ON AFRICAN VELDT

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 151, 23 December 1929, Page 7

ON AFRICAN VELDT

RARE ANIMALS REFOUND

WHITE RHINOCEROS HERD

One of the world's rarest animals, supposed for several years to have become extinct, has been rediscovered in fairly considerable numbers in Zululand, writes the Johannesburg correspondent of the San Francisco "Chronicle." The news, pleasing to all who favour (lie preservation- of this continent's irreplaceable fauna, refers lo tlio so-called "white rhinoceros." Instead of being classed as "unobtainable," the heavy, lumbering, thickskinncd brute, surpassed in size only by the elephant, may henceforth be available for zoos and scientific collections. One hundred and fifty specimens have, according to a white professional game ranger employed in the "Umfolosi Protective Reserve, been seen in a single herd, whereas it has been believed that there were not two specimens in Africa.

Until about fifty years ago the white rhinoceros was fairly plentiful on the veldt, at any rate in the hotter ani better watered eastern districts. Increasing setlement brought thousands of white hunters into the land, for, apart from the professionals, nearly every Boer and other European colonist is a wide-awake trailsman in his spare time. The aggregate slaughter accomplished by the pioneers cleared the jungles and prairies of its millions of antelopes, giraffes, lions, and other picturesque animals.

Frederick Selons, famous hunter, whom Sir Rider Haggard embodied in his African romances as 'Allan Quartermain," reported in 1874- that the white rhinoceros was still numerous. Thereafter the diamond, gold and other mineral fields of the territory lured crowds of immigrants into South Africa, and by 1880 tue museums wore struggling to obtain specimens. The animals ceased to figure as hunting or collectors' trophies for some twenty years until the, late Governor of Kenya Colony, Sir Robert Corydon, then a well-known bijj game hunter, discovered two in Zululand. Since then the creatures have occasionally been reported, but with such vagueness that Sow zoologists took Uie assertions very seriously.

A few months ago black tribesmen told settlers in. the wilderness that there were still some genuine white specimens to be found. One small herd was seen not many weeks ago by a trustworthy white traveller in a valley on the right of the UmfoTosi river, which stream flows past north of Natal Province into the Indian Ocean.

Great excitement was felt by those Europeans in Africa who wished to prevent the extinction of its fauna. For once America's experience with the bison might perhaps be repeated below the Equator, and a supposedly dead race systematically bred until 'it was plentiful again.

After having been seen near the Umfolosi river expeditious went into the .jungle to find what exactly was in the rumour. Within the last few days a further announcement by the game ranger already mentioned to the effect that there were as many as 100 of thu animals, reached the authorities. Two Europeans who have lived many years near the place where tl>e ranger found the animals declare there are not more than twenty-five. Further investigation fixes the number at about sixtyfive or seventy. The great difficulty is in capturing the animals, which are noted for their ferocity. Ingenious native trappers hope to secure several, which will be taken in special transport wagons to the Krugcr National Park in the Transvaal Province.

This rhinoceros can be called white only by courtesy. Its colour actually is grey. Big specimens are nearly seven feet high at the shoulder and fourteen feet from horn to tail. Some enormous ivories have been obtained from them, the largest horn being more than five feet long.