Do you remember ZooNet? Let me take you on a trip to the past

[Baldur]

In 1995, as a 14 year old, I had my first encounter with the Internet when I and a friend sneaked into his grandfather's office. My friend knew more about computers and he was also better in English so he was in charge of browsing, but he asked me if I wanted to see something about zoos. He searched for the term on one of the primitive search engines of the time (would have been Yahoo, Alta Vista, Lycos or HotBot; Google didn't exist at the time) and what came out was this (the website was alive at the time):

http://www.zoonet.org/

I'm in a nostalgic mood so I started thinking back to when this website was one of the few general zoo websites on the Internet (i.e. not maintained by a zoo but by an enthusiast). ZooNet is dead now and has been for years but it was maintained by one Jim Henley. Apparently a Southern bloke (almost all the photos were shot at the Birmingham, Montgomery, Atlanta and Memphis Zoos) but does anyone know anything about him? I think he was a pioneer among us zoo enthusiasts with regards to the Internet. ZooNet was primitive by today's standards, but today when practically any jackass can compile a website about zoos without even basic HTML knowledge (I did for years ) we should perhaps thank him and others who lead the way.

On a related note: which zoos started websites first? I remember from my early Internet days sites of zoos such as Los Angeles and North Carolina, but any other candidates?

 

[Meaghan Edwards]

Wow, I remember that site, and thought I was the only one

 

[Ituri]

Wow Baldur, that seriously takes me back.

 

[Arizona Docent]

Yes I do remember the site and I also remember why he shut it down, which is one of the problems of the internet. It was basically a list of links to zoo websites and related websites. The problem was, ocassionaly one of the sites would not renew its annual lease with its service provider and the now available domain name would be purchased by a questionable site. So people would go to his site, a supposedly innocent kid-friendly site, and click on a link that led them to a...well...not so kid-friendly site.

As for the second topic, which zoo had first, I am sure Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle (Microsoft territory) was one of the earliest zoo websites. How do I know? Because they were smart enough to grab the simple domain name Zoo.org before anyone else.