Infant Wallaby In Trent Zoo Killed by Dogs

Canines Then Attack Parents of Little Macropodine and Drive Them To Hills

Richard H. Trent is still looking for his hundred-dollar wallabies, small editions of the kangaroo family, imported from Australia to grace his private zoological garden on the beautiful, breezy Alewa Heights, where the public is always welcome to take a look at the exhibits.

It is already a matter of public knowledge and public sympathy—the loss of Trent’s wallabies—for the reason that Honolulu was just beginning to take a pride in the possession of the only wallabies in the archipelago.

Further details bring forth the information that dogs were responsible for the running away of the mamma and papa wallabies and the death of the baby wallaby.

Dogs Kill Baby Wallaby

During the night before the gentle animals were missed a great noise, as of a dog fight was heard without, but inasmuch as dog fights are not too rare, nothing was thought of the disturbance until the following morning, when the wallaby home was found to have been broken into, the baby wallaby killed, and the parents had disappeared. The pets had been carefully caged against any entry by dogs, it was supposed, but some over-persevering canine had forced an entrance.

“When I told Alexander Hume Ford about it,” said Mr. Trent, “naturally expecting sympathy from one who is so well acquainted with wallabies and other Australian fauna, he told me he was jolly glad that the parent wallabies had survived and escaped, and that he hoped the island would, in due course of time, be full of wallabies; that they were needed here.

Mr. Trent Wants Animals

“But that doesn’t comfort me at all. I want my wallabies. I have offered a twenty five-dollar reward, and already numerous boys are out looking for them. I can’t say, however, that I have any hope for their recovery. If they escaped the dogs at the start—and I have every reason to believe that they did, for there were no signs of any trouble outside of the dead baby wallaby—it will be almost impossible to catch them.

“Next time I will be sure I have my wallabies in a dogproof cage. I am afraid my pet macropodines are about this time establishing themselves comfortably in the mountain forests.”

(PCA, 8/24/1915, p. 9)

Pacific Commercial Advertiser, Volume LIX, Number 10,625, Page 9. August 24, 1916.