RARE ANIMAL DIES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22713, 28 October 1935, Page 11

RARE ANIMAL DIES

Jennie, the takin—the rarest and loneliest animal at the London Zoo— ; has died of old age. She has been in the Gardens since 1923, and was the only one of her kind in captivity. The takin is half-goat and half-antelope, and lives in the almost inaccessible moun- • tains of Bhutan and Eastern Tibet. It is regarded as sacred, the penalty for touching it being loss of hands and feet. One hunter was killed and several injured in capturing Jennie when she was about 15 months old. At first she was tame ■ and friendly, but by degrees grew shorttempered and was neglected by visitors, until she became the loneliest of all the animals. As a weather prophet, however, she was unrivalled, for her thick brown coat was covered with a strongsmelling, oily secretion, and whenever there was rain in the air her musklike odour became more and more pro- ‘ nounced. It is expected that she will be stuffed and sent to the Natural Hir : tory Museum. 1