ANIMAL MYSTERY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21827, 14 December 1932, Page 8

ANIMAL MYSTERY

HOWLING WOLF AT ZOO. Scientists generally, and natural historians in particular, are faced with an apparently insoluble problem at the Zoo in Central Park, New York. It is a mystery of some 20 years’ standing, and concerns a wolf. Bucko, a lean, grey timber wolf, ever since 1912 at the stroke of noon every day, except Sundays, sits back on his haunches and howls long and mournfully blood-curdling wails like the cries of his forefathers whom he left some 22 years ago in the wilds of the Maine Woods. The wolf, a short time after he arrived at the zoo, began his mid-day howling, and more recently he has been joined in his ear-splitting efforts by three other wolves and two coyotes. The sextet is silent every Sunday, and science took up the cudgels. How to account for this Sabbath-day peace? Certain eminent authorities contend that the wolf, a misanthrope, realises the influx of additional visitors on Sunday, and, unwilling to perform for their benefit, retires to a haughty seclusion. Other authorities of more practical mind have recently made a discovery that they consider extremely pertinent. Bucko is fed every week-day at 10 am., so it is not for his dinner that he howls. But on Sunday he receives no meal, and on that day he keeps his silence, and the others follow his lead.