HIGH COST OF ZOOS

Hokitika Guardian, 3 December 1932, Page 7

HIGH COST OF ZOOS

U.S. CITIES PERTURBED. An American weekly states in a recent issue: “LVEany a city is facing the problem, with humans starving in its streets, to find money .to keep the Zoo alive. Last week President William B. Cadwallader, of tlie Philadelphia Zoological Society, .addressed to the city council a plain statement of fact. He said: | “In the city budget for 1933 I have tasked that the city ,oouncil appropriate 100,000 dollars for the maintenance of the Zoological Gardens. If this sum of money cannot be made available it will soon become absolutely necessary to dispose of the animals and close the gardens. .- . You should clearly understand that the closing of the gardens cannot easily be accomplished. On account of the depression in the animal market it now appears to he impossible to dispose of the animals; therefore we will be faced with the only alternative, to destroy them. “In the Philadelphia Zoo there are some 3000 animals. Its collection of apejs, monkeys, gorillas, marmosets, chimpanzees and other simians is famous throughout the world. Though the idea would have seemed natural in China, no one so far has suggested feeding Philadelphia’s Zoo animals to the unemployed.”