KIWI FOR BRONX ZOO?

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 25 October 1941, Page 7

KIWI FOR BRONX ZOO?

SAD LIFE PREDICTED "A sad life awaits a kiwi if it is to be given to the Bronx Zoo, New York, according to an indication in a cabled report, recently published,” states the executive of the Forest and Bird Protection Society. "This possibility must be very unpleasant for many New Zealanders who had hoped that no more gifts of protected birds or their skins would be made to zoos or museums after New Zealand’s deplorable experience of the expedition sent out by the American Museum of Natural History, known as the Whitney expedition. In the case of the kiwi, a nocturnal bird, it can be safely predicted that it: life under unnatural conditions overseas would not be happy. Inspections of it by the public would be in clay’ight or artificial light for which the bird’s eyes are not adapted. If it is kept in the open for spectators, it will suffer. The exposure of such a bird to light is really a cruelty. It is distinctly not a suitable inmate for a zoo. The country’s birds, especially rare species, have been subjected far too much in the past to the crazes of collectors. Surely the time has come when the statutory protection of such a bird as the kiwi should be actually protection, without exceptions for any zoo or museum. Would not the gift of a kiwi for an American Zoo encourage similar requests from various zoos of British or other countries? New Zealanders should make the strongest possible stand for the safeguarding of their birds in their native habitat ”