The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-11-10
CAPTURING WILD BEASTS.
Dangerous Occupation of the Men Who
 Keep the Market Supplied.

From the New York Press.
 It is probable that there is no more difficult or speculative business than that of dealing in wild beasts. Theoretically it is all very well to say to Cross of Liverpool, Hagenbeck of Hamburg, or Bartels of New York, who have the wild beast trade of the world in their own hands, You must make a mint of money selling lions to showmen at $1uOO each and giraffes at $150O, when these and all other animals may be had for nothing. proving at large in the jungle and only waiting for your agents to come along.
 If this were really so more persons would engage in the wild beast trade in- stead of leaving the entire business of the world in this connection to the three dealers above mentioned. Certainly prices are large and the goods belong to any man able to lay hands on them. But imagine what business it Is to send out trained hunters to India and Central Africa and the malarial jungles or Su- matra and Java, as well as to the canni- bal recesses of New Guinea and the desc late highlands of Central Asia.
 Each of these men requires huge ana costly outfit of tents arms, ammunition canned goods, and carloads of brass wire beads and other goods for bartering with the natives. The agent must engage tribal headmen and native tfappers anu hunters, and organize a search on great scale for wild beasts with young. For op- Viously it IS almost an imposslDlllty to capture an adult rhinoceros or hippopota- mus, although lions and tigers may oc- caslonally be trapped in a staked pit. whose mouth is covered over with turf and twigs and is bated with a live goat. But 1t is usually the young ones Whlch the wild beast importers agent deVots his attention to. killing the parents out right. and taking only their skins, in which, by the way very large business is done.
 The delicate babies" require very care ful feeding with goats milk and other delicacies; and when at length the agent has amassed in his camp great number of wild beasts, crates and cages are, made for them by the local natives under the white mans direction forest trees being cut down specially for this pur- pose Elephants are caught in much the same way that the Indian government takes them, in "kheddahs," or staked in closures. But the ordinary wild beast man is at great disadvantage in not hay inv any tanned tuskers to subdue and conciliate his colossal prisoners
 It is a mistake to suppose that civiliza- ton has made such strides in the waste places of the earth that wild beasts are in danger of extinction. True, the British government has established a kind Of game preserve for elephants, lions, and rhinoceri in North Central Africa, and the French, German and Portuguese gov ernments charge heavy fees for license to kill ar capture big game in their Afri- can colonies; but still in the Athi Plains of Somaliland herds of zebra and antelope roam in thousands, and after them, nat urally enough, come the larger carnivora. chiefly lions and leopards; and around about the sources of the Nile and the Great Lakes and in Equatorial Egypt also there still remain vast regions untrodden by white men, where it is known that elephants, giraffes, and many other varie ties of scarce great game roam in incred- ible numbers.
 It is worth noting that some of the deal- CTS now undertake the education of wild animals themselves at headquarters, find ing that their staff, by a little trouble, can teach lions and tigers. seals and polar bears and elephants various ingenious lit tie feats and tricks which may very well add 50 per cent to the selling price. Thus an ordinary lion might be sold for $S50, while a performing lion might fetch $120O. A polar bear fresh from the Arctic might realize $7O0, but if taught to perform few easy tricks in which nature has aided him. a circus or private entertainer will gladly pay $1000 or $1100 for him.