The wapiti and the raccoons

It was once the done thing to gift animals to different countries.
New Zealand has received everything from lions to elephants and many were given by one ruler of the country to another.
So when America President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt agreed to give New Zealand 20 Wapiti - massive deer - it was a big deal.
It had come about as Thomas Edward Donne, the head of the New Zealand Government Tourism Department and big game hunter St.George Littledale who had met when the hunter became enthusiastic about New Zealand as a potential hunting ground.
Littledale approached Roosevelt and arranged for the deer to come from the National Zoological Park in Washington in exchange for native birds and tuatara.
Donne travelled to America in 1905 to get 20 wapiti deer, along with whitetail and mule deer, Canadian geese, and five raccoons.
A huge steam powered wagons were designed for the animals for the long overland trip to San Francisco. After a short delay the animals were loaded onto a boat for the even longer trip to New Zealand.
At first things went ok, the animals were on the deck of the ship and well cared for but as they got closer they ran into bad weather and two wapiti died when their backs were broken.
When they arrived the animals were transferred to the Hinemoa and taken to the head of George Sound in Southland. At the time it was very secluded with only fishermen visiting.
The small herd was released and began to thrive although it was slow.
It was in 1922 when the first hunting season was held. Deer introduced into New Zealand were protected except for a hunting season but that changed in 1934 when all protections were removed.
Now it is possible that there are no pureblood wapiti left - many interbred with other deer in the area.
So what happened to the five little raccoons since we don’t have them running round the countryside?
They were taken to Rotorua. By the time they arrived their number had dwindled to two and no one really knew what to do with them.
They were taken to the Sanatorium to be exhibited. They weren’t popular though - they were not game animals and were not to be kept as pets, so the only reason to have them was to have them available to be seen by the public.
But only a couple of weeks after they arrived, the clever little buggers staged an escape.
That led to a raccoon hunt. They were accused of breaking into chicken hutches and killing them.
But by the end of 1905, all news of them vanished and it appears they were never found again.
American president Teddy Roosevelt died on January 6, 1919 and is buried in Youngs Memorial Cemetery in Nassau County, New York.