450 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



Kansu Wapiti 



CERVUS ELAPHUS KANSUENSIS PoCOck 



Cervus kansuensis Pocock, Proc. Zool. Soc. London 1912, p. 558, 1912. ("30 

 miles S.E. of Tao-chou, Kansu, in China, at an altitude of 11,000 feet.") 

 FIGS.: Wallace, 1913, pis. facing pp. 200, 206, 214; Wallace, 1915, pi. 66. 



The Kansu Wapiti, ranging from southern Kansu to northern 

 Szechwan, is evidently faced by the same threat of extinction as its 

 Asiatic relatives. 



The winter pelage of the stag is brown-gray; legs darker than 

 the body; height at the shoulder, about 57 inches; antlers with 5 

 or 6 tines, length along the curve up to 43| inches (Wallace, 1913, 

 p. 203). The general color of the female is speckled brown; a 

 blackish-brown patch on the croup; white of the hind-quarters of 

 about the same extent as in macneilli; tail with a narrow median 

 dark stripe (Pocock, 1912, p. 572) . 



Wallace (1913, pp. 199-206) gives the following account of this 

 Wapiti as he found it in the Min Shan along the boundary between 

 Kansu and Szechwan: 



The huge forests which originally existed on the borders of North-Western 

 [= northeastern] Thibet, have, during the course of centuries, been fearfully 

 depleted. The natural home of the wapiti, . . . deforestation alone, even to 

 the enormous extent to which it has been carried, would have had out small 

 effect upon their numbers. They have, however, been reduced to an even 

 greater extent than have the firs and pines which form their home. Nor is 

 the reason far to seek. Whatever the true medicinal value of hartshorn, its 

 efficacy has been magnified a thousand fold by the Chinese. The wretched 

 wapiti have but practically two months' immunity from slaughter in the year, 

 namely May and June. They shed their horns in April and therein lies their 

 sole safeguard, for minus their horns their commercial value is small. ... It 

 is a matter of astonishment that they have not been totally exterminated 

 long since. . . . 



Given ... a race of hunters (and nearly every man on the Thibetan 

 border possesses a gun), plus a powerful motive for the killing of game, and 

 its annihilation becomes inevitable. It may take generations some exotic 

 factor such as the importation of modern rifles may hasten it within an in- 

 conceivably short period but that it will sooner or later disappear, unless 

 the evil is checked by drastic reforms, is as certain as the setting of the 

 sun. . . . 



According to the old hunters, even within their own lifetime, a noticeable 

 decrease has taken place in the numbers of the wapiti. ... As it is, he 

 may survive for a few remaining years. . . . 



Of the numbers killed annually some idea may be gained from the fact 

 that Dr. Smith tells me that while crossing the Kjaling River, he saw on 

 the ferry-boat a string of about fifteen mules loaded entirely with wapiti 

 horns. They were bound from Sining to Hanchung-fu. The horns were in 

 the dry state and were intended for eye-medicine. An average mule-load 

 is between 300 Ib. and 400 Ib. Taking the horns at 20 Ib. per pair, it gives 

 fifteen to twenty pairs per mule. This gives between 250 and 300 pairs of 

 horns in one string, though doubtless many were "shed." . . . 



