Gored to Death By Wild Buffalo

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 532, 8 December 1928, Page 26

Gored to Death By Wild Buffalo

Perched in Jungle Tree, Without Rifle, Hunter Watches Partner Trampled to Death by Raging Beast , . . Perils of Men Who Capture Animals for Zoos.

TT* saw n roaring. frenzied ’ hmoceros charge his wife and ' inld, knowing that all that stood between his loved ones and a terrible death teas his own and his partner's ability to shoot with deadly aim! He had to sit in the branches of

n jungle tree and helplessly watch ns his partner was gored and trampled by a raging water buffalo until all that was left were small pieces of bone and flesh on the blood-reddened sand: Hr was almost killed when a giant giraffe that he was trying to lasso jerked him from, his horse, and then dragged him several miles over the veldt plain before his helpers could shoot the beast. Once, in the dim. murky twilight of a jungle evening, he rode his bicycle over the tail of a mammoth king lion sitting beside the narrow: path: HKSE are but a few of the amazing adventures of Christopher Schulz, world renowned capturer of wild animals, who has charge of this work in Africa for the Hagenbeck Wild Animal Company, of Hamburg, Germany twrites Hadyn S. Pearson). ■'How do you do it?” I asked, in genuine admiration, as he told me that he had captured and brought out of the jungle about 125,000 animals. “Ah, but you must love them!” he exclaimed. "You must love them all —the lions, the elephants, the tigers, giraffes, and yes, even the monkeys.” A big bronzed man, of quick movement and massive strength beneath wide shoulders, is Christopher Schulz. But his smile reveals the true character of the man. It is tender and quiet, and conveys the all-consuming love he has for his profession. "Anyone can go out and capture wild animals by using traps and pitfalls,” he went on, ‘‘but what good is that? It is a million times harder to capture them humanely, so they will not. be injured. What I am proud of is that I gain the animals’ affection afterwards. Then, too, it is a lifetime study to learn how to care for them and feed them. "People don't know that hundreds and thousands of animals die on the way across the ocean. I have never lost an animal, because I first learned how to care for them and feed them.”

Schulz began capturing wild animals when he was 20 years old. Now at 43, he can look back over hundreds of perilous situations from which he has escaped with his life by a close margin. In some of these thrilling experiences his wife and son have been concerned, for they live with him on his big ranch in Tanganyika, Central Africa. On one memorable occasion his family was with him on a hunt for adult chimpanzees. Suddenly ahead of them in the murky, gloomy jungle loomed a mammoth bull rhinoceros. ‘‘We did not want to kill or injure it,” explained Mr. Schulz, “for we never take a wild life unless it is absolutely necessary. So we left Mrs. Schulz and my young son standing In the trail while my partner and I separated a bit, and went forward with out native helpers to scare the great animal out of the way.” Suddenly the behemothian brute lifted his snout-capped head. The small, heavy-lidded eyes saw Mrs. Schulz and the small boy directly ahead, in the trail. 'With a roaring, ugly bellow he started straight for them. Schulz and his partner had gone ahead only a few yards. When the beast started to charge, the two men stopped. With muscles tense as steel they waited. They realised, as did Mrs. Schulz, that her life and the boy’s depended on the sureness of the men's aim. Nearer charged the roaring bull! The two men were about 50 feet apart. As the beast came between them the two men fired, almost simultaneously. With the bark of the rifles the rhinoceros stumbled, started ahead again," and then dropped dead In the trail, just six yards from the cowering woman and boy. When they examined the kill, they found that the two bullets were lodged in the brain of the animal barely four inches apart! “My partner and I went out one morning to locate a spot to capture some tropical birds. We were carrying our light rifles, as we always car--1

“We had been separated about half an hour, and I was walking slowly along the edge of the jungle, when suddenly a water buffalo charged at me. Most people don’t know that these animals are very ugly, and will charge at you without the slightest warning from where they lie hidden in the bushes and mud. You may be peacefully walking, and the first thing you know a buffalo Is coming at you. “I had just time to get my gun up and fire, but I did not kill him. The bullet hit his shoulder and glanced off, instead of going on into his heart. “He hit me and knocked me down, and the gun was thrown off to one side. As quick as he could stop he turned around and started for me again. I didn’t have a chance to get the gun. I just barely managed to scramble into a tree ahead of him while he stamped around and tore up the ground beneath the tree. “I yelled to my partner, ‘Come quick! Help!’ X heard him answer, and then he came crashing through the under brush just at the end of the jungle. I shouted and yelled at the top of my power for him to look out. that there was a wounded water buffalo, but he was making so much noise he could not hear my voice. “The buffalo heard my partner coming, and started for the edge of the jungle hole. They met just as my partner came through the last of the bushes, before the veldt grass began. “The buffalo was right on top of him before he could get his gun into position to fire. Then, my young friend,” said Mr. Schulz, with a husky break in his voice and a faraway look in his eyes, “I had to sit there in that tree and watch my partner be gored to death. I tried to get down and get my gun, but as soon as I would get to the ground the buffalo would turn on me. It was terrible, terrible. “I buried him on a little knoll back of our home,” he went on, "and we keep lovely native flowers growing there the year round. Since then I have never had another partner. My wife and son and I do it all alone now, with the help of our natives.”