July 19, 1968 
Mr. John Seago 
c/o Barclay's Bank 
P.O. Box 30011 
Nairobi, Kenya 
Dear John: 
I guess by now the matter of Alan Root is pretty well settled. The 
photographer wid will come from National Geographic will either be 
Jack Fletcher or Bob Sisson. Both are excellent photographers. 
Sisson, at present, is in Alaska doing a photographic story on sea 
otters. Jack Fletcher is doing some experimental work with our 
scimitar-horned oryx relative to remote night photography. He 
has a camera set up that is connected to a treadle built in the 
ground near their feeding station. The treadle is set for 15 
pounds of pressure and when the animal steps on it, the strobile 
light takes his picture. We find here at the Zoo that in many 
instances the wild animals do not react the same to the strobile | 
flash as they do to a sudden burst of light. The camera rewinds. 
automatically. He is working with one that will take 36 pictures 
and another that takes 250 pictures. This all seems very interesting. 
Last week I went to Cleveland to visit the bongo there. I am quite 
sure that the female, Karen, is pregnant. At Cleveland, the bongo 
are not considered more difficult to take care of than the eland 
although they do get very special care and are exhibited separately. 
I am sorry to hear that Alan Root is established in a good area. 
However, I am sure Tony is the best qualified man to catch the 
animals and that we will come out of this very well. As for Alan 
Root catching one bongo in six months, the question that comes to 
my mind is how much time did Alan devote to the capture of the 
animal? Did he actually capture the bongo or did some of the 
natives find it for him? My»reason for asking this is because I 
happen to know that Alan is doing several different things. How, 
ever, we should not worry about him as we have our own problems. 
