Report on the National Zoological Park 



Sir : I have the honor to submit the following report on the activ- 

 ities of the National Zoological Park for the fiscal year ended June 

 30, 1961: 



GIFTS 



From the standpoint of both popular interest and rarity, the out- 

 standing gift of the year was the white tigress, Mohini of Rewa, which 

 arrived on December 4, 1960. This beautiful animal, cream colored 

 with brown to black stripes and ice-blue eyes, was the gift of the 

 Metropolitan Broadcasting Corporation of New York and Ealph Scott 

 of Washington, D.C. The Director of the National Zoological Park, 

 accompanied by Beit Barker, senior keeper of small mammals, flew 

 to India to select the tiger from a litter of four white cubs raised by 

 the Maharajah of Rewa and escort it to Washington. Thomas J. 

 Abercrombie, staff member of the National Geographic Magazine, 

 joined the Zoo men in Rewa to make photographs. The Maharajah 

 had captured a male white tiger cub in 1951, and when it was adult 

 mated it to a normal-colored Bengal tiger. The young were all the 

 usual orange color. Then he mated the white male to one of the 

 female offspring, and the resulting four cubs were all white. A 

 subsequent litter, from the same parents, had one orange and two 

 white cubs. Mohini was formally presented to President Eisenhower 

 on the White House lawn by John Kluge, president of the Board of 

 the Metropolitan Broadcasting Corporation, as a gift to the children 

 of America. Mohini, when she arrived, was a little over 2 years old 

 and weighed about 200 pounds. Her name is Hindi for Enchantress, 

 and she continues to enchant the throngs who daily come to see her. 

 She is the only white tiger in any zoo in the world at this time. 



Through the efforts of Mrs. Ira J. Heller, the "Share Your Birth- 

 day Foundation" — an organization to promote international good will 

 among children — brought an Indian elephant as a gift from the chil- 

 dren of India and the Maharajah of Mysore to the children of 

 America. Ambika is a female approximately 9 years old and weighs 

 2,820 pounds. She arrived in the United States on April 14, 1961, 

 after a 47-day voyage on the S.S. Steel Architect of the Isthmian 

 Line. Between various appearances before school children in other 

 cities she is on deposit in the National Zoological Park, wliich will 

 eventually be her permanent home. 



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