The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-01-30
THE VANISHING GIRAFFE.
HE HAS BEEN HUNTED ALMOST IN
80 HIS LAST HAUNTS.


Habits of the Gentle AnimaI-Needs
No More Water Than "a Camel and
Has Very Curious GaIIOp-Hide
Is an Inch Thick, But the Flesh Is
Good Eating, Despite MusI<y
OdOr.
From the London Times.
The untimely and most regrettable death
of the young South African giraffe which
lately reached England serves again to
remind us of the increasing scarcity of
these animals and of the immense difficult
ties which attend their capture. 1t is
remarkable fact that until the year 1895
no living giraffe had ever reached Europe
from South Africa. The old stock, so
long familiar in the Geological Society's
gardens, were descended from animals
captured in Kordofan by M. Thibaut,
French trader in the Soudan, as far back
as 1884. These North African CRATES
bred freely in captivity, and the last of
this stock died so recently as 1892. In 1875
the Zoological Society was fortunate
enough to purchase a young female cap
tured by Boer hunters in Southeast At
RIGA. This animal has thriven remarkably,
and it was confidently hoped that it's
union with the young male which has just
died would result in the reproduction of
fresh family of these strange and inter
esting animals. Throughout Europe gil
RATES. have been of late years, thanks
principally to the closing of the Soudan
trade routes by the Mahdis adherents,
extremely scarce, and the supply in other
narts of Africa is without doubt being
depleted rapidly and surely year by year
Even in the further Soudan these animals
are being gradually eXtermnated.
Giraffe hide-which in the mature ami
mails attain a thickness of at least an inch
upon the upper parts-is commodity Gag
erlv sought after by all natives south and
north of the equator. From 1t are fash-
toned sandals, shields, and whips, ana the
demand for it is owing to the eXtermlna-
tion of the rhinoceros and hippopotamus,
raDidlv increasing. In South Africa the
value of the skin of a full-grown bull
Giraffe is. at the present time, even far up
country, about Go, and to secure TINS re-
ward large numbers of giraffes, wherever
these animals are plentiful, are annually
slain, principally to supply the constant
demand for sjambooks-i. e., colonial raw
hide whips 1t is within the writer's
knowledge that quite recently during two
seasons hunting, not less than 300 gil
RATES. have been shot by native hunters
near Lake Ngami. That slaughter, with
in limited district, represents naturally
only a small portion of the determination
which is. month by month and week by
week. going4 forward in the African con-
tinent
Not until firearms and horses were in
troduced into Africa did the present la
mentable period of determination set in.
Native Africans, with their own primitive
weapons-spears and bows and arrows
made little impression on the numbers of
these stately quadrupeds. Even in the
pitfalls and hopos, once so abundant in
the interior OF South Africa, few giraffes
we're taken as compared with other quad
rupede But as soon as breechloading RI
eas and especially hunting horses, APP
oeared the gigantic mammal became al
most surely doomed to extinction. Even
With the modern rifle the European on
foot finds II difficult to approach and
stalk such shy and suspicious game as
eiraffes Moreover. IN the greater part
of those regions of Southern Africa in
which these creatures are now 10 be found
the country is almost entirely waterless,
and the foot hunter has no possible chance
of attaining his purpose. In the northern
mart of the Kalahari Desert for instance,
where large numbers of CRATES still roam,
II Is Impossible TO approach these animals
except on horseback. and then only with
Great difficulty CRATES have the faculty
m common with several Of the ante
iopos, such as the Gland and gemsbok, of
beine able to support life for long periods
without touching water. For this reason,
II, their last southern stronghold--the
North Kalahari-giraffes have thus far
been able to resist utter extinction. But
with the aid of horses and water carts
considerable portions of this vast water
less tract Of country are now being rem
dered accessible to hunters, and even there
l.as.a
existence. The Kalahan Is not BY any
means a sheer desert. j lacks surface
water, but much Of its fiat yet elevated