MUCH BITTEN MAN

Southland Times, Issue 18973, 21 June 1923, Page 9

MUCH BITTEN MAN

HEAD OF LONDON ZOO. PECKED AND CLAWED. EPERIENCES WITH ANIMALS. After 19 years as superintendent and curator of mammals at the London Zoological Gardens, Mr R. I. Pocock, F.R.S., ha> retired. Chief among the changes which marked his term of office were the “open-air treatment” for animals and the adoption of anaesethetics for operations on the captives. “I once saw a jaguar roped and hauled to the bars to have its claws cut,” he said. “After watching the long struggle, which left the poor beast exhausted, 1 consulted the veterinary officer as to designing a chloroform cage.” The most extraordinary thing Mr Pocock ever saw was in connection with this first experimental cage. It was only 18in wide, and a fine tiger, about lift long from nose to tail, was put to sleep in it. When the slide was opened for the operation it was found that somehow the great beast had turned clean round in that 18in., and its head was where its tail had been. Mr Pocock has been bitten, pecked and clawed by every variety of creature; one cf the most severe blows coming from a goose. He once released a pinioned vulture in the deers’ enclosure, hoping it would enjoy the open space. As the deer attacked the bird he entered to save it. The vulture gripped his thumb with its claws and held him prisoner, and it required the full strength of a powerful keeper to loosen that extraordinary grip. Mr Pocock tells of a battle of giants in the Zoo which has, so far, never been made public. A great European bison charged down the barrier which separated him from the American bison. No one was about when that fight to the death took place in the early morning, but the European bison was found battered into shapelessness.