A zoo's most famous animal

Pertinax said:
Yes, I think he probably was- I don't know of any other animal that has lent his name to a species in general.

Interestingly I still sometimes hear younger people at zoos with Gorillas referring to 'Guy the Gorilla' even though he wasn't alive in their lifetime.
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Slightly OT, but the OED gives the first usage of 'Jumbo' from 40 years before this Elephant's birth for 'a clumsy or unwieldy fellow'. I expect the word would have gone out of circulation (as so many slang words from the time have) but for the amazing fame of the particular pachyderm.

Slightly more OT, I remember vividly Graham Gooch calling across to Ian Botham (by his then nickname) in the Headingley car park, 1980: 'Guy, Guy'!
 
Yes I remember Dixie very well ,She lived on the new Casson Pavilion in the sixties,I was there in the summer of 1968 seeing her with her friends Toto and Lakishme, a few days after my visit I overheard my family talking in the house of relations where we were stopping on holiday, I overheard them saying not to let ME see the Daily Mirror, curiosity got the better of me and I made it my business to find the newspaper, although only aged five at the time I could read, and there it was Dixie the elephant dies after falling in the moat at London Zoo. I can remember the picture of her keeper lying beside her broken hearted. By a strange quirk of fate I started infants school that September, Told my teacher ,Miss Dickinson was her name about Dixie, she informed me that she had been at the zoo the day it happened and witnessed it. There was a plaque in Dixie's memory for some years placed on the moat wall at the Casson Pavilion Zoo vet Oliver Graham JONES states in his book Zoo Tails,"I refused the plans for the new elephant house because there was no provision for a sky hook attachment on which to fix a block and tackle for emergency lifting. Meanwhile i left the zoo and moved to the university to teach. Dixie fell into the new dyke one day and broke her leg. She died. We never learn do we?6 days to Christmas best wishes to you all for the festive season, and happy and enjoyable zoo visiting next year.



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Kashin was Auckland Zoo's most famous animal.
The tiger cubs probably would have been before two of them left.
 
Denver:

Bert - Nile Hippo - a couple years ago they had a giant party for his 50th birthday.

Mimi and Dolly - Asian Mainland and Sri Lakan Elephants - Oldest residents at the zoo and are none by almost every regular visitor. They are shown on the news quite often and are the new icons for Asian Tropics, which is also a big deal in denver.

Klondike and Snow - Denver Zoos first polar bear cubs. Just like the elephants they were the most famous icons of this zoo. The "welcome to Denver Zoo" sign had there pictures, as well as the direction signs, maps, banners, flags, statue, mural, Northern Shores restaurant, water bottles, T shirts, stuffed animals............

Bill - Reticulated Giraffe - Don't know much but he turn white after a week and then became a zoo famous. The zoo put more seats and a dude with a camera to take your pick with the white giraffe. Sadly he has past.

Billy Bryan - NA Black Bear - The first animal that made Denver Zoo - There is only records of this bear from Well's Fargo but no photos.
 
FBBird said:
Wasn't the late Bulu, mentioned above, also the first British born Orang to be reared?
Another London Zoo animal who lives on in memory is Dixie the African elephant, who died after fallng in the moat. A lovely animal and the first African Elephant I saw.
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Bulu was indeed the first Orangutan to be successfully reared in the UK. Despite a previous history of keeping them I think she was the first ever born at ZSL too. Edinburgh and Bristol had both had earlier births, but these didn't survive long.

Dixie(Dicksie?)-I believe there was some suggestion she was given a push (whether deliberate or accidental) by her Asian companion Lakshmi, but seeing the many past photos of her stretching over the moat to reach food from visitors with her trunk, it was really an accident waiting to happen I think.
 
driftaguy said:
Kashin was Auckland Zoo's most famous animal.
The tiger cubs probably would have been before two of them left.
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Iwani is quite well known from The Zoo, and Janie the chimpanzee.

Just watching Molek & Oz being introduced on old episodes, and 'the cubs' were born in yesterdays episode. I was amused that they were still 'the cubs' when I saw them last year, they were as big as Molek. Any likelihood of more cubs?
 
TARZAN said:
Yes I remember Dixie very well ,She lived on the new Casson Pavilion in the sixties,I was there in the summer of 1968 seeing her with her friends Toto and Lakishme, a few days after my visit I overheard my family talking in the house of relations where we were stopping on holiday, I overheard them saying not to let ME see the Daily Mirror, curiosity got the better of me and I made it my business to find the newspaper, although only aged five at the time I could read, and there it was Dixie the elephant dies after falling in the moat at London Zoo. ........
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Sorry to contradict you, but it was 1967, not 1968, when the African elephant ‘Diksie’ died after falling into the moat.
 
And im suprised that Pertinax hasn't spotted this Jock@ Bristol Zoo supposedily the biggest Gorilla in the UK!
 
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jordan-12 said:
Has anybody remebered if you have visited Blackpool Zoo Darwin the huge Maybe a Seychelles Tortoise????
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Test were done on Darwin at least 10 years ago if not longer,and if my memory serves me correctly it came back that he was a Seychelles Tortoise!
 
jordan-12 said:
And im suprised that Pertinax hasn't spotted this Jock@ Bristol Zoo supposedily the biggest Gorilla in the UK!
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I've no idea if Jock is really the 'largest' gorilla currently in the UK, there would be several other contenders I think, including Boulas at Twycross and possibly other males at Port Lympne/Howletts too. There's nothing to back that claim I don't think.
 
Did I miss someone mentioning Rotterdams' Bokito? Or should he be on the "Zoo most infamous animal" thread...

"Bokitoproof" was actually word of the year in Holland, and still used as far as i know.
 
Ok so they're not UK collections but I think both Berlin's Knut the polar bear and Sea World's Tilikum the orca are worthy of a mention. Whatever the reasons (good or bad) they've been global headlines in recent times.

Also, and I know that this is OT for the thread, but I'd like to mention an animal that almost everyone knows but that never lived in a zoo and that is Titus the gorilla. Incredible individual.
 
And there's Wallace at Blackpool Zoo, into whose ear Albert stuck 'is stick with the 'orse's 'ead 'andle ;)
 
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Jaya the Sumartran Orangutan who was delivered by Caesarean section and Ya Kwanza the silverback gorilla (both Jersey) also Wendy the Indian elephant from Bristol
 
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