The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals Part 16

[Ill.u.s.tration with caption: ALASKAN BROWN BEAR "IVAN" BEGGING FOR FOOD He invented the very expressive sign language that he employs.]

[Ill.u.s.tration with caption: THE MYSTERY OF DEATH. Himalayan bear jealously guarding the body of a dead cage-mate.]

Having no club to face, Bob quietly ignored the keeper's broom.

Paying not the slightest attention to the three inoffensive bears, Bob fixed his gaze on the Terror, at the far end of the den, then made straight for him. Tommy made a feeble attempt at defense, but Bob seized him by the back, bit him, and savagely shook him as a terrier shakes a rat. The Terror yelled l.u.s.tily "Murder! Murder! Help!" but none of the other bears made a move for his defense. Bob was there to give Tommy the punishment that was due him for his general meanness and his insulting behavior.

The horrified keeper secured his pike-pole, with a stout spike set in the end for defense, and drove the spike into Bob's shoulder.

Bob went right on killing the Terror. Again the keeper drove in his goad, and blood flowed freely; but Bob paid not the slightest attention to this severe punishment.

Then the keeper began to beat the cinnamon over the nose; and that made him yield. He gave the Terror a parting shake, let him go, and with a b.l.o.o.d.y shoulder deliberately walked out of that den and into his own. The punishment of the Terror went to the full limit, and we think all those bears approved it. In a few hours he died of his injuries.

Case 8. The Grizzly Bear and the String. One of the best ill.u.s.trations I know of the keenness and originality of a wild bear's mind and senses, is found in Mr. W. H. Wright's account of the grizzly bear he did not catch with an elk bait and two set guns, in the Bitter Root Mountains. This story is related in Chapter VI.

Case 9. Silver King's Memory of His Capture. At this moment we have a huge polar bear who refuses to forget that he was captured in the water, in Kane Basin, and who now avoids the water in his swimming pool, almost as much as any burned child dreads fire.

Throughout the hottest months of midsummer old Silver King lies on the rock floor of his huge and handsome den, grouching and grumbling, and not more than once a week enjoying a swim in his s.p.a.cious pool. No other polar bear of ours ever manifested such an aversion for water. The other polar bears who have occupied that same den loved that pool beyond compare, and used to play in its waters for hours at a time. Evidently the chase of Silver King through green arctic water and over ice floes, mile after mile, his final la.s.soing, and the drag behind a motor boat to the ship were, to old Silver King, a terrible tragedy. Now he regards all deep water as a trap to catch bears, but, strange to relate, the winter's snow and ice seem to renew his interest in his swimming pool. Occasionally he is seen at play in the icy water, and toying with pieces of ice.

Memory in Bears. I think that ordinarily bear memory for human faces and voices is not long. Once I saw Mr. William Lyman Underwood test the memory of a black bear that for eighteen months had been his household pet and daily companion. After a separation of a year, which the bear spent in a public park near Boston, Mr. Underwood approached, alone, close up to the bars of his cage. He spoke to him in the old way, and called him by his old name, but the bear gave absolutely no sign of recognition or remembrance.

How a Wild Grizzly Bear Caches Food. The silver-tip grizzly bear of the Rocky Mountains has a mental trait and a corresponding habit which seems to be unique in bear character. It is the habit of burying food for future use. Once I had a rare opportunity to observe this habit. It was in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia, in the month of September(1905), while bears were very activism. John M. Phillips and I shot two large white goats, one of which rolled down a steep declivity and out upon the slide- rock, where it was skinned. The flensed body of the other was rolled over the edge of a cliff, and fell on a brushy soil-covered spot about on the same level as the remains of goat No. 1.

The fresh goat remains were promptly discovered by a l.u.s.ty young grizzly, which ate to satiety from Goat No. 1. With the remains of. Goat No. 2 the grizzly industriously proceeded to establish a cache of meat for future use.

The goat carca.s.s was dragged to a well chosen spot of seclusion on moss-covered earth. On the steep hillside a shallow hole was dug, the whole carca.s.s rolled into it, and then upon it the bear piled nearly a wagon load of fresh earth, moss, and green plants that had been torn up by the roots. Over the highest point of the carca.s.s the ma.s.s was twenty-four inches deep. On the ground the cache was elliptical in shape, and its outline measured about seven by nine feet. On the lower side it was four feet high, and on the upper side two feet. The cache was built around two larch saplings, as if to secure their support. On the uphill side of the cache the ground was torn up in a s.p.a.ce shaped like a half moon, twenty-eight feet long by nineteen wide.

I regard that cache as a very impressive exhibit of ursine thought, reasoning and conclusion. It showed more fore-thought and provision, and higher purpose in the conservation of food than some human beings ever display, even at their best. The plains Indians and the buffalo hunters were horribly wasteful and improvident. _The impulse of that grizzly was to make good use of every pound of that meat, and to conserve for the future._

Survival of the Bears.--The bears of North America have survived thirty thousand years after the lions and the sabre-toothed tigers of La Brea perished utterly and disappeared. But there were bears also in those days, as the asphalt pits reveal. Now, why did not all the bears of North America share the fate of the lions and the tigers? It seems reasonable to answer that it was because the bears were wiser, more gifted in the art of self-preservation, and more resourceful in execution. In view of the omnivorous menu of bears, and their appalling dependence upon small things for food, it is to me marvelous that they now maintain themselves with such astounding success.

A grizzly will dig a big and rocky hole three or four feet deep to get one tiny ground-squirrel, a tidbit so small that an adult grizzly could surely eat one hundred of them, like so many plums, at one sitting. A bear will feed on berries under such handicaps that one would not be surprised to see a bear starve to death in a berry-patch.

But almost invariably the wild bear when killed is fairly well fed and prosperous; and I fancy that no one ever found a bear that had died of cold and exposure. The cunning of the black bear in self- preservation surpa.s.ses that of all other large mammal species of North America save the wolf, the white-tailed deer and the coyote.

In the game of self-preservation I will back that quartet against all the other large land animals of North America.

What Const.i.tutes Comfortable Captivity. It is impossible for any man of good intelligence to work continuously with a wild animal without learning something of its thoughts and its temper.

In our Zoological Park, day by day and hour by hour our people carry into practical effect their knowledge of the psychology of our mammals, birds and reptiles. In view of the work that we have done during the past twenty-one years of the Park's history, we do not need to apologize for claiming to know certain definite things about wild animal minds. It is my belief that nowhere in the world is there in one place so large an aggregation of dangerous beasts, birds and reptiles as ours. And yet accidents to our keepers from them have been exceedingly few, and all have been slight save four.

Twenty-five years ago I endeavored to plan for the Zoological Society the most humane and satisfactory bear dens on earth.

Fortunately we knew something about bears, both wild and captive.

Never before have we written out the exact motif of those dens, but it is easily told. We endeavored to give each bear the following things:

A very large and luxurious den, open to the sky, and practically on a level with the world;

Perfect sanitation;

A great level playground of smooth concrete;

High, sloping rocks to climb upon when tired of the level floor;

A swimming pool, always full and always clean;

Openwork steel part.i.tions between cages, to promote sociability and cheerfulness;

Plenty of sunlight, but an adequate amount of shade;

Dry and dark sleeping dens with wooden floors, and

_Close-up views of all bears for all visitors._

If there are anywhere in the wilds any bears as healthy, happy and as secure in their life tenure as ours, I do not know of them. The wild bear lives in hourly fear of being shot, and of going to bed hungry.

The service of our bear dens is based upon our knowledge of bear psychology. We knew in the beginning that about 97 per cent of our bears would come to us as cubs, or at least when quite young, and we decided to take full advantage of that fact. All our bears save half a dozen all told, have been trained to permit the keepers of the dens to go into their cages, and to _make no fuss about it._ The bears know that when the keepers enter to do the morning housework, or at any other time for any other purpose, they must at once climb up to the gallery, above the sleeping dens, and stay there until the keepers retire. A bear who is slow about going up is sternly ordered to "Go on!" and if he shows any inclination to disobey, a heavy hickory pick-handle is thrown at him with no uncertain hand.

Now, in grooming a herd of bears, a hickory pick-handle leaves no room for argument. If it hits, it hurts. If it does not hit a bear, it strikes the concrete floor or the rocks with a resound and a rebound that frightens the boldest bear almost as much as being hit. So the bear herd wisely climbs up to the first balcony and sits down to wait. No bear ever leaps down to attack a keeper.

The distance and the jolt are not pleasant; and whenever a bear grows weary and essays to climb down, he is sternly ordered back.

The keepers are forbidden to permit any familiarities on the part of their bears.

All the bears, save one, that have come to us fully grown, and savage, have been managed by other methods, involving shifting cages.

On two occasions only have any of our keepers been badly bitten in our bear dens. Both attacks were due to over-trustfulness of "petted" bears, and to direct disobedience of fixed orders.

From the very beginning I laid down this law for our keepers, and have repeated it from year to year.

"_Make no pets of animals large enough to become dangerous._ Make every animal understand and admit day by day that you are absolute master, that it has got to obey, and that if it disobeys, or attacks you, _you will kill it!_"

Familiarity with a dangerous wild animal usually breeds contempt and attack.

Timidity is so fatal that none but courageous and determined men should be chosen, _or be permitted,_ to take care of dangerous animals.

In every zoological garden heroic deeds are common; and the men take them all as coming in the day's work. Men in positions of control over zoological parks and gardens should recognize it as a solemn duty to provide good salaries for all men who take care of live wild mammals, birds and reptiles. _A man who is in daily danger of getting hurt should not every waking hour of his life be harried and worried by poverty in his home._

Let me cite one case of real heroism in our bear dens, which went in with "the day's work," as many others have done. Keeper Fred Schlosser thought it would be safe to take our official photographer, Mr. E. R. Sanborn, into the den of a European brown bear mother, to get a close-up photograph of her and her cubs.

Schlosser felt sure that Brownie was "all right," and that he could prevent any accident.

But near the end of the work the mother bear drove her cubs into their sleeping den and then made a sudden, vicious and most unexpected attack upon Keeper Schlosser. She rushed him, knocked him down, seized him by his thigh, bit him severely, and then actually began _to drag him_ to the door of her sleeping den!

(Just _why_ she did this I cannot explain!)

Heroically ignoring the great risk to himself, and thinking of nothing but saving Schlosser, Mr. Sanborn seized the club that had fallen from the keeper's hand when he fell, rushed up to the enraged bear and beat her over the head so savagely and so skilfully that she was glad to let go of her victim and retreat into her den. Then Mr. Sanborn seized Schlosser, dragged him away from the den, and stood guard over him until help came.

XIII

MENTAL TRAITS OF A FEW RUMINANTS

When we wish to cover with a single word the hoofed and horned "big game" of the world, we say Ruminants. That easy and comprehensive name embraces (1) the Bison and Wild Cattle, (2) the Sheep, Goats, Ibexes and Markhors, (3) the Deer Family and (4) the Antelope Family. These groups must be considered separately, because the variations in mind and temperament are quite well marked; but beyond wisdom in self-preservation, I do not regard the intelligence of wild ruminants as being really great.