by David Day
Also known as Nubian Lions, these are the same ferocious animals portrayed in Eugène Ferdinand-Victor Delacroix’s famous Lion Hunting in Morocco (1854), painted two decades after his visit to North Africa. Richard Lydecker, in his The Game of Africa (1908), describes the Atlas or Barbary Lion as “very large, dusky ochery, with the mane very thick, long, and extending to the middle of the back, and a thick and heavy mane on the under parts. The males may weigh 500 lbs and measure 10 feet from nose to tip of tail.”
Pliny the Elder – 65 AD
Natural History, Rome
Quintus Scaevola, the son of P. Scaevola, when he was curule aedile, was the first to exhibit at Rome a combat of a number of lions; and L. Sylla, who was afterwards Dictator, during his praetorship, gave the spectacle of a fight of one hundred lions with manes. After him, Pompeius Magnus exhibited six hundred lions in the Circus, three hundred and fifteen of which had manes; Caesar, the Dictator, exhibited four hundred.
As H. A. Bryden wrote in his Great and Small Game of Africa (1899): “There is little doubt that the Romans drew their chief supply of Lions for the arena and gladiatorial combats from Mauretania and Numidia. Pliny speaks of hundreds at a time being shown by Pompey and Caesar in the Roman arena. This bespeaks a great abundance of Lions in North Africa. Lions still linger here and there in the southeast and southwest of Algeria.”
John Bostock, the 1855 translator of Gaius Plinius Secundus’ Natural History, noted: “Seneca gives an account of this exhibition; he says that the lions were turned loose into the Circus, and that spearmen were sent by King Bocchus, who killed them with darts.” Scaevola’s title of curule aedile was that of a chief magistrate (consul or praetor) of Rome’s public works, buildings and games.
Also in North Africa, the Atlas Brown Bear (Ursus arctos crowtheri) suffered an almost identical history and fate to that of the Atlas Golden Lion. Herodotus and the Roman writers Virgil, Juvenal and Martial refer to this animal as the “Libyan Bear,” while Pliny tells us that in 61 BC Domitius Ahenobarbus brought “one hundred Numidian Bears” to Rome’s arenas. As late as 1830, there were live captive Atlas Brown Bears in Morocco and Marseille. In 1841, it was investigated by the Zoological Society and pronounced a rare and unique species or subspecies “very different from any other bear.” It became extinct about 1870.
Eliakim Littell – 1882
English Mechanic and World of Science and Art
Few of those who daily pass Sir Edwin Landseer’s lions in Trafalgar Square know that not far beneath their feet… in the Pleistocene gravels there are bones of the cave-lion (Felis leo spelaea).
Golden Atlas Lions from the Regent’s Park Zoological Gardens were the models for Sir Edwin Landseer’s famous Trafalgar Square bronze sculptures, but curiously enough, in the 1830’s excavations of the foundations of Trafalgar Square numerous fossil bones of extinct prehistoric animals were unearthed. Among them were those of the original “British Lion” (Felis leo spelaea) and prehistoric ancestor of the Atlas Lion (Felis leo leo). In The Living Age (1887), Littell further reported that medieval Londoners had earlier discovered “the fossil bones of cave lions… [which] have lain so securely stored for untold ages beneath Charing Cross and Trafalgar Square… [but] were long known as dragon bones.”
Atlas or Barbary Lions have had a long historical association with British monarchy. Captive Atlas Lions were kept in the Tower of London as early as the 12th century during the reign of Henry II and Richard the Lionheart. Two Barbary Lion skulls unearthed during excavations of the Tower were radio-carbon dated during the time of Edward I (c. 1300) and Henry V (c. 1420), respectively.
At the time of the Trafalgar Square excavations in the 1830’s, the Duke of Wellington had the Atlas Lions kept in cramped cages in the Tower removed to more humane enclosures in London’s Regent’s Park, where Sir Edwin Landseer came to view them in 1858. One famous Victorian pure-bred Barbary Lion named Sultan lived in the London Zoo until 1896.
Alfred Edward Pease – 1899
African Game , Algeria
The North African Lion has today become so rare that it may be said to be nearing extinction. It lingers only in the country that might be described as the Mediterranean littoral zone, though an occasional lion is shot in the interior. Before the French came, the Turks had encouraged the Arabs to destroy them by freeing the two great lion-hunting tribes, the Ouled Meloul and Ouled Cessi, from all taxes and paying liberally for their skins. The French gave 50 francs for a skin. There are now a few lions still in the Province de Constantine, in the thick Atlas forests between Soukarras and La Calle.
Alfred Edward Pease’s prediction only took a couple of decades to realize. This remnant population was ruthlessly extinguished within the next two decades. The last wild Barbary Golden Lion was shot in the remote forests of the Atlas Mountains in Morocco in 1922.
Remarkably, the Barbary Golden Lion was not the first Lion to become extinct on the African continent in modern times. It was another distinctive subspecies at the other end of the animal’s range in South Africa. This was the Cape Black-Mane Lion (Panthera leo melanochaitus) which was almost as large as the Barbary Lion. It also exhibited a black mane as large and luxuriant as the gold mane of its cousin. Captive animals of this race were exhibited live in Amsterdam, where they may be found in the drawings of Rembrandt. The last Black-Mane Lion in the Cape was shot in 1858, while a small number survived to the north in Natal for a few more years. The last recorded sighting of this Lion was a large male hunted down in Natal and shot by General Bisset in 1865.
By 1900, the only surviving non-sub-Saharan race, the once numerous Asiatic or Persian Lion (Panthera leo persica) – so famously portrayed in art since Biblical times – survived only because the Nawab of Junagadh gave the beast a sanctuary in India’s Gir Forest. By 1908, it was claimed there was only a single pride of 13 Lions remaining in this preserve. Fortunately, a great deal of effort has recently been made to save this subspecies and there are now several hundred Asiatic Lions in existence.
THE LION’S GATE
Atlas Golden Lion – 1920
At the gate was the god of Lions
Cut in a single massive stone
And raised above the desert sand
In the time of empires
This Lion’s eye was a brilliant swastika
A sunwheel on the desert wind
His voice was a stone
Rolling over the roof of the world
Even the great parapet of his head
Is broken now
The foundation of the temple
Is cracked and wasted
Upon the wall
The carved images are all but gone:
Vanished men pursue vanished beasts
In that ancient dream of a green
And fruitful land
THE SEA ELEPHANT
FIRST WATCH 12 A. M. SEXT
STELLER’S SEA COW – 1768 – Hydrodamalis gigas
Georg Wilhelm Steller – 1741
Journal of a Voyage with Bering from Kamchatka to America
Their capture was affected by a large iron hook, the point of which resembled the fluke of an anchor, the other end being fastened by means of an iron ring to a very long stout rope, held by thirty men on shore. A strong sailor took this hook and with five other men stepped into the boat, and one of them taking the rudder, the other four rowing, quietly hurried towards the herd. The harpooner stood in the bow of the boat with the hook in his hand and struck as soon as he was near enough to do so, whereupon the men on shore, grasping the other end of the rope, pulled the desperately resisting animal laboriously toward them. Those in the boat, however, made the animal fast by means of another rope and wore it out by continuous blows, until tired and completely motionless, it was attacked with bayonets, knives and other weapons and pulled up on the land. Immense slices were cut from the still living animal, but all it did was shake its tail furiously and make such resistance with its forelimbs that big strips of cuticle were to
rn off. In addition it breathed heavily, as if sighing. From the wounds in the back the blood spurted upward like a fountain.
Georg Wilhelm Steller was the only trained naturalist ever to see this animal alive. And Steller’s accounts were of the first-ever encounter in the very brief bloody history of human-sea cow relations, as the animal became extinct just twenty-six years later. The only species of its genera and family, the Steller Sea Cow was distantly related to the two other surviving (but endangered) Sirendae: the Dugongs and the Manatees. With a maximum weight of over seven tons, it was 14 times the size of a Manatee: the marine equivalent of a full-size African Elephant. Indeed, “Sea Elephant” would have been a far more appropriate name, as both the Elephant and the Sea Cow were descended from a common prehistoric land-dwelling ancestor.
Steller was the ship’s naturalist on the famous expedition of the Danish explorer Vitus Bering. During the summer of 1741, Bering sailed eastward from Kamchatka to Alaska. On the return voyage, they were shipwrecked on the desolate island that now carries Bering’s name.
Georg Wilhelm Steller – 1741
Journal of a Voyage with Bering from Kamchatka to America
When an animal was caught with the hook, those nearest in the herd began to stir also and feel the urge to bring succour. To this end some tried to upset the boat with their backs, while others pressed down the rope and endeavoured to break it, or strove to remove the hook from the wound by blows of their tail, in which they actually succeeded several times… . It is most remarkable proof of their conjugal affection, that the male, after having tried with all his might, although in vain, to free the female caught by the hook, and in spite of the beating we gave him, nevertheless followed her to the shore, and that several times, even after she was dead, he shot unexpectedly up to her like a speeding arrow. Early the next morning, when we came to cut up the meat and bring it in the dugout, we found the male again standing by the female, and the same I observed once more on the third day when I went there by myself for the sole purpose of examining the intestines.
The Bering Expedition ship, the St. Peter, ran aground and was wrecked while attempting to find safe anchorage on Bering Island. A total of 32 crewmen did not survive the winter, including Vitus Bering himself. Georg Wilhelm Steller was the only officer healthy enough to take command and assumed leadership over the ten crew members not crippled by illness. Steller doctored the rest and oversaw the building of shelters and the rebuilding of the wrecked St. Peter. Somehow, he also managed time to record the amazing assortment of wildlife on the island that had never before been seen by man.
Among the many species discovered by Bering was this massive sea mammal which proved to be the primary food source for the survivors of the St. Peter. As Steller observed, the Sea Cow was their salvation: “This great beast is 28 to 35 feet long and 22 feet thick about midsection… . Each Sea Cow provided more than seven thousand pounds of meat and fat, and the red flesh tasted much like good beef… . All of us who had partaken of it, soon found out what a salutary food it was, as we soon felt a marked improvement in strength and health.”
Georg Wilhelm Steller – 1741
Journal of a Voyage with Bering from Kamchatka to America
These animals love shallow and sandy places along the seashore, but they spend their time more particularly about the mouths of the gullies and brooks, the rushing fresh water of which always attracts them in herds. They keep the half-grown and young in front of them when pasturing, and are very careful to guard them in the rear and on the sides when travelling, always keeping them in the middle of the herd… . In the spring they mate like human beings, particularly towards evening when the sea is calm. Before they come together many amorous preludes take place. The female, constantly followed by the male swims leisurely to and fro eluding him with many gyrations and meanderings, until, impatient of further delay, she turns on her back as if exhausted and coerced, whereupon the male, rushing violently upon her, pays tribute of his passion, and both give themselves over in mutual embrace.
Despite the hardships of survival on the island, Steller took time to closely observe the nature and habits of the Sea Cows and many other species. After eight months wintering on Bering Island, Steller and his crew built a new craft from the wrecked St. Peter and in August 1742 sailed back to Kamchatka with news of their discovery. This rapidly resulted in Russian exploitation and monopoly of the whole Northwest Pacific coast of Alaska – especially in the enormously lucrative trade in fur-bearing sea mammals – for over a century.
However, instead of being rewarded for his heroic efforts in bringing the survivors of the St. Peter safely home, and bringing the momentous news of the discovery of Alaska, Steller found himself embroiled in disputes with the petty jealousies of corrupt Russian officials and bureaucrats in Kamchatka for the next four years. Worn out by a series of arrests, trials and imprisonments, in November 1756, Steller died of fever at age 37. His Journals and his De Bestiis Marinis (On the Beasts of the Sea) were published posthumously in St. Petersburg, establishing him as one of the greatest naturalists of his time.
Besides Steller’s Sea Cow, five other species carry the name of this extraordinary naturalist: Steller’s Sea Lion (Eumetopius jubatus), the largest species of sea lion; Steller’s Sea Eagle (Haliaeetus pelagicus), the world’s heaviest eagle; Steller’s Eider (Polysticta sterlleri), the smallest form of Sea Duck; the Steller’s Jay (Cyanocitta stelleri); and the Steller’s Spectacled Cormorant (Phalacrocorax perspicillatus), a large flightless bird that sadly suffered the same fate as Steller’s Sea Cow and became extinct in 1850.
Petr Yakovlev – 1764
Chancellery Report, Bering Island, Kamchatka
From 1743 until 1763, hardly a winter passed without one or more parties spending eight or nine months hunting fur animals on Bering Island, during which time the crews lived almost exclusively on the meat of the sea cow. But that was not all, for more than half of the expeditions which wintered there did so for the express purpose of laying in stores of sea cow meat for the further journey, which usually lasted two to three years more. From 1763 the visits to Bering Island seem to grow scarcer, probably due to the very fact that sea cows had now become so nearly exterminated that the few left were insufficient to maintain any wintering and foraging expeditions.
The Russian mining engineer Petr Yakovlev wintered on Bering Island in 1754-1755. Displaying an unusually astute awareness of the severe environmental damage being inflicted on this newly discovered island, Yakovlev prophetically anticipated the extinction of the Sea Cow if over-exploitation of the species was allowed to continue. As he recorded, because of the animal’s sheer size, it was estimated that four animals were critically wounded and abandoned for every one that was successfully beached and killed for food. Petr Yakovlev unsuccessfully petitioned Kamchatkan authorities and requested a ukase or edict from the Bol’sheretsk Chancellery prohibiting – or at least limiting – the wholesale slaughter of this species. This appeal fell upon deaf ears and the last Sea Cow was killed around 1768 on Bering Island.
SIREN SONG
Steller’s Sea Cow – 1768
Some still nights
On the shores of Bering’s sea
You may imagine them
Huge as the hull
Of an overturned ship
Moaning in the rolling surf
Fountain of hot blood pulsing
Furnace of the deep heart
Wave-worn giants, idle lovers
On the swell of the sea
Bigger than elephants
Skin like the bark of an ancient oak
Snorting like horses
Pawing the kelp meadows
With their tough hooves
Like bulls in pasture
Tide riders, storm biders
Slow to lust as elephants
Passionate as whales
Beauty here in a thing not itself beautiful
As delight in the play of light
On a mountain
or a great rock
Yet something vastly alive
As these once were alive
Some still nights
On the shores of Bering’s sea
You may imagine them
The great breath-song
Through the sighing night
THE TERROR BIRD
SECOND WATCH 1 P. M. SEXT
GIANT MOA – 1850 – Dinornis maximus
Joel S. Polack – 1838
History of New Zealand
Among the Maori there were traditions of supernatural beings in the form of birds, having waylaid native travellers, among the forest wilds, vanquishing them with an overpowering strength, killing and devouring them. The traditions are reported with an air of belief that carries conviction.
New Zealand was an island-world that was a time-capsule of the planet forty million years ago. It was a world inhabited primarily by birds; except for bats, there were no mammals (not even marsupials) in New Zealand until the legendary arrival of the Great Fleet of the Polynesian Maoris, about 1300 AD. The first European to “discover” these islands was Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in 1642, who named it after the small island of Zealand in Holland. However, the extreme hostility of the warlike Maoris prevented further incursions by Europeans until the arrival of Captain James Cook’s ship Endeavour in 1769. Three years later, a French expedition arrived in the Bay of Islands, but rapidly withdrew after the Maoris killed and ate 27 of its officers and men. Among those suffering this fate was the expedition’s commander, Captain Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne, after whom Mauritius’ Marion’s Tortoise was named.