Friday, October 10, 2008

Statue of Bessie


statue of bessie, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Posted by Buckles at 10/10/2008 06:20:00 AM

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Two identical standing rhinoceroses flank the entrance to the Keith W. Johnson Zoo Center at the Bronx Zoo. Sculpted by Katherine Ward Lane Weems in 1936, they were modled after Bessie, who lived at the Zoo from 1923-1962. The original casts of the rhinoceros sculptures are on the campus of Harvard University.
The Zoo's 1989 casts are popularly known as Bessie and Victoria. Funding was made possible by a grant from the Vincent Astor Foundation and the rights to the patterns were donated by the artist, prior to her death.
The Keith W. Johnson Zoo Center was formerly known as the Elephant House. IAS files contain 1989 Zoo press release which describes the installation of the rhino sculptures.

10 October, 2008 10:50
Anonymous said...

“Bessie” arrived at the Bronx zoo from Nepal on May 24, 1923 and died on January 25, 1962, a stellar zoo attraction for 39 years. She was obtained by the famous animal catcher-dealer Frank Buck along with another female named “Peggy” that he sold to the Philadelphia zoo.

Buck described his rhino expedition in his 1930 book Bring ‘em Back Alive. It was a tough assignment because Nepal was closed to outsiders. It makes fascinating reading even if it has to be taken with the knowledge that Buck was a shameless self-promoter and exaggerator. This tale rings true, however.

“Bessie” lost a part of her horn to native and his knife. He cut it while the rhinos were en route aboard a train of the Bengal and Northwestern Railway. It carried the animals (in crates loaded on flat cars) out of the Indian town of Raxaul on the Nepalese border. The sliced horn was discovered on the second morning aboard the train. Buck and his crew were well aware of the value of rhino horn as an alleged aphrodisiac and tried to guard the animals. The dirty work was done at one of the many stops when throngs of natives crowded around.

Buck finally got the rhinos to Calcutta where they were put aboard an American ship, the SS Lake Gitano. It then called at Penang, Malaya, and Singapore, finally pulling into Hong Kong. There the animals were transferred to the SS President Wilson for the voyage across the Pacific to San Francisco and thence by train to the east. I saw Bessie when I went with my folks to the Bronx zoo on August 14, 1947. I knew to look for her. I had a picture of her in my highly prized Bronx zoo book, >>Who’s Who in the Zoo<<, Halcyon House, NY (1937). I got it as a 1939 Christmas gift from Frank Brandon, my dad’s law partner - I’ve still got it.

Bessie was the Bronx’s second Indian rhino. The first was a male Mogul , obtained from Carl Hagenbeck, one of four Hagenbeck had managed to bring to Hamburg at a time when Indian rhinos were exceedingly rare in captivity. Of the other three, one died and the others went to Manchester, UK and Antwerp Zoos, respectively.

Mogul arrived at the Bronx on July 23, 1907 and died there on August 27, 1918. He suffered from eye ailments and was twice operated on.

After Bessie died on January 25, 1962, she was replaced in the Bronx elephant house by a pair of southern white rhinos, male Wooly and female Jessie. They arrived there on September 4, 1962 and were part of the huge white rhino capture and relocation operation conducted in Umfolozi, Natal. It was directed by South African naturalist Ian Player, brother of the golfer Gary Player. It resulted in the export of hundreds of white rhinos making them the most common rhino species ever seen in the West. The two Bronx animals were sent to the Audubon Park Zoo, New Orleans, on September 4, 1974

Bronx Zoo did not get back into the Indain rhino business until January 30, 1975 when it got Pinky and Radha from Gauhati, Assam. The species has been represented in the Bronx ever since and a number of calves have been born as noted by Paul Gutheil.

10 October, 2008 17:59

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