal in the African ' junglo 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 tho lion and the leopard have a healthy respect for each other. If a leopard should bo devouring a kill and had had about enough to eat and a lion came along, it is probable that the leopard would withdraw and permit the lion to have his place at the feast. "And tho lion would probably do the same for the leopard. If tho animal at tho carcass was very hungry, I am not quito sure what would happen, [ although I have never heard of anyone being witness to a battle between a leopard and a lion. BETTER THAN A LION. • "Tho lion fights like a man with a single-track mind. If he springs at a man ho is likely to continue to claw and tear at him until either ono is vanquished before he 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 ho seems better than a lion in this kind of a battle. FAVOURITE MEANS. , "The leopard might be classed as a middleweight iv the lighting ranks of the junglo eats. He has both strength and speed in addition to fighting- skill. Leopards average from 140 to 200 pounds. "The leopard's favourite method of fighting is to drop on the back of his enemy from a tree, tear at the throat with his teeth, and rip with his claws. If he fights with a man face to face he will use his forelegs for ripping embrace, lungo at tho throat with his teeth, and attempt to climb up the body with his hind legs tearing out the stomach. A leopard is so strong that some of my expedition saw one of 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 carthbound jungle flesheaters. "The deadly character of the leopard was impressed upon me by running across eleven persons within six weeks who had been maimed by leopards, two trios having been torn by single leopards who did not hesitate to come to close quarters with more than one against them. Tho,leopard's claws arc dangerous, not only because of the depth of tho wound, but because his nails arc foul with shreds of decayed flesh, and a' septic infection must bo guarded against." STUDIED PIGMIES. This is not tho first time Colonel Furlong has been exploring the primitive. Ho is a native and resident of Boston, but ho was tho first American to cross tho heart of Tiorra del Fuogo at the tip of South America, having also done- oxtensive exploration iv other parts of this continent. Ho discovered tho wreck of tho frigate Philadelphia, sunk by Lieutenant Dccatur in Tripoli Harbour iv 1804; was a member of the presidential staff at tho Peace Conferonce, and was a member of the American Plebiscite Commission in tho TacnaAriea arbitration by the special request of General Pershing. Although Colonel Furlong in civilian clothes looks nioro like a university professor, which he once was, his wiry build and alertness of movement suggest the leader of a safari. He wears upon his right wrist one of tho envied distinctions of tho hunters of big game. It is a thin black bracelet liko a circlet of leather woven by tho pigmies of two hairs of an elephant's tail. It is a cord which identifies him to sportsmen as a man who has brought down his bull elephant. Tho study of tho pigmies of tho Ituiu forest was ono of the accomplishments of tho expedition. Ho lived and slept in their camps, and was told that he was tho first white man to achieve- that experience. Colonel Furlong explained his welcome by the pigmies, who aro from throe to four feet tall in maturity, by saying that he was genuinely interested in primitive peoples, thai, ho did not look flown upon thorn from any

superior height, and that his friendli71OHK and sympathy evoked reciprocal feelings from these tribes. "I found the pigmies to be gentlefolk; many of them had tho kindly, sympathetic characteristics which we describe under the term 'gentleman,' " ho said, "anil I have tho greatest regard for them bocauso I consider (.ho pigmies tho finest it1 not tho most oxpert woodsmen and lihhUth in Hie jungle. Their size is a protection 1.0 them in t.ho hunting of game, and they find their way through tiie junglo with tho same facility that wo I ravel cm lighted streets. LESS GAME. i "They will bring down an elephant with their iron-tipped spears. They getto leeward of the elephant and creep up behind the legs of the animal ami thrust their spears into the muscles of his hind legs, hamstringing tho massive creature. When he turns in pain and anger they do not run and put themselves ai tho mercy of his rage, but as ho swings his forelegs around to locate his attackers, the pigmy hunters keep turning with his hind legs and hack at tho muscles. "Some ot! them will dart under the body and rip into his stomach with their weapons. "Three factors aro causing a. steady decrease in certain types of gamo in Africa," declared Colonel Furlong. "Tho rinderpest, which is fatal to the native cattle, also harries such wild animals as tho buffalo and tho other wild members of the cow family. The widespread hunting of game with highpowered rifles has not cut deeply into tho herds, although it has had an effect, undoubtedly, on lions and elephants, but tho steady expansion of tho settled areas has robbed the denizens of the junglo of vast stretches of territory and also disturbed the wild life on the fringes of the settlements." He cited the decline in bull elephants as an cxamplo of tho effect of ivory hunting in connection with this game. "Ten years ago," declared Colonel Furlong, "tho hunter was not satisfied with less than a 100-pound tusker; five years ago he was fortunate to get an eighty-pound tusker, and now ho is lucky if he gets fifty-pound tusks. The Shun Company representative told me that he had shipping as much as thirty tons of ivory out of Juba, ou the Nile, in one month. You can figure for yourself how many animals that means and how fast they have been wiped out. "Fortunately, great gamo preserves aro being set aside by the various European Governments who control African territory, and the shooting there is rigidly controller!."