Wednesday, November 01, 2006

From Bob Cline


"I ran across this photo buried in a bunch of others today. I thought John Harriott would really like it. It is dated 1927 at Carl Hagenbeck's in Stellingen, Germany."

Posted by Buckles at 11/01/2006 06:19:00 AM

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have the greatest respect and admiration for whoever trained those zebras and suspect it could have been the great John Gindl prior to his going to Betram Mills. I have trained very few zebras over the years and never a complete zebra act. I have enjoyed training all types of domestic animals over the years and my least favorite being zebrss and African elephants. My hats off to Houcke, Sudelmeir, Suskow and certainly Gindl. I always say I have never trained wild animals because they eat meat and wouldn't want to be included in their diet. Its a great picture.

01 November, 2006 09:22
Anonymous said...

Richard Reynolds Says - -

For many of the years from the mid-1920s onward, RBBB carried two or three of the terribly tough Grevy zebras (not the same species as in this Hagenbeck act. Though quite beautiful in their "pin stripes" Grevys, the largest and most handsome of all the zebras, have notorious reputations for being mean as hell. I suspect that, if males, the RBBB animals were geldings. Whatever, they were led from train to menagerie each day and back again. I never heard of Grevys being broken to perform anywhere, however.

For 1956 RBBB got the last of the Grevys it ever had, two in number. Dave Mullaney was with the menagerie that year. He told me they almost had to drag them from train to lot every day and they were tough customers indeed. I think he said that on some days they just left them on the train. The show was coming apart at the time and lacked adequate staff.

I've been around a lot of animals in zoos and circuses and I must say the most savage animal of any kind I ever encountered was a male Grevy zebra in the Memphis zoo. The director took me into the barn with it. It was in a stall with wooden sides about 5.5 ft. high with screen wire from there upwards. When that male saw me he went crazy, kicking madly at the wooden sides and leaping up and grabbing the wire with his teeth while thrashing his head back and forth. Wow! Spooky indeed.

In March 1955 RBBB had a male Grevy in WQ that it kept in the former rhino pen. This was another animal from the '56 duo. I filmed it there. Menagerie boss C. R. Montgomery told me he put it there because the rhino pen had strong iron bars that could keep it contained. At the time RBBB was without a rhino though they picked up a pair later that year in NYC. This zebra was mean as heck and Montgomery feared a vistor might lean over the side to pet or feed it and lose a hand or some fingers.

02 November, 2006 18:02
Anonymous said...

These are not Grevy's Zebras. They are Common or Plains Zebra probably of the Grant's race. Grevys have very narrow stripes and very large ears.

Toby Styles

02 November, 2006 18:56
Anonymous said...

Richard Reynolds clarifies - -

No, I did not mean to imply that the Hagenbeck animals were Grevy zebras and said so. Toby is correct that the ones in the picture are common plains zebras. I was just making the point that Grevys are tough customers, and I have never heard of an act including them. However, the RBBB spec of 1939 did include its two Grevys being led around the track.

03 November, 2006 11:11
Anonymous said...

When Roman Schmitt had the herd at CW, he had two zebras that pulled a cariott in the show. The elephant crew drew straws as to who had to harness them for the show. It took four men away from the elephants for this short ride. I believe they were Grants. The female was nice, but the male was a bad hombre. Was worth your life to put his muzzle on. I developed a special method for this. Found the fattest carrot I could in the elephant feed and put his bit on the carrot. When he tryed to bite my hand past the carrot his bit was in place. No more fight with that muzzle.

03 November, 2006 23:42

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