NOT TO BE SHOT

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 33, 8 August 1934, Page 3

NOT TO BE SHOT

THE WHIPSNADE LIONS

The Zoo authorities deny that they have any intention of shooting the two Wlupsnade lions who killed a man trying to recover a hat from their pit, or of removing them from the pit into menagerie quarters, says the "Daily Telegraph." At the point where the accident occurred the parapet is to be surrounded by railings and wires, but no other alterations are considered necessary. _ Whether the Zoo is wise in this decision is a much debated question. It may be argued in favour, as stated by Zoo officials, that there is.no truth in the theory that once a lion or tiger has tasted human blood ho becomes a maneater and the sworn enemy of all human beings. The fact that the lions have stalked a victim should not make the pit a less safe prison.for them since they have been in occupation for over a year. The keepers are in no more danger of being attacked, because it has never been their practice to go into the pit while tho lions are at largo. On the other hand, tho attitudo of tho lious siuce the accident does not suggest that they have been unmoved by it. When liberated into tho pit from the dens after the accident Nero and Joe, the aggressors, were undoubtedly in a highly excited condition, and since then they liave taken a keen interest in all passers-by. Before the tragedy, if a keeper had walked into the pit he might probably have been unmolested, but now Nero and Joe aro obviously waiting and hoping for another victim. They are definitely dangerous, and seem to. have gone back to their wild state. They habitually stalk the wallabies, which run past the bars of the enclosure, and now they have begun +t stalk man. Instead of growing more contented as time, passes, like ordinary menagerie lions, they seem likely to become more and more ferocious, but | the Zoo authorities are convinced that tho pit is a safe prison even for lions with an incentive to hunt.

Tiio lions merely acted according to their nature when they attacked a man who was creeping round their homo, and to shoot them as a "punishment" would Ijo unfair. But whether they should remain on view to attract morbid sightseers is another matter.