Discovering The Okapi – Simon Pooley

However, the yearly report notes it would in any case “be impossible . . . to put a reasonable price to such a rare creature” (though Felix the Indian rhinoceros was valued at two thousand pounds sterling). A story run in the Evening Standard in 1943 referred to Buta as the “£1,000 okapi,” and “the most valuable animal in the Zoo,” but in an interview in 1945, head keeper F.

G. Perry valued him at two thousand pounds.7 In 1952, the female okapi Zendy (who had been at London Zoo since June 1949) was valued at two thousand pounds (about US$105,000 in 2024), more than either a gorilla or African or Asian elephant. In January 1952, Zendy was still the most valuable animal in the zoo, though as The Times notes, at this time the okapi was “beyond price,” as she was “in fact, irreplaceable except through the courtesy of the Government of the Belgian Congo.”8 Until the 1960s, the capture and export of exotic wildlife to zoos was also justi- fied on the grounds that such wildlife had recreational or entertainment value, served an educational purpose, and supported scientific study.

Beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, however, in situ and ex situ conservation became routinely self-proclaimed missions for zoos.9 Although King Leopold II and the Belgian government after him used okapi as diplomatic currency, as a way to take the spotlight off their toxic colonial reputations, in the interwar years the Belgian authorities also began to justify their rule through wildlife conservation.

Concerns had been raised about the conservation status of the okapi virtually as soon as they were discovered. The colonial government claimed that it had matters in hand, but these claims were exaggerated given the extent and remoteness of its territories in northeast Congo, and Westerners with an interest in conserving Africa’s megafauna (after having decimated it in previous decades) worried about its ability to protect this famous species.

© 2025 Johns Hopkins University Press All rights reserved. Published 2025 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1 Johns Hopkins University Press 2715 North Charles Street Baltimore, Maryland 21218 www.press.jhu.edu Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Pooley, Simon, author. Title: Discovering the okapi : Western science, Indigenous knowledge, and the search for a rainforest enigma / Simon Pooley.

Description: Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2025. | Series: Animals, history, culture | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2024061686 (print) | LCCN 2024061687 (ebook) | ISBN 9781421452487 (paperback) | ISBN 9781421452494 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Okapi. | Animals—Africa—Identification. | Captive wild animals—Western countries. Classification: LCC QL737.U56 P66 2025 (print) | LCC QL737.U56 (ebook) | DDC 599.638—dc23/eng/20250221 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024061686 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024061687 A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Special discounts are available for bulk purchases of this book.

For more information, please contact Special Sales at [email protected]. EU GPSR Authorized Representative LOGOS EUROPE, 9 rue Nicolas Poussin, 17000, La Rochelle, France E-mail: [email protected] For Suz, and in memory of Buta and Toto This page intentionally left blank List of Illustrations ix Online Supplement xi Preface xiii Introduction 1 1 Scientific Authority and Metropolitan Knowledge Institutions 7 2 Discovery of the Okapi 22 3 Settling Okapi Taxonomy, and the First Monograph 47 4 Possession, Exhibition, and Dissemination 59 5 Okapis Take Shape in the Western Imagination 76 6 Okapis in African Art, Ancient and Modern 97 7 Catching Okapi, 1901–15 110 8 Pursuing Okapi in the Interwar Years 135 9 Capture, Transport, and Survival of Okapi after 1918 150 10 Zoo Conservation and the Deadly Journey to the West 168 11 Nature of the Beast 188 12 Okapi Science, 1946–2015 206 13 Indigenous Africans as “Primitive Experts” on Okapi 236 Contents viii Contents 14 Western Framings of the Peoples and Forests of the Congo 260 15 Clashing Worldviews in a Crucible for Wildlife Conservation 283 Conclusion 302 Acknowledgments 313 Notes 315 Index 355 1.1.

1936 Map of London Zoo 10 1.2. Punch cartoon of Ray Lankester astride an okapi 17 2.1. The type specimen okapi bandoliers 32 2.2. The bilobed lower canines characteristic of the giraffids 34 2.3.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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