Popular Official Guide to the New York Zoological Park (September 1915): Thirteenth EditionHornaday, William T. (William Temple)
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Popular Official Guide to the New York Zoological Park (September 1915): Thirteenth Edition
Hornaday, William T. (William Temple)
New York Zoological Park
The American members of the Deer Family will be found in the ranges
situated on the hill west of the Wild-Fowl Pond, stretching from the
Llama House northward to the Service Road.
After several years of experiments, we must admit that to all the
American members of the Deer Family save the wapiti white-tailed and
mule deer, the climate of New York City is decidedly inimical. This
densely humid and extremely saline atmosphere is about as deadly to the
black-tail, caribou and moose as it is to the Eskimo; and thus far we
have found it an absolute impossibility to maintain satisfactory herds
of those species in the ranges available for them. In great tracts of
forests, some of them might become acclimatized; but, be that as it may,
all experiments made thus far both here and in two of the great game
preserves of New England, prove conclusively that black-tail deer, mule
deer, caribou, moose, and also prong-horned antelope, are among the most
difficult of all ruminants to acclimatize anywhere in the United States
eastward of the great plains.
Although the Zoological Society will continue its experiments with some
of these preserve species, and will always strive to exhibit some of
them, our original hopes regarding them have been abandoned. We are
certain that the difficulty lies not in the food, but in climate
conditions, that are beyond our control, and especially our very salty
atmosphere.
The American Elk, or Wapiti, (_Cervus canadensis._)—Of all the numerous
members of the Deer Family, this animal is second in size to the moose
only; and in the autumn, when its pelage is bright and luxuriant, its
sides well rounded, its massive antlers clean and held conspicuously
aloft, the elk may justly be called the king of the _Cervidae_. It is
well that in the Yellowstone Park we have an unfailing supply of Elk,
which bids fair to perpetuate this handsome species for another century.
Our Elk Range might well stand for a mountain park, in which is set a
natural lakelet of real value. In October, when the splendid groves of
beech, oak, and maple along the eastern ridge put on all the glorious
tints of autumn, and the big thicket of sumacs, ash, and haw on the
northern hill fairly blaze with scarlet—then are the elk also at their
best. There is no finer picture in animate nature than a herd of elk in
October, with such a setting of greensward, tree-trunk, and foliage.
[Illustration: AMERICAN ELK.]
[Illustration: EUROPEAN RED DEER.]
The maximum shoulder height of the Elk is 5 feet 4 inches, or
thereabouts, and the heaviest weight noted thus far is 927 pounds.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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