Omaha daily bee., 1908-06-21
BIC CAME FOR ROOSEVELT
Lions, Leopards, Elephants Await
Him in Africa.
OKAPIs IF HE CAN FIND THEM
white R-hiBOcerOses scarce-AnteIOpe,
Zebras and Bnboons Plentiful
Maybe He VIII Discover
beats Now

behts NOW OnknONhs
When President Roosevelt retires from
office he says he will 60 to Africa to make
his strenuous personality felt among the
big game of that continent. He announces
that it is his ambition to secure with his
own rifle a specimen Of each species of
Africa's big fauna This is an ambitious
project and will be difficult to carry out.
Famous hunters have gone to the small
territory where the okapi browses In the
swamps in the darkness and hides in dense
thickets in the hours of daylight, but very
few have been so fortunate as to bag one of
these elusive animals.
Is the president sanguine that he will
bring home the skin Of a white rhinoceras?
The fact that one was killed recently was
thought worth tel~egraphing all over the
world. Less than a century ago the white
rhinoceros was living In large numbers
from South Africa to the Sahara, but de-
cades now elapse without one being killed.
There is not a specimen OF white rhi-
noceros in many of the largest museums. II
Mr.. Roosevelt can bring his specimen home
alive 1t will be worth a small fortune TO
him.
In one of his books Mr.. Roosevelt says:
The most striking and melancholy fact
in connection with American big game Is
the rapidity with which it has vanished"
1t is also regrettable that the same process
of the rapid elimination of big game has
long gone on in Africa.
Needlessly sensational views on this sub
ject are widespread. Mr.. Schillings, the
famous photographer and hunter of Africa's
big game, Is an alarmist on this subject.
Big game already has been exterminated,
especially in parts of South Africa, but the
fact is that the nations of no other conti-
nent ever have done more than is now be-
ing done in Africa TO save these animals.
Some varieties of splendid creatures have
utterly disappeared, but there is now little
danger that any more of them will be
wholly extinguished.
No mercy is shown to lions, l~eopards and
a few others that kill man and destroy his
live stock. All the African governments
permit them to be killed any time and any
where. Their eventual fate will be to pro-
duce their kind only in captivity.
Practically all other big game will con-
tinue to flourish as well as they can on
reservations, where they may live under
natural conditions and be very much what
they always have been, excepting that they
will grow tanner. They will, of course,
cease to have a continental range, as man
AAaNNS AACAt bAd VI @NAAiNU ~
his economic purposes. That is the history
of big game in all lands, and It is inevitable.
But unbridled slaughter is practically at
an end. Some of the governments are
even restricting the number of rhinoceroses
and hippopotami that a hunter may kill
in one season.
We have much to learn yet about many
of the important animals of Africa. Doubt
less there are not a few of which we have
never heard.
A sensation was caused in recent years
by the discovery of the okapi, a beautiful
animal with some of the physical charac-
t~eristics both of the horse and the giraffe.
When Boyd Alexander crossed Nigeria and
the Sudan between the Niger and the Nile
three years ago. he discovered eighteen
speciment Of mammalia that were new to
science. Schillings. in the overturned re-
gions of British and German East Africa,
has found several specimens unknown till
he brought them to light. There will be
more such discoveries.
The regions rich in big game in Africa
that are still untouched by hunters are
enormous. There are various reasons for
this. One Is that the great Nimrods have
gone preferably to those parts of Africa
which are easiest of access and whose good
| nedlln may Debl De lldllldlltu' CO oouAi
Africa has been hunted nearly to death,
and the same ruthless destruction would
befan British East Africa If it were not for
the game laws that are now in force.
The vast regions of Nigeria. the north
part of the French Congo and the basin OF
the great Shari river are naturally a para
disc for hunters. Astounding in the finest
game of all kinds. with a seemingly mex
haustible supply. But until recently the
fanatical native government would have
killed any white poacher upon their pre-
serves, and today, under white regulation
there can be little reckless slaughter.
There has been little uncontrolled shoot
ing in any Of the great regions dominated
by France. The French themselves are not
surprising hunters, and 1t has been the
policy OF France on the whole to keep the
hunters of other nations out Of its African
government would be held responsible
for their safety and It declined to assume
the responsibility.
The big hunters who have penetrated
the wonderful game region of East Africa
south of Abyssinia, may almost be counted
on ones myers. Thus there are vas
virgin fields where hunting will be regu.
lated under the present enlightened and CO.
operative policies OF the colonial govern
ments.
The game laws in these colonies, TO be
sure, are often violated. Great regions are
not yet entirely policed and both whites
! and natives sometimes incur the risk o
paying the penalty for transgressing the
law. The great fact is that the prevailing
Influence is against excessive slaughter
and the evil is being more and more
: abated.
: Mr.. schillings says in his latest bool
that "our only clue to the extent Of the
/ slaughtering OF elephants now being car
> ried on is furnished by the immense
4 quantity Of ivory that comes on the mar
] kets.' The quantity of ivory sent q
market is not. however. an accurate index
e as Schillings intimates, to the number o
I elephants slaughtered; because for year
past enormous quantities of It have beer
what is known as dead ivory that had &C
cumulated In the hands Of the natives lonl
before they knew it's value or had eve
T seen white men.
= AS an example of the efforts that ar