BRINGING LIVE ANIMALS FROM THE ARGENTINE 



By W. M. MANN 

 Director, National Zoological Park 



Early in April 1939 the writer, accompanied by Mrs. Mann, Mr. 

 and Mrs. William Shippen, of the Washington Evening Star, and 

 Dr. John Gray, sailed from New York on the S. S. Uruguay, of the 

 American Republics Line, for Argentina. Mr. Shippen was sent by 

 his newspaper to write a series of travelogs on South America. 

 Dr. Gray went to make observations on economics. Our work was 

 to gather and bring back to the National Zoological Park in Wash- 

 ington a collection of southern specimens. 



Before leaving, we had ascertained that certain North American 

 species were desired by the zoos of the Argentine, and we took with 

 us as an exchange 20 crates of live animals and birds, including bison, 

 Texas red wolves, prairie dogs, and American bald eagles. 



There was ample time in Rio cle Janeiro for us to visit the zoo and 

 make arrangements with Dr. Drummond, the director, to have a few 

 things ready for us on our return voyage. At Sao Paulo we left some 

 gila monsters for the famous snake farm and research institute at 

 Butantan, and arranged for exchanges with the director. 



The care of 20 crates of animals is not a very heavy duty, but it 

 kept us occupied some hours each day. One of the buffaloes in some 

 unaccountable way got turned around in his cage at night and spent 

 the rest of the voyage kicking and fighting. There did not seem a 

 chance of his arriving alive, yet he was turned out of his crate into 

 a comfortable paddock in the zoo at Buenos Aires looking only a 

 little tired. One of the Texas red wolves had a litter of five cubs 

 a couple of weeks after arriving, so there was an increase instead 

 of a loss in our shipment. 



From the time we arrived in Buenos Aires until we sailed 6 weeks 

 later, there was no lost time. The United States Consul General, 

 Monnett B. Davis, and Dr. A. Holmberg, director of the municipal 

 zoo at Buenos Aires, had things arranged for us. Almost immedi- 

 ately the Minister of Agriculture lent us a comfortable and commodi- 

 ous launch and sent us up the Delta of the Parana, through the rich 

 agricultural lands, to the Parana River itself. Here we visited a 

 large fur farm, where coypus, called nutrias in the Argentine, were 

 being raised by the hundreds. 



25 



