Transport: Lion Hunt

One morning last week Coast Guardsmen stationed at Cape May, N. J. intercepted an SOS that shivered their timbers: “Any ship in neighborhood with guns on board . . . lion broken loose. …” The sender was Royal Netherlands liner Amazone, steaming 90 miles off the coast with nine passengers, half a ton of gunpowder and some 14 wild animals which she was newcastling from New York zoos to a zoo in animal-ridden Venezuela. Her crew packed no firearms.

Coast Guard Commander Lieut. Burke prudently sought advice from Frank (“Bring ‘Em Back Alive”) Buck at his New York World’s Fair Jungleland. Advised Big Gamester Buck: “They’ll have to shoot him. Can’t catch a lion loose on a ship.”

After receiving more advice from Lion-tamer Clyde Beatty, Lieut. Burke asked a nearby rifle range to lend him its No. 1 marksman, a marine sergeant named Michael Peskin. Few minutes later Marksman Peskin and six guardsmen armed with submachine guns and 30-calibre rifles piled into a picket boat, shoved off for the Amazone, hove to southeast of Cape May, and their first lion hunt at sea.

Meantime, terror harried the gunpowder-loaded, animal-ridden Amazone. For eight hours the lion, which had breached its cage in the night, had been padding fancy-free about the decks, while passengers cowered behind barricaded cabin doors. By massing furniture the 30-man crew finally managed to confine him to the forward deck.

Then the picket boat showed up. Marksman Peskin, his trigger-finger tensed, his eyes seeking the quarry, scrambled up the liner’s Jacob’s ladder, followed by the two guardsmen. By this time the lion, bored and weary, had curled up behind a divan, was peacefully snoozing. It was not the moment for the niceties of hunting etiquette. Marksman Peskin was taking aim, when the Amazone’s Captain Nyhoff nervously reminded him that a luckless shot in the gunpowder magazine might blast them all to kingdom-come. Swallowing his professional pride, Marksman Peskin inched closer, then fired. The bullet pinked the beast between the eyes, but miraculously he bounded across the deck, roaring like a pampero. Drawing a bead on the rampaging lion, each guardsman fired. This time he dropped for good.

Few minutes later passengers & crew solemnly buried the beast at sea, steamed south for Venezuela with the rest of the yowling cargo intact. To Lieut. Burke grateful Captain Nyhoff radioed: “Many thanks for your help.”