The Wildest Game

by Peter Ryhiner as told to Daniel P Mannix

 

Introduction

I believe that I have seen the last of a great wild animal trapping era. I have caught gorillas in the Cameroons, orangutans in Borneo, rhinos in India, jaguars in South America and king cobras in Siam. I have transported 136 elephants, as opposed to Hannibal's forty-five . . . and handled single shipments of wild animals valued at $100,000. Today, such shipments are no longer possible and I doubt that they will ever be again. Currency restrictions, conservation laws, regulations against importing or exporting many species, and increased transportation costs have all taken their toll. In the future, the transportation of rare animals will probably be arranged on an exchange basis by the large zoos, working through their respective governments.

Only fifteen years ago, it was different. Any young man with a knowledge of trapping and handling wild animals could plunge into the jungles of the Amazon, take his chances among the wild tribes in the interior of Africa, or strike up an acquaintance with a rajah in hopes of being able to trap tigers in his state. You needed little capital, only a willingness to take risks and a feeling for wild game. You might die of fever, a native spear, or be mauled by one of your trophies, or you might clear $35,000 on a single shipment as I once did.

Following the last war, there was an enormous boom in the animal business. Zoos had been unable to obtain any new specimens and for the first time in nearly ten years the world was open to collectors again. Also, the airplane had come into its own. Animals could be flown in by plane from remote districts where formerly it had required weeks to transport them. Then, too, a collector could take a shipload of animals to New York, London, or Antwerp, find out what new specimens were wanted by the local dealers, and fly to Brazil, Kenya, India or Indonesia . . . arriving at any place on the globe in seventy-two hours or less. Previously, simply getting from one place to another took months by ship. The whole world had suddenly become the collector's compound. I have made three trips in a year from the Far East to the United States, bringing the animals over by ship and flying back to save time.

Animal collecting during this fabulous period was a very different business than in the days of the justly famous Frank Buck. Modern transportation and huge demands made big cargoes routine, as the contrasting lists of animals collected will show.

Buck — Myself
39 — 136 — Indian elephants
60 — 62 — tigers
28 — 72 — spotted leopards
20 — 23 — black leopards
10 — 3 — clouded leopards
4 — 3 — snow leopards
20 — 32 — hyenas
52 — 25 — orangutans
31 — 135 — gibbons
3,000 — 10,000 — smaller monkeys
20 — 4 — (Asiatic) tapirs
120 — 45 — (Asiatic) antelope and deer
9 — 0 — *Pygmy water buffalo
1 — 4 — gaur (wild cattle)
1 — 0 — *babirusa
2 — 0 — *African Cape buffalo
18 — 50 — African antelope
2 — 9 — giraffes
40 — 43 — wild sheep and goats
11 — 24 — camels
40 — 75 — kangaroos
2 — 6 — Indian rhinoceros
40 — 62 — Asiatic bears
90 — 125 — pythons
1 — 35 — king cobras
100 — 40,000 — small snakes
5 — 150 — monitor lizards
15 — 300 — crocodiles and caymans
500 — 10,000 — small mammals
100,000 — 2,000 — birds

* Cannot be imported today.

Of course, these different records are the products of different eras. Before air travel, it was impractical for collectors to go jumping around all over the world and so collectors confined themselves to certain areas . . . in Buck's case, southeastern Asia. Also, there was formerly no point in collectors' bringing back huge cargoes of wild animals; there was simply no demand for them.

On the other hand, in Buck's time there were few import or export restrictions. In the last few years, I have found it virtually impossible to import any cloven-hoofed animals because of the threat of rinderpest, hoof and mouth disease, anthrax and other ailments. No modern collector can bring in antelope, deer, buffalo or pigs as Buck was able to do. Buck could export all the orangutans that he wished from Indonesia. Today, exporting these great red apes is almost impossible due to conservation laws passed since Buck's time. So I have made this comparison only to give some idea of how matters have changed since World War II.

Because of the airplane, a collector can now easily cover many areas instead of confining himself to only one or two. In addition to the above list, I have also imported:

42 pumas
36 jaguars
22 South American tapirs
34 rheas (including the rare white rhea)
25,000 smaller birds
12,000 small mammals
6 maned wolves
8 spectacled bears
250 boas and anacondas
500 cameloides (llamas, guanacos, vicunas and alpacas)

Africa

5 gorillas
32 chimps
40 zebras
20 ostriches
8 cheetahs
6 rhinos
6 hippos
3 pygmy hippos
6 striped hyenas
20 small cats
12 wild dogs
250 large birds
700 small birds

I have also exported from North and Central America to European and Asian zoos: sea lions, Kodiak bears, ring-tailed cats, raccoons, opossums, armadillos, coati mundis, kinkajous, bobcats, woodchucks, prairie dogs, many reptiles, amphibians and birds.

The question I'm most frequently asked is, "How do you catch wild animals?" Of course there is no one answer, for virtually every species requires a different technique. Some are caught with nets, others in pits, some chased and lassoed from cars, still others taken in box traps or with snares. In this book, I've tried to explain as many trapping methods as possible. However, I want to make clear that most trapping is not done by the collector but by native hunters. No foreigner, even though he may have spent years in a country, can ever equal the skill of these men. The collector's principal task is to keep the animals alive after capture.

Collecting animals is dangerous work but much of the danger comes from poisonous insects, sunstroke, and tropical diseases. Wild animals will seldom attack a human except under the most extreme provocation. The greatest danger comes from a captured animal that has escaped in a compound or on shipboard.

I have never used a gun (except on one special occasion) and I never carry firearms. I consider the damned things a menace. There is too much danger of injuring a valuable specimen unnecessarily or, in a crisis, shooting one of your own native helpers. Besides, a man working with wild animals is too busy to worry about personal risks.

Generally when setting out to capture an animal, I don't have any qualms over the animal's feelings about the business. It's like a game between us: his brains and strength against my skill. Although I realize that many people feel that capturing wild animals for zoos is inherently cruel, under proper conditions I know of no reason any animal should be unhappy in captivity and I find that most animals adapt themselves to it very easily.

I doubt if anyone would seriously suggest that all zoological parks be abolished. They give pleasure to many people, especially children, and keep alive the popular interest in animals which makes much of conservation work possible. If the parks are to exist, the animals must be captured.

Animals show no indications of resenting captivity once they grow accustomed to it. Escaped animals often return voluntarily to their cages. The popular belief that wild creatures enjoy roaming over wide areas is quite untrue. Most wild animals remain by their own choice in very small areas — invisible "cages" that nothing but the last extremes of hunger or thirst can force them to leave. Even the great cats do not travel except when absolutely necessary. If a plentiful supply of food is at hand, they seldom move more than a few hundred yards a day and then only from a drinking hole to their favorite lying-up spot. Nor do caged animals repine as would humans so confined. Animals are not capable of abstract thinking and so do not suffer from boredom.

There is no question that caged animals are healthier and live longer than wild animals. F. C. Selous, one of the greatest of all African hunters, once remarked that he could tell at a glance the hide of a zoo lion from that of a wild lion. The zoo lion's pelt was much glossier and showed no trace of mange. Wild animals do not lead the ideal existence most people suppose. If they become sick, they simply die, and diseases are much more prevalent among them than is commonly supposed. When they grow old and can no longer fend for themselves, they die a slow, agonizing death unless predators pull them down. As the number of wild animals does not increase under normal conditions and nearly all are very prolific, the mortality rate among them is obviously very high. Gorillas, for example, are one of the least prolific of all animals but a female will probably give birth to twenty young during her lifetime. Of this number, not more than one or two survive — otherwise, the number of gorillas would be constantly increasing, which we know is not the case. In captivity, there is no reason why all the young should not survive.

If animals are unhappy in captivity, they should certainly hate the man who has dragged them from their happy homes to a life behind prison bars. My animals do not hate me. Four tigers I captured in India and sold to the Vero Beach Zoo remembered me two years later. They ran up to the bars, purred, and arched their backs to be scratched. A leopard I sold to the Zurich Zoo knew me after four years. I could go into the cage with him although he would instantly attack a stranger. Some chimps that I sold to the Colombo Zoo in Ceylon remembered me for six years. Whenever I went by their cage, they would go mad with delight. Even if there was a large crowd, they'd instantly pick me out and start dancing around the cage, shouting to me with shrill chirps and cries. Dr. Aubrey Weinman, the director, always let me into their cage and we would have a big celebration. I find it hard to believe that these animals would behave this way if they were really unhappy.

There is also another aspect to the animal collecting question. Many species of animals are fast disappearing . . . not due to collectors but to hunters, the march of civilization and other factors. Several species exist today only because scientists have been able to study them in zoos. The American bison and the Australian koala would be extinct now if some specimens hadn't been kept in captivity and their needs become known to zoologists. There are several species which today are found only in zoos, the European bison, Przewalski's wild horse, the Pere David deer, and the Barbary lion, to name only a few. The wild ones have all been killed off to make room for the expanding human population.

When you consider how many animals are shot for sport every year, the very few taken for menageries are negligible. I suffered considerable twinges of conscience about taking six Indian rhino calves, in spite of the government's assurance that the reserve where they roamed was becoming overpopulated, for there are only approximately 350 of these rare animals left. But a few months later, two sporting politicians in Nepal shot twentysix rhinos in one week simply for fun. My rhinos are doing well in captivity. In the Basel Zoo, a pair that I captured have had a calf, thus starting a new line of these almost extinct creatures. With the rapidly expanding population in West Africa, the wild gorilla is almost surely doomed. But now zoologists have managed to induce gorillas to breed in captivity. In the Columbus Zoo, in Ohio, a little female was born December 23, 1956. Her name is Colo and she is doing well. The perpetuation of the race may well depend on babies like Colo. Lions now breed so easily in captivity that there is almost no demand for wild specimens. The same may someday be true of all the rarer species.

Today, there are only three men, besides myself, who handle large shipments of animals. Of these, two are over seventy. When they retire, I doubt if anyone will take their place. Animal collecting is becoming too difficult. Still, I am glad to have partaken in the great elephant keddahs in the foothills of the Himalayas, the wild pursuits after rhinos across the African veldt, and the capture of rheas with bolos by Argentine cowboys on the pampas. It has been a great period and I am happy to have seen it.

 

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