Beasts of the City Pioneers shot their dinners and their fears gentry were red in stag and boar shooting hippo for the roar turning tall giraffe to rissoles shredding buffalo with missiles but as true wilderness prey ran down the hunt went sour, and in town people talked rarity and compassion as wild things grew rare, they urbanised humans tardily realised: possums quit the bush unaided but charismatic fauna were still traded tigers de-sinewed or Whipsnaded orangs and howlers got sold with their forests infective flying foxes bred like tourists and golf course antelope and kangaroo fattened the crocodile they…