ORDER ARTIODACTYLA I EVEN-TOED UNGULATES 509 



Wambutti-dwarfs and the leopards do not, however, respect any 

 laws, and therein lies the danger for the existence of this animal." 

 (Lonnberg, 1906, p. 310.) 



Lang (1918) has furnished a very interesting account, from which 

 the following excerpts are taken: 



Having walked more than a thousand miles in the tracks of the Okapi, 

 I unhesitatingly state that a great wariness and nocturnal habits efficiently 

 protect it from being successfully stalked by white men (p. 1605). 



The Okapi's one great enemy is man. The wariness of the game is but 

 an added stimulus to the cunning Pygmy hunter who, like the Okapi, claims the 

 forest jungle as his home. A quarry so large provides coveted meat for days 

 of feasting. The more powerful Bantu negro, living in villages and owning 

 plantations, with a craving for meat that had made him a cannibal, also 

 trapped the Okapi in well-concealed snares and pitfalls, and the Pygmy 

 would gladly exchange the product of his chase for vegetables. These 

 negroes . . . used the quaintly striped portions of the hide ... for adorn- 

 ment, especially belts. So highly were they prized that in some regions 

 to sit upon a skin or wear portions of it became the privilege of chieftains 

 and their families. (Pp. 1608-1609.) 



Okapi are caught by various methods .... Strong nets, in sections, are 

 hung loosely from the trees, barring the trails of the Okapi whose where- 

 abouts are previously known to the hunters. So rapidly are they driven 

 towards the nets by small dogs with wooden clappers and followed by men 

 shouting at the top of their lungs that they usually try to break through. 

 But the net instantly falls, completely entangling them, when they are 

 quickly dispatched by natives in ambush. This, however, calls for hundreds 

 of drivers and only powerful chiefs can afford to catch big game in this 

 manner. Pitfalls ten feet long, eight feet deep, but less than three feet wide 

 near the surface also claim many victims. [Many traps in the form of foot 

 snares, set in the Okapi's narrow trails, are also employed.] (P. 1609.) 



Since the Belgian government has undertaken to stamp out cannibalism, 

 hunger for meat has driven these [Azande] negroes to seek the game of 

 the forest. Though hunting Okapi is legally forbidden, many chiefs have 

 stationed in special camps hunters, who are forbidden by superstition to eat 

 Okapi meat. In course of time one section after another is thus depleted of 

 the Okapi. Some years ago the great Mangbetu chief, Zebandra, with the 

 aid of eight hundred drivers, caught eleven within a week. (P. 1610.) 



Christy (1924, pp. 52-72) gives a detailed and very interesting 

 account of hunting the Okapi with the help of Pygmies. ; <- 



The rarity of the animal has raised its price, up to the time of 

 the war, to 25,000 francs for a well-preserved specimen. Despite 

 legal protection, the natives continue to kill a rather large number 

 each year. (Leplae, 1925, p. 109.) 



The Okapi is included in Schedule A by the London Convention 

 of 1933. 



