was to encourage scientific study. 1930s The zoo's first male elephant arrived at the zoo in November 1930 from Hobart Zoo, Tasmania, Australia. Rajah stood eight feet three inches at the shoulder and was 13 years old. Rajah spent six years in Auckland before his keeper began to lose control of him and he was put down by the future director of the zoo Lt. Col. Sawer, (this was considered more humane than being chained up for the rest of his life). It transpired that Rajah's unpredictable nature was due to a lit cigarette being put up his trunk by a patron while still in Hobart, however there are no contemporary reports in the newspapers of the time to support this as sound evidence. Rajah's amazing bulk is on display at the Auckland War Memorial Museum. In 1931, due to improvements in accommodation and handling the mortality rate dropped significantly. L.T. Griffin, the original director, died in 1935 and his last report was an optimistic one. On the top of the list for a new director was Lt. Col. E. R. Sawer, one-time Director of Agriculture in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). Already in his mid-fifties, Col. Sawer was an advocate for the newish notion that zoological parks were fundamentally about education, science and conservation. Initially approached to report on the zoo, the council was suitably impressed with his submission of six pages of closely typed analysis on where the zoo should be headed. This report not only showed his general approach but gave the fullest report on the zoo at the time. Stock numbers were heavily reduced in 1935 and some such as the apes, sea lions and camels had disappeared completely and the polar bears and South African animals were senile and aged. Sawer's report called for animals to be paired or the sharing of enclosures of animals in "mournful solitude". Sawer made sweeping changes with the overwhelming feeling being that of order and co-ordination. Sawer was appointed curator on 1 April 1936. The mortality rate was now 10 percent compared with 29.5 percent for mammals and 40 percent for birds at London Zoo in 1934. This is further demonstrated by the figures in 1937, when only 9% of animals died, compared to a full 35 percent of the animals in 1930. For the first time in 1939 natural increase had overtaken mortality in mammals. Sometimes the Colonel's remedies were miraculously