Berlin Zoo 1995 - The last Elephant Seal in Europe

Scanned photo from my visit in June 1995.

If Zoochat had been around in 1995, I would most likely have known that I was looking at the last Elephant Seal in Europe. But even if I did not know that back then, seeing 'Sharky' was and will always be one of my most memorable zoo experiences and I am so grateful that I got to see this animal.

Wonderful set of pics Baldur, thank you for taking the time to scan them and loading them up here.
The elephant seals photos are my particular favourites, back in the 60's and 70's, they were one of those animals every major zoo had to have, to prove itself as a world player in the industry.
Often kept in inadequate enclosures, too shallow a pool or not enough land area and sometimes kept with other pinnipeds.
Today i am sure standards would be entirely different, but i can only imagine the type of purpose built exhibit for a group of these magnificent animals.

p.s "sharky" is this the rescued animal from South Africa?

kiang said:

Wonderful set of pics Baldur, thank you for taking the time to scan them and loading them up here.
The elephant seals photos are my particular favourites, back in the 60's and 70's, they were one of those animals every major zoo had to have, to prove itself as a world player in the industry.
Often kept in inadequate enclosures, too shallow a pool or not enough land area and sometimes kept with other pinnipeds.
Today i am sure standards would be entirely different, but i can only imagine the type of purpose built exhibit for a group of these magnificent animals.

p.s "sharky" is this the rescued animal from South Africa?

Click to expand...

My pleasure; still a lot left to come. I have wanted to scan and upload these for a long time and I had actually done so months ago, using my eight year old scanner, but then bought a new film, slide and photo scanner in the US in October, which allowed me to scan again (what a major and tiring task that was) in more quality.

This is indeed that rescued animal; although I didn't know anything about it until I read its story on some thread. Aparently it died in late 2000. No doubt do many such turn up injured on the coasts of Argentina, Uruguay, Chile and South Africa each year because of Great White Shark attacks, but I wish I knew what happens to those found. Surely they could find great homes to live out their lives in the much improved zoos of the present day.

However, the reason why Berlin got this animal instead of some SA zoo or aquarium is not known to me; I can only assume that they got it because they had connections in South Africa and/or because they had decades long husbandry experience (even if a number of zoo staff around the world still knew a thing or two about Elephant Seals back in the 1990s)

In the all this decades off "experince" in keeping elephant seals, Berlin zoo ( and all other euroepan zoos )have send to many of them across the Jordan, often just a couple of month after their arrival.

So fortunately, today Berlin and all other formerly german zoos which ahd elephants eals in their colelctions, knows it better. The knwoledge about this species shows now, that it is at present times impossible to give them adequate living conditions in human care.

I think, it will never be possible to keep them good enough under human care and breed and raise them to a selfsaving population. I know, there are many zoointerested people which don't share my personal view in that thing, unfortunately, there are too many people thinking, every animal species can be kept in zoos, but they are wrong. A lot of species can't be kept successful in zoos, altough they are a long time in human care, moose for another example.

Always a pleasure to hear the pessimistic voice of Tarsius. You're like no other user on this forum. The only reason why you won't manage to piss me off today is that it is the last day of 2010 and I want to greet 2011 with a smile and positive thoughts. You should too ...

I can't be bothered to respond to your well-argued and knowledgeable post, even if sometimes I can't control myself, like with the DWA Jaguar exhibit photo the other day. All I want to say is that once people thought the same of the Gorilla, which today is breeding commonly in many zoos, and in some, like the Aspinall zoos, like rats. The difference between Gorillas and Elephant Seals though is that the former never died out in zoos and slowly over time the right husbandry ways were developed and are still being perfected. If elephant seals that cannot be returned to the wild would find their way into today's much better zoos than in the past, I'm sure they'd live for longer than they used to.

Whats pessimistic in my posting ? Nothing, it is the sad truth.Have you ever asked yourself, WHY elephant seals are gone from zoos ? Or don't you care about it ?

Belive me, I would like to see elephant seals back in our zoos, but for my personal experience it is not possible to give them the best living conditions. But is it really necessary for zoos, to keep everthing ?

Berlin Zoo 1995 -- The Last Elephant Seal in Europe

I'm with Baldur here; everything is difficult until you work out how to do it. Many species now commonly bred used to be difficult. Within my lifetime, birds of prey have gone from 'you can't possibly breed them, anyway they smash themselves to bits in an aviary -- and even if you did breed them, they would be no good for falconry' [this was more or less the stated policy of the British falconry establishment back in the sixties] to all the common falconers' birds being bred as a matter of course, as well as rarer species propagated for conservation purposes. It just needs enough Elephant Seals [or for that matter Walruses] to be kept, by the right creative people, and the breakthrough will occur. Regarding Gorillas, I believe more than one zoo had a moratorium on importing them in the past, because 'you couldn't keep them alive'.

Berlin Zoo 1995 -- The Last Elephant Seal in Europe

Also, let's not forget, until very recent years, all British zoos refused to keep male Elephants; they were just too 'difficult/dangerous'. Now we're breeding the things...

FBBird said:

Also, let's not forget, until very recent years, all British zoos refused to keep male Elephants; they were just too 'difficult/dangerous'. Now we're breeding the things...

Click to expand...

...and are having difficulties to find suitable places for them.

And i will stick my oar in with shoebills!