called the attention of the Fellows to an account of a fight
between a whale and a swordfish observed by the crew of the
fishing-boat 'Daisy' in the Hauraki Gulf, between Ponui Island and
Coromandel, as reported in the 'Auckland Weekly News,' 19th Nov.,
1908. A cow whale and her calf were attacked by a 12 ft. 6 in.
swordfish, the object of the fish being the calf. The whale
plunged about and struck in all directions with her flukes.
Occasionally the fins of the swordfish were seen as he rose from a
dive, his object apparently being to strike from below. For over
a quarter of an hour the whale circled round her calf, lashing
furiously and churning up the water so that the assailant was
unable to secure a good opportunity for a thrust. At last, after
a fruitless dive, the swordfish came close up and made a thrust at
the calf, but received a blow from the whale's flukes across the
back, which apparently paralyzed it. It was killed and hauled on
board the boat without difficulty, while the whale and calf went
off towards Coromandel with splashings and plungings. The whale's
blow had almost knocked off the back fin of the swordfish, and
heavily bruised the flesh around it. No threshers accompanied the
swordfish."
Beyond question, as firearms and hunters multiply, all wild
animals become more timid, less inclined to attack man, and also
less inclined to attack one another. The higher creatures are the
most affected by man's destructiveness of animal life, and the
struggle for existence has become so keen that fighting for the
glory of supremacy, or as a pastime, will soon have no important
place in the lives of wild animals.
XXIV
WILD ANIMAL CRIMINALS AND CRIME
Many human beings are "good" because they never have been under
the harrow of circumstances, nor sufficiently tempted to do wrong.
It is only under the strain of strong temptation that human
character is put through the thirty-third degree and tried out. No
doubt a great many of us could be provoked to join a mob for
murder, or forced to steal, or tortured into homicidal insanity.
It is only under the artificial conditions of captivity, with loss
of freedom, exemption from the daily fear of death, abundant food
without compensating labor, and with every want supplied, that the
latent wickedness of wild creatures comes to the surface. A
captive animal often reveals traits never recognized in the free
individual.
"Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do."
These manifestations are of many kinds; but we propose to consider
the criminal tendencies of wild animals both free and captive.
The persistence of the mental and moral parallelism between men
and wild animals is a source of constant surprise. In a state of
freedom, untrammeled by anything save the fear of death by
violence, the deer or the mountain sheep works out in his own way
his chosen scheme for the survival of the fittest,--himself. In
the wilds we see very few manifestations of the criminal instinct.
A fight between wild elk bulls for the supremacy of a herd is not
a manifestation of murder lust, but of obedience to the
fundamental law of evolution that the largest, the strongest
and the most courageous males of every herd shall do the breeding.
The killing of natural prey for daily food is not murder. A
starving wolf on the desolate barren grounds may even kill and
devour a wounded pack-mate without becoming a criminal by that act
alone. True, such a manifestation of hard-heartedness and bad
taste is very reprehensible; but its cause is hunger, not sheer
blackness of heart. Among wild animals, the wanton killing of a
member of the killer's own species would constitute murder in the
first degree, and so is all unnecessary and wanton killing outside
the killer's own species.
To many a wild animal there comes at tunes the murder lust which
under the spur of opportunity leads to genuine crime. In some of
the many cases that have come under my notice, the desire to
commit murder for the sake of murder has been as sharply defined
as the fangs or horns of the criminal. Of the many emotions of
wild animals which are revealed more sharply in captivity than in
a state of nature, the crime-producing passions, of jealousy,
hatred, desire for revenge, and devilish lust for innocent blood,
are most prominent. In the management of large animals in
captivity, the criminal instinct is quite as great a trouble-
breeder and source of anxiety as are wild-animal diseases, and the
constant struggle with the elements.
In many cases there is not the slightest premonitory manifestation
of murderous intent on the part of a potential criminal. Indeed,
with most cunning wisdom, a wild-animal murderer will often
conceal his purpose until outside interference is an
impossibility, and the victim is entirely helpless. These
manifestations of fiendish cunning and premeditation are very
exasperating to those responsible for the care of animals in
captivity.
In every well regulated zoological park, solitary confinement is
regarded as an unhappy or intolerable condition. Animals that live
in herds and groups in large enclosures always exercise more, have
better appetites, and are much more contented and happy than
individuals that are singly confined.
To visitors, a happy and contented community of deer, antelopes,
bears, wolves, or birds is a source of far more mental
satisfaction than could be found in any number of solitary
animals. A small pen with a solitary animal in it at once suggests
the prison-and-prisoner idea, and sometimes arouses pity and
compassion rather than pleased admiration. The peaceful herd or
flock is the thing to strive for as the highest ideal attainable
in an exhibition of wild animals. But mark well the difficulties.
_All the obstacles encountered in carrying out the community
idea are created by the evil propensities of the animals
themselves._ Among the hoofed animals generally, every pair of
horns and front hoofs is a possible storm-center. No keeper knows
whether the members of his herd of deer will live together in
peace and contentment until tomorrow, or whether, on any autumn or
winter night, a buck will suddenly develop in his antlered head
the thought that it is a good time to "kill something."
In the pairing season we always watch for trouble, and the danger
signal always is up. In October a male elk may become ever so
savage, and finally develop into a raging demon, dangerous to man
and beast; but when he first manifests his new temper openly and
in the broad light of day, we feel that he is treating fairly both
his herd-mates and his keepers. If he gives fair warning to the
world about him, we must not class him as a mean criminal, no
matter what he may do later on. It is our duty to corral him at
night according to the violence of his rage. If we separate him
from the herd, and he tears a fence in pieces and kills his rival,
that is honest, open warfare, not foul murder. But take the
following case.
In October, 1905, the New York Zoological Park received from the
state of Washington a young mule deer buck and two does. Being
conspicuous members of the worst species of "difficult" deer to
keep alive at Atlantic tidewater, and being also very thin and
weak, it required the combined efforts of several persons to keep
them alive. For six months they moped about their corral, but at
last they began to improve. The oldest doe gave birth to two fawns
which actually survived. But, even when the next mating season
began, the buck continued to be lanquid and blase. At no time did
he exhibit signs of temper, of even suspicious vigor.
In the middle of the night of November 6, 1906, without the
slightest warning, he decided to commit a murder, and the mother
of the two nursing fawns was selected as the victim. Being weak
from the rearing of her offspring, she was at his mercy. He gored
her most savagely, about twenty times, and killed her.
That was deliberate, fiendish and cowardly murder. The killing of
any female animal by her male consort is murder; but there are
circumstances wherein the plea of temporary insanity is an
admissible defense. In the autumn, male members of the deer
family _often become temporarily insane and irresponsible,_
and should be judged accordingly. With us, sexual insanity is a
recognized disease.
Such distressing cases as the above are so common that whenever I
go deer-hunting and kill a lusty buck, the thought occurs to me,--
"another undeveloped murderer, perhaps!"
The most exasperating thing about these corral murders is the
cunning treachery of the murderers. Here is another typical case:
For three years a dainty little male Osceola deer from Florida was
as gentle as a fawn and as harmless as a dove. But one crisp
morning Keeper Quinn, to whom every doe in his charge is like a
foster-daughter, was horrified at finding blood on the absurd
little antlers of the Osceola pet. One of the females lay dead in
a dark corner where she had been murdered during the night; and
this with another and older buck in the same corral which might
fairly have been regarded as an offensive rival.
The desire to murder for the sake of killing is born in some
carnivorous animals, and by others it is achieved. Among the
largest and finest of the felines, the lions and tigers, midnight
murders very rarely occur. We never have known one. Individual
dislike is shown boldly and openly, and we are given a fair chance
to prevent fatalities. Among the lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars
and pumas of the New York Zoological Park, there has been but one
murder. That was the crime of Lopez, the big jaguar, who richly
deserved instant death as a punishment. It was one of the most
cunning crimes I have ever seen among wild animals, and is now
historic.
For a year Lopez _pretended,_ ostentatiously, to be a good-
natured animal! Twenty times at least he acted the part of a
playful pet, inviting me to reach in and stroke him. At last we
decided to give him a cage-mate, and a fine adult female jaguar
was purchased. The animals actually tried to caress each other
through the bars, and the big male completely deceived us, one and
all.
At the end of two days it was considered safe to permit the female
jaguar to enter the cage of Lopez. She was just as much deceived
as we were. An animal that is afraid always leaves its traveling-
cage slowly and unwillingly, or refuses to leave it at all. When
the two sets of doors were opened, the female joyously walked into
the cage of her treacherous admirer. In an instant, Lopez rushed
upon her, seized her whole neck in his powerful jaws, and crushed
her cervical vertebrae by his awful bite. We beat him over the
head; we spiked him; we even tried to brain him; but he held her,
as a bull-dog would hold a cat, until she was dead. He had
determined to murder her, but had cunningly concealed his purpose
until his victim was fully in his power.
Bears usually fight "on the square," openly and above-board,
rarely committing foul murder. If one bear hates another, he
attacks at the very first opportunity, He does not cunningly wait
to catch the offender at a disadvantage and beyond the possibility
of rescue. Sometimes a captive bear kills a cage-mate or mauls a
keeper, but not by the sneaking methods of the human assassin who
shoots in the dark and runs away.
I do not count the bear as a common criminal, even though at rare
intervals he kills a cage-mate smaller and weaker than himself.
One killing of that kind, done by Cinnamon Jim to a small black
bear that had annoyed him beyond all endurance, was inflicted as a
legitimate punishment, and was so recorded. The attack of two
large bears, a Syrian and a sloth bear, upon a small Japanese
black bear, in which the big pair deliberately attempted to
disembowel the small victim, biting him only in the abdomen,
always has been a puzzle to me. I cannot fathom the idea which
possessed those two ursine minds; but I have no doubt that some of
the book-making men who read the minds of wild animals as if they
were open books could tell me all about it.
On the ice-pack in front of his stone hut at the north end of the
Franz Josef Archipelago Nansen saw an occurrence that was plain
murder. A large male polar bear feeding upon a dead walrus was
approached across the ice-pack by two polar-bear cubs. The
gorging male immediately stopped feeding and rushed toward the
small intruders. They turned and fled wildly; but the villain
pursued them, far out upon the ice. He overtook them, killed both,
and then serenely returned to his solitary feast.
In February, 1907, a tragedy occurred in the Zoological Park which
was a close parallel of the Lopez murder. It was a case in which
my only crumb of satisfaction was in my ability to say, "I told
you so,"--than which no consolation can be more barren.
For seven years there had lived together in the great polar bears'
den of the Zoological Park two full-grown, very large and fine
polar bears. They came from William Hagenbeck's great group, and
both were males. Their rough-and-tumble wrestling, both in the
swimming pool and out of it, was a sight of almost perennial
interest; and while their biting and boxing was of the roughest
character, and frequently drew blood, they never got angry, and
never had a real fight.
In the autumn of 1906 one of the animals sickened and died, and
presently the impression prevailed that the survivor was lonesome.
The desirability of introducing a female companion was spoken of,
but I was afraid to try the experiment.
By and by, Mr. Carl Hagenbeck, who had handled about forty polar
bears to my one, wrote to us, offering a fine female polar as a
mate to the survivor. She was conceded to be one-third smaller
than the big male, but was fully adult. Without loss of time I
answered, declining to make the purchase, on the ground that our
male bear would kill the female. It was my belief that even if he
did not at once deliberately murder her, he soon would wear her
out by his rough play.
Mr. Hagenbeck replied with the assurance that, in his opinion, all
would be well; that, instead of a tragedy taking place, the male
would be delighted with a female companion, and that the pair
would breed. As convincing proof of the sincerity of his views,
Mr. Hagenbeck offered to lose half the purchase price of the
female bear in the event that my worst fears were realized.
I asked the opinion of our head keeper of bears, and after due
reflection he said:
"Why, no; I don't believe he'd kill her. He's not a _bad_
bear at all. I think we could work it so that there would be no
great trouble."
Mr. Hagenbeck's son also felt sure there would be no tragedy.
Quite against my own judgment of polar-bear character, but in
deference to the expert opinion arrayed against mine, I finally
yielded. The female bear was purchased, and on her arrival she was
placed for three weeks in the large shifting-cage which connects
with the eastern side of the great polar bears' den.
The two animals seemed glad to see each other. At once they
fraternized through the bars, licked each other's noses, and ate
their meals side by side. At night the male always slept as near
as possible to his new companion. There was not a sign of ill
temper; but, for all that, my doubts were ever present.
At last, after three full weeks of close acquaintance, it was
agreed that there was nothing to be gained by longer delay in
admitting the female to the large den. But we made preparations
for trouble. The door of the sleeping-den was oiled and overhauled
and put in thorough working order, so that if the female should
dash into it for safety, a keeper could instantly slide the
barrier and shut her in. We provided pike-poles, long iron bars,
lariats, meat, and long planks a foot wide. Heartily wishing
myself a hundred miles away, I summoned all my courage and gave
the order:
"Open her door, a foot only, and let her put her head out. Keep
him away."
The female bear had not the slightest fear or premonition of
danger. Thrusting her head through the narrow opening, she looked
upon the world and the open sky above, and found that it was good.
She struggled to force the door open wider; and the male stood
back, waiting.
"Let her go!" Forcing the door back with her own eager strength,
she fearlessly dropped the intervening eighteen inches to the
floor of the den, and was free. The very _next second_ the
male flung his great bulk upon her, and the tragedy was on.
I would not for five thousand dollars see such a thing again. A
hundred times in the twenty minutes that followed I bitterly
regretted my folly in acting contrary to my own carefully formed
conclusions regarding the temper, the strength, and the mental
processes of that male bear.
He never left her alone for ten seconds, save when, at five or six
different times, we beat him off by literally ramming him away.
When she first fell, the slope of the floor brought her near the
cage bars, which gave us a chance to fight for her. We beat him
over the head; we drove big steel spikes into him; and we rammed
him with planks, not caring how many bones we might break. But
each time that we beat him off, and the poor harried female rose
to her feet, he flung himself upon her anew, crushed her down upon
the snow, and fought to reach her throat!
Gallantly the female fought for her life, with six wild men to
help her. After a long battle,--it seemed like hours, but I
suppose it was between twenty and thirty minutes, the male bear
recognized the fact that so long as the female lay near the bars
his own punishment would continue and the end would be postponed.
Forthwith he seized his victim and dragged her inward and down to
the ice that covered the swimming-pool in the centre of the den,
beyond our reach. The floor of the den was so slippery from ice
and snow that it was utterly unsafe for any of our men to enter
and try to approach the now furious animal within striking
distance.
Very quickly some choice pieces of fresh meat were thrown within
six feet of the bears, in the hope that the male would be tempted
away from his victim. In vain! Then, with all possible haste,
Keeper Mulvehill coiled a lasso, bravely entered the den, and with
the first throw landed the noose neatly around the neck of the
male bear. In a second it was jerked taut, the end passed through
the bars, and ten eager arms dragged the big bear away from his
victim and close up to the bars. Another lariat was put on him to
guard against breakages, and no bear ever missed being choked to
death by a narrower margin than did that one. That morsel of
revenge was sweet. While he was held thus, two men went in and
attached a rope to the now dying female, and she was quickly
dragged into the shifting-cage.
But the rescue came too late. At the last moment on the ice, the
canine teeth of the big bear had severed the jugular vein of the
female, and in two minutes after her rescue she was dead. It is
my belief that at first the male did not intend to murder the
female. I think his first impulse was to play with her, as he had
always done with the male comrade of his own size. But the _joy
of combat_ seized him, and after that his only purpose was to
kill. My verdict was, not premeditated murder, but murder in the
second degree.
In the order of carnivorous animals, I think the worst criminals
are found in the Marten Family (_Mustelidae_); and if there
is a more murderous villain than the mink, I have yet to find him
out. The mink is a midnight assassin, who loves slaughter for the
joy of murder. The wolverine, the marten, mink and weasel are all
courageous, savage and merciless. To the wolverine Western
trappers accord the evil distinction of being a veritable imp of
darkness on four legs. To them he is the arch-fiend, beyond which
animal cunning and depravity cannot go. Excepting the profane
history of the pickings and stealings of this "mountain devil" as
recorded by suffering trappers, I know little of it; but if its
instincts are not supremely murderous, its reputation is no index
of its character.
The mink, however, is a creature that we know and fear. Along the
rocky shores of the Bronx River, even in the Zoological Park, it
perversely persisted long after our park-building began. In spite
of traps, guns, and poison, and the killing of from three to five
annually in our Park, _Putorius vison_ would not give up.
With us, the only creatures that practiced wholesale and
unnecessary murder were minks and dogs. The former killed our
birds, and during one awful period when a certain fence was being
rebuilt, the latter destroyed several deer. A mink once visited an
open-air yard containing twenty-two pinioned laughing gulls, and
during that _noche triste_ killed all of those ill-fated
birds. It did not devour even one, and it sucked the blood of only
two or three.
On another tragic occasion a mink slaughtered an entire flock of
fifteen gulls; but its joy of killing was short-lived, for it was
quickly caught and clubbed to death. A miserable little weasel
killed three fine brant geese, purely for the love of murder; and
then he departed this life by the powder-and-lead route.
All the year round captive buffalo bulls are given to fighting,
and for one bull to injure or kill another is an occurrence all
too common. Even in the great twenty-seven thousand acre reserve
of the Corbin Blue Mountain Forest Association, fatal fights
sometimes occur. It was left to a large bull named Black Beauty,
in our Zoological Park herd, to reveal the disagreeable fact that
under certain circumstances a buffalo may become a cunning and
deliberate assassin.
In the spring of 1904, a new buffalo bull, named Apache, was added
to the portion of our herd which up to that time had been
dominated by Black Beauty. We expected the usual head-to-head
battle for supremacy, succeeded by a period of peace and quiet. It
is the law of the herd that after every contest for supremacy the
vanquished bull shall accept the situation philosophically, and
thereafter keep his place.
At the end of a half-hour of fierce struggle, head-to-head, Black
Beauty was overpowered by Apache, and fled from him into the open
range. To emphasize his victory, Apache followed him around and
around at a quiet walk, for several hours; but the beaten bull
always kept a factor of safety of about two hundred feet between
himself and the master of the herd. Convinced that Black Beauty
would no longer dispute his supremacy, Apache at last pronounced
for peace and thought no more about the late unpleasantness. His
rival seemed to accept the situation, and rejoined the herd on the
subdued status of an ex-president.
For several days nothing occurred; but all the while Black Beauty
was biding his time and watching for an opportunity. At last it
came. As Apache lay dozing and ruminating on a sunny hill-side,
his beaten rival quietly drifted around his resting-place,
stealthily secured a good position, and, without a second's
warning plunged his sharp horns deep into the lungs of the
reclining bull. With the mad energy of pent-up and superheated
fury, the assassin delivered stab after stab into the unprotected
side of the helpless victim, and before Apache could gain his feet
he had been gored many times. He lived only a few minutes.
It was foul murder, fully premeditated; and had Black Beauty been
my personal property, he would have been executed for the crime,
without any objections, or motions, or appeals, or far-fetched
certificates of unreasonable doubt.
During the past twenty years a number of persons have been
treacherously murdered by animals they had fed and protected. One
of the most deplorable of these tragedies occurred late in 1906,
near Montclair, New Jersey. Mr. Herbert Bradley was the victim.
While walking through his deer park, he was wantonly attacked by a
white-tailed buck and murdered on the spot. At Helena, Montana, a
strong man armed with a pitchfork was killed by a bull elk. There
have been several other fatalities from elk.