CO885-(21-23) — Page 520

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

FIT CO. 885

ווווווווד

22 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

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These figures require some explanatory remarks. (1). The Customs figures published show the actual amount of ivory exported during the first nine months only of each of these years, I have added to these a third of the export of the first nine months to represent that of the last three. (2) and (3). Gross values and royal- ties are calculated in the same way. (4). In the column (A) I have calculated the number of elephants represented by taking 30 lbs. apiece as the average weight of tusks exported. I have obtained this average weight from 1,771 tusks exported during the last twelve months, the weights of which have been supplied to me by the exporters. These tusks, the ivory of 885 elephants, aggregated 51,452 lbs., an average of just over 29 lbs. each. There was a fair proportion of fine large tusks among them, and the number is sufficiently large to enable the average weight to be taken as representative of the total export. But I believe that for every ten elephants with ivory up to the 10 lb. standard, at least one is killed with under- I do not think that this is at all too weight tusks which find another outlet. high an estimate, and I have added a column (B) which allows for this, and repre- sents, in my opinion, no exaggerated estimates of the number of elephants whose ivory has been exported in the last six years. It shows that from 1906 to 1911 the ivory of about 13,000 elephants has been exported. The progress of the increase is remarkable: (1906) 822, (1907) 1,076, (1908) 1,149, (1909) 2,382, (1910) 3,479, and (1911) 4,040. But the increase in elephant hunting has been even greater than these figures indicate. During the period from 1906 to 1908 or 1909 about 75 per cent. of the ivory was old buried tusks. Within the last two years the proportion of this has decreased, and I should put it now at about 50 per cent. only of the whole, the remainder being freshly-killed ivory. It is not possible to trace the exact source of origin of all this ivory, and a good deal of it is probably obtained out- side our boundaries, but the number of elephants now being killed annually within and around at the boundaries of the Sudan must be at least 2,000, and the slaughter is rapidly increasing. Only an immense stock of elephants could have stood such a drain during the last few years without a much more apparent decrease than seems to have resulted so far, and unless the slaughter is checked now it will soon assume proportions against which the slow-breeding giants cannot hold their own. It will be seen from the figures given how comparatively trifling is the number of elephants killed by sportsmen, and that the limitations placed on them are neces- sitated mostly by the amount of destruction going on otherwise. Moreover, the elephants killed by them are, for the most part, old bulls, carrying heavy ivory, whose destruction is not premature. Further, the sportsman pays considerable sums in licence fees, in addition to the royalties which alone are derived from the elephants killed by natives, and he spends large sums of money locally. I am not, therefore, in favour of putting closer limitations on the class of hunter who does least killing and least wounding, exercises most discrimination as to the size of the elephants he kills, and contributes most to the Government revenue.

Rhinoceroses.

As regards the preservation of the rhinoceros. In comparison with some other parts of Africa, the number of these animals in the Sudan is small. Moreover, it includes a great part of the existing stock of the great white or square-mouthed rhinoceros. Consequently they require more protection here than would be necessary in other parts.

In addition to the European demand for horn, there is, as has been pointed out, a large use of it in the East, in ground or powdered form, as an aphrodisiac. Also, a widespread Oriental belief that a rhinoceros-horn cup is a safeguard against poison makes them sought after. (It is curious how such a fallacy can continue to find credence. I have been assured by well-educated Chinamen that if poison were put into such a cup it would begin to fizzle, and the cup would melt. Probably the effect of some strong corrosive acid on the horn being observed gave rise to the idea.)

Probably much good would result if by general agreement a limit weight for' rhinoceros horn was fixed also, with the prohibition of the export of it in powdered form, and of the sale of small manufactured articles, to prevent underweight horn being utilised in any form. But I am not sure that this check will be as effective as in the case of ivory, the horn of a small rhinoceros not being the most valuable part of the animal. At the present time the bulk of the rhinoceros horn which is sold in the Sudan comes in from the country north of the Bahr el Arab, and west

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of 28° E., beyond our frontier. Large numbers of these horns actually weigh as little as one or two lbs. apiece. The value of these is very low, only about 28. a lb., whereas the price paid for good-sized horns is 5s, or 10s. a lb., and as high as 20s. for very long horns approaching a yard in length. It is not probable that the natives who kill these small rhinos do so for the sake of the horns only. Their hides are greatly sought for making shields, and in the district I have mentioned I am afraid they would continue to be killed for their hides and meat, the horns being considered only as an extra trifle. The worst of the rhinoceros horn question is that it is the white rhinoceros which produces the longest and most valuable horns.

To sum up, I regard the proposal to establish one weight standard for ivory throughout Africa as the soundest that has yet been brought forward for the pro- tection of the elephant. As to the advisability of bringing other regulations into line in different territories where different conditions prevail, I am more doubtful.

I must beg Your Excellency's indulgence for the length to which these remarks have extended, but the question seems to me a very important one, and the proposal now made to afford more hope of its solution than any previous action.

A. L. BUTLER,

Khartoum,

4th November, 1912.

Superintendent,

Game Preservation Department.

TABLE SHOWING APPROXIMATELY NUMBER OF ELEPHANTS REPRESENTED BY THE IVORY EXPORTED FROM THE Sudan from 1906 to 1911.

Year.

1.

Total weight of

Ivory

2.

Gros Value. L.E.

3.

Value of Royalties. L.E.

+. (A.)

Number of Elephants represented, taking average weight of tasks su lbs.

4. (B.)

5,

With 10 per cent.

added for Ela- phauts with small

Elephants killed by

ivory Buding

Sportsmen

Exported.

other outlets.

Lbs.

*£

£

1911

220,383

73,461

11,020

3,673

New ivory in pro-

4.040

1910

189,803

63,690

9,555

3,163

portion of nearly

50

per cent.

3,479

1909

130,000

44,404

6,660

2,166

1908

62,758

29,000* 4,350

1,045

New ivory in pro-

2,382

1907

58,740

35,609

5,340

979

portion of about

1,149

1906

44,880

27,166

4,065

748

25 per cent.

1,076

822

Total

---

11,774

12,948

T

1

-

or Officials.

66

67

62

35

33

38

༄ཎྜ ཻ ཻ༈ །ཙཱུ

301

• In 1908 the price of ivory fell about 25 per cent, owing to financial depression in England and America.

A. L. BUTLER,

Superintendent,

Game Preservation Department.

4th November, 1912.

12756

No. 21.

THE ROYAL SOCIETY to COLONIAL OFFICE.

(Received 16 April, 1913.)

SIR,

Burlington House, London, W., 15th April, 1913. THE enclosed letter from Staff-Surgeon Tante, of the German Army Medical Service, who was lately sent by the German Ministry of the Interior on an expedi- tion for the study of sleeping sickness in Africa, has been sent here addressed to Sir John Bradford. He thinks that an expression of the views of so well-known