From Richard Reynolds #1

Howard Y. Bary and an okapi - - photograph taken in early 1947 at Camp Putnam. Bary, circus impresario and seeker of the exotic, was in the Ituri forest, located in the eastern part of what was then the Belgian Congo. The Camp, founded by Patrick Putnam, a wealthy American anthropologist, was later to be known as the Epulu okapi station. All okapis that have come to the West were from there or Buta, some 250 miles to the west. A Catholic missionary station in Buta was where the first captive okapis were taken and thereafter shipped to the West. Its Brother Joseph Hutsebaut became quite skilled in the care and raising of captured okapis. In 1947 Bary was there on an expedition for RBBB trying to get a pair of these beautiful, gentle animals for the Big Show. He was also supposed to get a pair of baby gorillas for Gargantua and Toto to adopt. Additionally, he tried for some giant-horned Inyambo, a Tutsi strain of the well known Ankole cattle. Bary ran into them in neighboring Rwanda-Burundi. But, the importing of domesticated African cattle (straight from Africa) was absolutely prohibited by the Agriculture Dept. because of the threat of contagious diseases that could harm domestic cattle production. Bary also explored the possibility of bringing back a group of big-lipped women, the so-called Ubangis, people of the Sara-Kaba tribe in French Equatorial Africa (the part that is now Chad). They had been huge hits on RBBB in 1930 and again in 1932. But the French Colonial Gov. was steadfastly opposed to Bary's proposal. Besides, by 1947 we were entering a new era of sensitivity opposing such human exploitation. All Bary managed to bring back from his 1947 trip was the fine young female forest elephant Abele which the RBBB elephant men later called Emily. But on to the okapis - -