344 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



proportion of sexes among these animals was believed to be very 

 uneven with "a great shortage of mares." This number is still less 

 than a few years previously, for E. L. Gill, writing in December 1932, 

 said that at Cradock there were "two or three small herds which seem 

 likely to die out. The Oudtshoorn herd on the farm Mount Hope, 

 has been carefully preserved by the owners, the brothers Heyns, and 

 is still flourishing. It numbers somewhere about 70 animals and con- 

 stitutes the chief hope for the survival of the species." 



Efforts have been made at various times in recent years to induce 

 the Government to purchase a portion of the Mount Hope Farm as a 

 permanent Mountain Zebra reserve. In 1937, the Government at 

 last voted to ask the Parliament of the Union of South Africa for 

 7,600 for the establishment of such a reserve and hopes are high that 

 it may actually be created, before it is too late. Notwithstanding 

 that the species is protected at all times by the South African 

 Government, the actual enforcement of this protection has in the 

 past been difficult. It is one of the species listed for complete pro- 

 tection by the London Convention of 1933. 



While "the advance of civilization" is blamed for the reduction 

 in numbers of this zebra, no doubt much blame must also be laid 

 upon the native and white poachers with modern rifles, as well as 

 to other methods of extermination. Bryden (1899) wrote that occa- 

 sionally the weather is so "severe among the Cape mountains that 

 even the tough zebra succumbs" and that in "the old days in Cape 

 Colony, the Boers were in the habit of hunting these animals for the 

 sake of their hides and of capturing the young alive for the purpose 

 of being broken to harness." For in the last century "a fashion for 

 using Mountain Zebras in harness seems ... to have sprung up in 

 the Mauritius, and ... a good many of these animals were exported 

 from the Cape to meet the requirements of the French colonists. 

 ... A premium of 20 was at the same time offered for the young 

 of these animals delivered in Cape Town." "The Boers, to save 

 themselves the trouble of shooting, occasionally succeeded in driving 

 a number of these animals over the edge of a precipice, thus securing 

 the skins at their leisure" (Bryden, 1899) . 



Although Bryden (1899) feared that within the "next fifty years 

 this zebra will have joined the ranks of extinct creatures," there 

 seems still some hope of preserving a remnant, owing chiefly to the 

 interest of those farm owners on whose lands the survivors still hold 

 out, and an awakened enthusiasm on the part of the Government to 

 do what it can. 



While the future of the Mountain Zebra in the Cape Province is 

 none too rosy, it still occurs in the form hartmannae in small numbers 

 among the mountain ranges of the western and northwestern parts 

 of South-West Africa and northward across the Cunene into south- 



