Stripes Faded, Barking Silenced: Remembering Quagga

Animal Studies Journal Volume 3 | Number 1 Article 4 5-2014 Stripes Faded, Barking Silenced: Remembering Quagga Rick De Vos Curtin University Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.uow.edu.au/asj Recommended Citation De Vos, Rick, Stripes Faded, Barking Silenced: Remembering Quagga, Animal Studies Journal, 3(1), 2014, 29-45. Available at:https://ro.uow.edu.au/asj/vol3/iss1/4 Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library: Stripes Faded, Barking Silenced: Remembering Quagga Abstract The death of the last quagga on August 12, 1889 represented the loss of a long-term resident of the Artis Magistra Zoo in Amsterdam, at the time a private institution accessible only to members. The mare’s death was not recognised at the time as signifying the extinction of the quagga, largely due to the vague and general usage of the term ‘quagga’. The delay in understanding the significance of this death, and the way in which quaggas rapidly disappeared in the wild in southern Africa in the nineteenth century, have been overshadowed in scientific and historical accounts by debates concerning the classification of the quagga and its re-creation by elective breeding from plains zebra stock. This paper examines quaggas in terms of their relationships with each other and with other animals on the southern African plains, considering how they have been remembered in different contexts and reflecting on what has been lost in the light of attempts to erase and redeem their extinction. This journal article is available in Animal Studies Journal: https://ro.uow.edu.au/asj/vol3/iss1/4 Rick De Vos Curtin University Abstract: The death of the last quagga on August 12, 1889 represented the loss of a long-term resident of the Artis Magistra Zoo in Amsterdam, at the time a private institution accessible only to members. The mare’s death was not recognised at the time as signifying the extinction of the quagga, largely due to the vague and general usage of the term ‘quagga’. The delay in understanding the significance of this death, and the way in which quaggas rapidly disappeared in the wild in southern Africa in the nineteenth century, have been overshadowed in scientific and historical accounts by debates concerning the classification of the quagga and its re-creation by selective breeding from plains zebra stock. This paper examines quaggas in terms of their relationships with each other and with other animals on the southern African plains, considering how they have been remembered in different contexts and reflecting on what has been lost in the light of attempts to erase and redeem their extinction. Keywords: Extinction, accretion, quagga 29 The Zoological Society Natura Artis Magistra (‘Nature is the teacher of art’) was founded in 1838 by three wealthy citizens of Amsterdam. Membership was solicited by way of substantial financial donations from fellow citizens, and allowed access to the Society’s zoological gardens. Membership served as a symbol of status for the affluent middle class, and provided funds for the acquisition of live animals, cabinet displays and preserved specimens, collected in the name of promoting natural history knowledge. Expatriates donated animals from the Dutch colonies, and ship captains facilitated their transport to Amsterdam, in exchange for honorary membership and privileges. Commencing with a few monkeys, deer and parrots, plus the donated cabinet collection of local taxidermist Reindert Dragon, the Society expanded its enterprise the following year by purchasing the entire menagerie of travelling showman Cornelis van Aken. The fact that the van Aken family’s menagerie was well-known in Europe and had been patronised by members of the Russian, German and Dutch royal families contributed to the prestige of the Society. The menagerie consisted of an elephant, lions, a panther, a tiger, a lion, hyenas, polar bears, brown bears, a zebra, llamas, a kangaroo, a black wildebeest, monkeys and a Boa constrictor. While the Society’s collection of live animals was added to by acquisitions from the colonies, it was the form of the menagerie that shaped the way the animals were seen: as the possessions of an élite, desirable group, to whom the pursuit of zoological knowledge and natural history was thus largely confined. In 1851 the Society was reported to have acquired their first quagga. In that same year, in the face of dwindling patronage and funds, the Natura Artis Magistra’s gardens and exhibits were opened to the general public, but only during the month of September. This arrangement continued until 1920, when the gardens were open year-round. The entrance to the gardens featured three large ornate iron gates upon which was written ‘Natura Artis Magistra’. As only the middle gate was usually opened, visitors walked under the ‘Artis’ component of the sign, with the majority taking this to be the name of the zoological gardens, with the facility quickly becoming known simply as Artis or Artis Zoo. There is conflicting evidence regarding when the last quagga known to live and die came to be held at Artis. One account has the quagga as transported as a foal by ship from the Cape of 30 Good Hope to Antwerp, and then purchased by Artis Zoo early in 1872. In his Note to Visitors, the Dutch zoologist and natural historian Tiberius Cornelis Winkler described the quagga as one of the jewels of Artis: This beautiful animal is a mare: it is very tame, and can even be stroked by strangers. I've done it more than once, but at the time it is true that her caretaker was standing next to me with a piece of bread in his hand. (1) Artis had kept a few quaggas since 1851, stabled alongside plains and mountain zebras, an onager or wild Persian ass, and the offspring of mountain zebra/plains zebra matings. The stables were beneath the zoo’s library, and members of the public were allowed to walk through the stables in September if accompanied by a Society member. The stable served as a living cabinet, allowing the visitor to distinguish between the equids on display and to discern the similarities and differences between them. Such a display provided a resource and point of reference in the debate amongst European zoologists and other observers surrounding the classification and taxonomic status of zebras and related equids, a debate that focused on skins, stuffed specimens and captive animals in zoos and museums rather than on experiences in southern Africa. Little detail about the death of the last mare on August 12, 1889 in the Artis Zoo stables has been recorded, except that very few people had seen her in the last year of her life, and that the death prompted correspondence by the zoo to associates in southern Africa requesting a replacement quagga. By this time neither quaggas nor plains zebras could be found in the Cape Colony, but it was believed by some British hu (...truncated)