ZSL London Zoo London Zoo Crisis of early 1990s

[Shorts]

The size and scope of the collection, and the number of keepers, was cut by a third in 1991/2; admission prices did not reduce, however.

That's because it was economically unsustainable as it was, it had to change to survive.

It is a matter of opinion whether or not RP is now value for money. For an adult to pay up to £20.50 is one thing; for a child over three to pay £16.40 is probably another. For the oft-touted nuclear family of 4, that's a total outlay of over £70 before any food, ice-creams, guide-books or souvenirs are bought.

Agreed, to an extent, and let's not forget the car park fees too. However, let's not forget that, apart from some "free attractions", everything in London is expensive -I don't think the zoo is particularly expensive compared with other paying London attractions and would argue that it's good value compared with (say) Thorpe Park, attending a Premiership football match or visiting a Sealife Centre (anywhere).

Sorry, I believe I'm getting a little off-thread here.

 

[johnstoni.]

The 1990 figure is not a good comparison with attendance now - there was a surge in visitor numbers when the zoo was under threat of closure. The point is now that they appear more financially awake, with really good use of venue facilities, promotions and additional spend. While I want good zoos to thrive, I don't want the government to pay my taxes towards them, or any other tourist attraction that is able to charge visitors.

The macaw aviary seemed like a strange investment, partly because the development prior to this was also a rather expensive aviary, but also because, for the same cost they could really have done something exceptional with another species. As parrot flights go, its pretty good, and has lately resulted (if ISIS is correct) in ZSL breeding this species, but I can't help but think if they'd ploughed that money into those proposed extensions to the elephant and rhino enclosures or introduced a new species to the site they might have come up with a more remarkable development. Also, it was situated right by the parrot house, with other macaws retained in these old avaries.

The tube is a rubbish way to travel to the zoo - travel by bus and you'll be rewarded with a picturesque tour of the city and you'll arrive right by the zoo, rather than at the other end of the park or in Camden town. Plus its so much cheaper.

 

[Dassie rat]

About 10 years ago, I went to Buckingham Palace. It cost £9.50 to get in (once I managed to get past the metal detectors) and my group had to move in one direction, so there was no opportunity to go back into a room and check if there was anything you'd missed. There was very little labelling (I remember a little statue labelled 'Perseus and Medusa', but the paintings etc had no details of the title, artist or how it had come to be owned by the Royal Family. My friend wasn't allowed to go back to the entrance to buy a guide and didn't want to say, "What's that?" to volunteer staff. I learned very little and it took just 35 minutes to go through the rooms and reach the gift shop. £9.50 for 35 minutes was not good value for money and I can spend hours at some zoos.

I sometimes get asked how long it takes to go round London Zoo. That really depends on what the visitor is interested in. A visitor could dash round the zoo in an hour or so, but this would probably be a case of expecting to see the animals in each enclosure and then moving on. I also think that some areas would probably be ignored. Alternatively, a visitor could spend some time looking at one group of animals. When I was at college, I did a psychology course in animal behaviour. One assignment was to choose animals at London Zoo and see how they behave. I eventually chose the Indian flying foxes and noted how some were dominant over others and how a few went onto the floor to pick up fallen fruit. I must have spent about 30 minutes there. Similarly, I spent a long time watching interactions between Tonkean macaques at Strasbourg Zoo in 2001 and a friend of mine spent an hour or so sketching dholes at Dresden Zoo. If you have an interest in animals, you can usually find zoo animals that should interest you. You can spend a day at London Zoo (and various other zoos) and then £20.50 for up to 8 hours amounts to about £2.50 an hour, which compares very favourably with sports events, films and plays. If you turn up an hour before the zoo closes or leave early, then the price per hour goes up, but I don't think that's necessarily the fault of the zoo. I must admit that the price of zoo admission has gone up greatly. I remember when it was 5 shillings (3s 6d on Monday), but my pocket money is a lot higher now.

I agree that £70 for a family of four is steep. I heard a woman complaining about this a few weeks ago. A boy wanted to go on the bouncy castle, but the mother said she wasn't made of money and had already paid £70. I know other people who complain about costs, but I have been to far smaller zoos that are not much cheaper and I doubt if the recession is helping the situation.

I think that families are probably being more discerning about where to go, so whether London Zoo is good value for money is probably a subjective, rather than an objective, decision.

 

[IanRRobinson]

The 1990 figure is not a good comparison with attendance now - there was a surge in visitor numbers when the zoo was under threat of closure.

Actually, johnstoni, it's a very relevant figure. The decision to close London Zoo was taken in April 1991.

The tube is a rubbish way to travel to the zoo - travel by bus and you'll be rewarded with a picturesque tour of the city and you'll arrive right by the zoo, rather than at the other end of the park or in Camden town. Plus it’s so much cheaper

I take your point, but many tourists find the tube map a lot easier to understand than bus routes. And buses are not fast. Incidentally, I grew up in Upminster, and spent the bulk of my life until a decade ago in Central London, so I do know the public transport map of London!!

I sense a generational aspect to some of these posts on this thread. At 48, I am probably in the last age group that can remember London as a world-class zoo, where a full day would not see everything.

The London Zoo of (say) 1976 wasn't perfect. The accommodation for bears, elephants and parrots was sub-standard, the Bird House was in dire need of refurbishment, and a lot of stock was kept on the Cotton Terraces that would have been more sensibly managed at Whipsnade.But it was breeding orang-utans, black rhino, margays, fennec foxes and a host of unusual small mammals in the Clore.

With enlightened leadership it could have been turned into a great zoo for the 21st century. A dilettante management style led instead to the disasters of 1991/2.

Time will tell whether the present plans will lead to a worthwhile outcome.

 

[sooty mangabey]

In general--worldwide--zoo attendance is falling or staying flat relative to population. Obviously there are exceptions (Leipzig, Zurich, Columbus among others), but this tends to happen only where there have been massive re-investments and revitalizations.

Is this true? I'm not sure. To take the UK (as this discussion did commence with a focus on London): until the 1960s there were just a handful of zoos; thus although London received huge visitor numbers, the total number of people going to zoos in the country was, i would be willing to wager a substantial amount, lower than is currently the case. I think that zoos that market themselves well, and work hard to get visitors through the gates, can still see their numbers rocket, even without a Gondwanaland being built. In this country, Chester's numbers are as high as they have ever been, without any truly spectacular new developments; Colchester is getting 750,000 or so per annum as well. Dublin is having record years. In France, Amneville and Beauval each pull in well over half a million a year - go back a decade or so, and zoos were all-but-absent from France. Czech zoos appear to be thriving, visitor-wise.

Why does London not get more than the million or so it attracts each year? I have several theories:

• A million is actually quite a good figure. Visit in the summer, and you wouldn't want the place to be too much busier. According to ALVA (the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions), London was the 5th most visited paid-for attraction in the UK last year (after the Tower of London, Chester Zoo, Kew Gardens and the Bath Pump Room). This data does not cover all attractions - the dreadful Madam Tussauds, for example, is not included. But, whatever, there aren't many places that charge for entry that pull in more people...
• ...but - there are many great places in London that are free. Why pay for the zoo when you can go to the museums and art galleries for free?
• As has been mentioned elsewhere, central London isn't always the easiest of places to access - particularly if you have family in tow (as many zoo visitors will have). Far easier to point the car in the direction of Colchester, Whipsnade, Marwell...
• The marketing of London Zoo is just dire.
• The new developments over the past decade have been many - but I cannot think of one which has brought something new to the zoo. It has all been upgraded stuff - a better invertebrate house, a better penguin pool, and so on. This is admirable - those things have needed upgrading - but in the eyes of the muggles out there, there is, possibly, nothing new to see at the zoo.
• More than any other zoo that I visit regularly, London doesn't know how to make its visitors feel welcome. On the contrary, it can seem really unfriendly as a place to visit - and the emphasis on conservation at every turn can make one feel as if one has paid to be lectured at (and then have a begging bowl waved under the nose...).
• As Shorts has said elsewhere, there is much that is great about the zoo - reptiles, for example, and a much-improved aquarium. But it is still very easy to not see very much. Popular zoos have animals in every corner. London does not...
• ...and if a single visitor has been lured in - or made a return visit - because of the nature trail on the canal banks, or that garden thing near the anteaters, or that other garden thing behind the Komodo dragons, or the wallaby mountain - I'll eat my DVD of The Ark.

I'd say, in conclusion, that London is a decent zoo, rather than a great one, that it needs to work harder to earn and retain visitors - but that it would probably struggle to deal with too many more of those visitors should they turn their backs on Woburn and head to Regent's Park instead (unless they all came in February and November).

 

[chizlit]

[QUOTE

The tube is a rubbish way to travel to the zoo - travel by bus and you'll be rewarded with a picturesque tour of the city and you'll arrive right by the zoo, rather than at the other end of the park or in Camden town. Plus its so much cheaper.[/QUOTE]

I think for people living outside of London and tourists to the area the bus isn't an easy option, most people wont know where to find the stops, the tube is quick and simple (for most), but I agree you get more for your money on the bus.

 

[Dassie rat]

[*]The marketing of London Zoo is just dire.

I agree with this. There seems to be little coordination between the marketing department and people who know more about animals. Last year, the posters promoting the 'Biome' and 'Night Life' included photos of animals that weren't in the collection e.g. common marmosets, three-toed sloths and horseshoe and spear-nosed bats. Surely, somebody should have checked the posters before vast sums of money were spent. I mentioned this to a member of staff, who asked a keeper about whether the biome kept two-toed or three-toed sloths. The keeper didn't know. I was told that the marketing department would be told about the mistakes, but this year another advertising campaign showed a three-toed sloth climbing the 'Gherkin'. Surely encouraging people to pay money to see something you don't have contravenes the Trades Description Act. Perhaps there aren't many people who want to see a three-toed sloth.

The new copy of the staff magazine has a caption 'Monkeying Around' by a photo of a chimp on the front cover. Surely the editor must realise that chimps aren't monkeys. Anyway, the 'joke' has been so overplayed over the years that it is neither funny nor clever - a bit like the 'eggstatic' and 'eggsiting' jokes at Easter.

Lastly, this isn't a new thing about proof-reading. Some copies of the zoo guide have been littered with mistakes. I remmeber one 'Fascinating Fact' that nearly all species of Australian mammals are marsupials. I knwo that Australian bats and rodents are often ignored, but they do make up about half of the native Australian mammal fauna.

Please note that London Zoo is not unique in making mistakes, but it would be better for zoos to check information before spending large sums of money on publications and advertising.

 

[IanRRobinson]

A million is actually quite a good figure. Visit in the summer, and you wouldn't want the place to be too much busier

And yet the site catered for over 2 million visitors in 1973, already out of the age of orderly ex-servicemen walking around with children who would be seen and not heard. But then more of the site was physically open then - the walkways on the Mappin Terraces, right around the Stork and Ostrich House and inside it and in each of the houses on the Cotton Terraces.

I also think that a site that is so big that not everything can be seen in one day is more likely to engender a return visit within the same year than one where the average visit will take a mere three hours (which is apparently what the zoo's own surveys revealed a couple of years back).

Popular zoos have animals in every corner. London does not...
...and if a single visitor has been lured in - or made a return visit - because of the nature trail on the canal banks, or that garden thing near the anteaters, or that other garden thing behind the Komodo dragons, or the wallaby mountain - I'll eat my DVD of The Ark.

Agreed wholeheartedly. Someone, somewhere, makes some very odd decisions about how to use the odd corners in the Zoo. Interesting animals such as (say) cassowaries, secretary birds, wombats, mandrills, margays, bush dogs, red pandas or pudu could probably all be found homes with the same attitude to space utilisation seen in (say) Artis or Frankfurt.

There seems to be little coordination between the marketing department and people who know more about animals. Last year, the posters promoting the 'Biome' and 'Night Life' included photos of animals that weren't in the collection e.g. common marmosets, three-toed sloths and horseshoe and spear-nosed bats. Surely, somebody should have checked the posters before vast sums of money were spent.
If someone in marketing was responsible for putting brown rats in the first exhibit of 'Night Life' and a model of a dead tapir in with fruit-eating Seba's bats (to fool the muggles into thinking they're looking at vampire bats!) then we have A Problem. If someone in animal management agreed to it then we have A Very Big Problem...

Perhaps there aren't many people who want to see a three-toed sloth. I do !!!

 

[TARZAN]

A very interesting discussion taking place here, considering what might have happened to London Zoo twenty years ago it is good that we can today be discussing it in the present and the future. If the unthinkable had happened twenty years ago and it had closed, I wonder what would have happened to the site itself?, it could not have been possible simply to bulldoze the lot and grass it over to become just an ordinary part of Regent's Park due to the many building which have listed status, so what would have happened to the zoo if all the animals and staff had departed and what could this site have been used for if the unthinkable had indeed happened? ideas anyone?

 

[johnstoni.]

Actually, johnstoni, it's a very relevant figure. The decision to close London Zoo was taken in April 1991.

Point taken - I was assuming you were just referring to the last spike in visitor numbers at the point the zoo was under threat of closure, in which case you'd obviously have said 1991...

I think for people living outside of London and tourists to the area the bus isn't an easy option, most people wont know where to find the stops, the tube is quick and simple (for most), but I agree you get more for your money on the bus.

The TFL website is so unbelievably easy to use, really any visitors planning to use the tube should be checking the site anyway before they set off in case there is any engineering work on the tube (there so often is at weekends). Take the bus one time and I guarantee you a nicer journey, unless you like breathing stale air with your face pressed into somebody's armpit for half an hour....

[*]A million is actually quite a good figure. Visit in the summer, and you wouldn't want the place to be too much busier.
[*]The marketing of London Zoo is just dire.
[*]The new developments over the past decade have been many - but I cannot think of one which has brought something new to the zoo. It has all been upgraded stuff - a better invertebrate house, a better penguin pool, and so on. This is admirable - those things have needed upgrading - but in the eyes of the muggles out there, there is, possibly, nothing new to see at the zoo.

I think the numbers, balanced with the admission price, make the zoo busy enough, as you say. I think great volumes of people are not necessarily desirable in an age when we are becoming aware of the stress caused by the proximity or behaviour of visitors to certain exhibits. Therefore I disagree about the marketing aspect, I think they have got it exactly right. Its telling that I have seen elsewhere on this forum biting criticism of the zoo's misuse of the old terrace cafe building on the Mappins (I was presumed unused, various animal exhibits were suggested), when in fact this is a high-end venue generating revenue through being hired out for events. We have been in recession, ZSL has not even had a mention on here as an organisation under threat, what a contrast to the early 90s.

I think you also need to remember that the aardvarks, hunting dogs, warthogs, hummingbirds, red pandas (which didn't do well), colobus, and mangabeys were all publicised as being attractions within new exhibits when those exhibits opened, and of course the 'Dragons of Komodo', 'Meet the Monkeys', and 'Giants of the Galapagos' were both arguably brand new exhibits with species not previously at the zoo (at least for many years). I would also argue that zoos that have done their market research have understood that, while for you a new attraction might be made more attractive by a previously-unseen species, for the majority of children, an opportunity to 'go in' with the animal in the exhibit would be a much greater draw, regardless of whether the animal has been at the zoo previously.

Last year, the posters promoting the 'Biome' and 'Night Life' included photos of animals that weren't in the collection e.g. common marmosets, three-toed sloths and horseshoe and spear-nosed bats. Surely encouraging people to pay money to see something you don't have contravenes the Trades Description Act. Perhaps there aren't many people who want to see a three-toed sloth.

I think you would be in a small handful of people in this country willing to quote the trades description act because they were disappointed to discover, on their arrival at London zoo, a common-or-garden two-toed sloth when they had been promised a medley of three-toed sloths, common marmosets and spear-nosed bats....I think they are working on the assumption that most visitors would be blown away watching their pair of two-toed sloths make full use of the biome exhibit. Isn't it sad that you could show up at a zoo and not enjoy that because you'd been psyched to see a different species? Where has your wonderment at nature gone?!

People who are good at promotions and marketing don't come with an encyclopedic zoological knowledge, and don't usually have time to acquire one if they are doing the job of increasing revenue for the zoo properly. Yes its irritating seeing every known taxa to humankind investigating a badly-carved pumpkin at this time of year, but zoo enthusiasts are not the target of their marketing! They are appealing to families with children! I'd much rather my city had a good, financially-sound zoo, part-full of meerkats and 'live penguin shows' than a financially-struggling one with mammalian 'gems' in every quiet corner....

 

[Pertinax]

Yes its irritating seeing every known taxa to humankind investigating a badly-carved pumpkin at this time of year, but zoo enthusiasts are not the target of their marketing! They are appealing to families with children!

HeHe! How true, I'm sure that's a sentiment shared by many Zoo enthusiasts and Zoochatters ! But what you say is very true and is one of the reasons why Zoos are still able to exist for the rest of us too.

 

[chizlit]

The TFL website is so unbelievably easy to use, really any visitors planning to use the tube should be checking the site anyway before they set off in case there is any engineering work on the tube (there so often is at weekends). Take the bus one time and I guarantee you a nicer journey, unless you like breathing stale air with your face pressed into somebody's armpit for half an hour....



I 'll take your word on a nicer journey, although delays would have to be factored into a bus journey unless there are bus lanes on the whole route.

However I think you might be missing a point here, most visitors to London will arrive either by train or coach. If you arrive by train you will then hop on the tube as it's in the same location (in most cases) as the train station, there is no way anyone would go onto the street and search for a bus stop, in the hope that it will take them where they need to go.
Likewise if arriving by coach (Victoria), I'll bet that most people will make their way over to the underground rather than try to walk thru the warren of bus stops at Victoria.

 

[IanRRobinson]

[QUOTEI think you would be in a small handful of people in this country willing to quote the trades description act because they were disappointed to discover, on their arrival at London zoo, a common-or-garden two-toed sloth when they had been promised a medley of three-toed sloths, common marmosets and spear-nosed bats....I think they are working on the assumption that most visitors would be blown away watching their pair of two-toed sloths make full use of the biome exhibit. Isn't it sad that you could show up at a zoo and not enjoy that because you'd been psyched to see a different species? Where has your wonderment at nature gone?!

People who are good at promotions and marketing don't come with an encyclopedic zoological knowledge, and don't usually have time to acquire one if they are doing the job of increasing revenue for the zoo properly. Yes its irritating seeing every known taxa to humankind investigating a badly-carved pumpkin at this time of year, but zoo enthusiasts are not the target of their marketing! They are appealing to families with children! I'd much rather my city had a good, financially-sound zoo, part-full of meerkats and 'live penguin shows' than a financially-struggling one with mammalian 'gems' in every quiet corner....[/QUOTE]

A couple of points here.

Even if ZSL wasn't a learned society, arguably a role it should quietly relinquish to the Linnean Society, the fact is that its charter does enjoin it to educate the public. I might be thought of as picky, but to me that means a guidebook that doesn't contain factual errors and marketing that's based upon accuracy rather than otherwise.

No-one expects marketing professionals to be latter day Bernhard Grzimeks, but at the least the posters dassierat talks about show a disheartening lack of co-ordination amongst well-paid staff. At the worst it raises the suspicion of a lack of attention to detail that is capable of being repeated on a much larger scale.

I suspect that dassierat, like me, views current ZSL management with a certain level of scepticism because we've seen an awful lot of mind-changing since 1992 that has led to a failure to plan for the longer term. The Mappins, the Roundhouse, and perhaps most strikingly of all the Children's Zoo have all seen changes of usage well beyond what might have been expected. If anything of the 1993 masterplan was completed as scheduled it escapes my mind.

The there was BIOTA. Over more than a decade, a significant chunk of senior Aquarium staff time (and thus money) was spent on a project where the initial feasibility study predicted visitor numbers of 1.25 million.

In other words, an aquarium sited in the back end of the Docks, accessible only by the Docklands Light Railway, was thought to be capable of getting a higher annual attendance than the Zoo itself! This was voodoo, yet it took a decade and the present recession for sanity to prevail and the project to be abandoned.

Coincidentally or not, the condition of the Zoo's Aquarium deteriorated greatly during this time. I'll leave other to draw their own conclusions

 

[TARZAN]

Point taken - I was assuming you were just referring to the last spike in visitor numbers at the point the zoo was under threat of closure, in which case you'd obviously have said 1991...



The TFL website is so unbelievably easy to use, really any visitors planning to use the tube should be checking the site anyway before they set off in case there is any engineering work on the tube (there so often is at weekends). Take the bus one time and I guarantee you a nicer journey, unless you like breathing stale air with your face pressed into somebody's armpit for half an hour....



I think the numbers, balanced with the admission price, make the zoo busy enough, as you say. I think great volumes of people are not necessarily desirable in an age when we are becoming aware of the stress caused by the proximity or behaviour of visitors to certain exhibits. Therefore I disagree about the marketing aspect, I think they have got it exactly right. Its telling that I have seen elsewhere on this forum biting criticism of the zoo's misuse of the old terrace cafe building on the Mappins (I was presumed unused, various animal exhibits were suggested), when in fact this is a high-end venue generating revenue through being hired out for events. We have been in recession, ZSL has not even had a mention on here as an organisation under threat, what a contrast to the early 90s.

I think you also need to remember that the aardvarks, hunting dogs, warthogs, hummingbirds, red pandas (which didn't do well), colobus, and mangabeys were all publicised as being attractions within new exhibits when those exhibits opened, and of course the 'Dragons of Komodo', 'Meet the Monkeys', and 'Giants of the Galapagos' were both arguably brand new exhibits with species not previously at the zoo (at least for many years). I would also argue that zoos that have done their market research have understood that, while for you a new attraction might be made more attractive by a previously-unseen species, for the majority of children, an opportunity to 'go in' with the animal in the exhibit would be a much greater draw, regardless of whether the animal has been at the zoo previously.



I think you would be in a small handful of people in this country willing to quote the trades description act because they were disappointed to discover, on their arrival at London zoo, a common-or-garden two-toed sloth when they had been promised a medley of three-toed sloths, common marmosets and spear-nosed bats....I think they are working on the assumption that most visitors would be blown away watching their pair of two-toed sloths make full use of the biome exhibit. Isn't it sad that you could show up at a zoo and not enjoy that because you'd been psyched to see a different species? Where has your wonderment at nature gone?!

People who are good at promotions and marketing don't come with an encyclopedic zoological knowledge, and don't usually have time to acquire one if they are doing the job of increasing revenue for the zoo properly. Yes its irritating seeing every known taxa to humankind investigating a badly-carved pumpkin at this time of year, but zoo enthusiasts are not the target of their marketing! They are appealing to families with children! I'd much rather my city had a good, financially-sound zoo, part-full of meerkats and 'live penguin shows' than a financially-struggling one with mammalian 'gems' in every quiet corner....

While I take the bus to visit the zoo, I do think the journey was far more pleasant when the service number was the 74 and operated by the "proper" London bus, i.e. the double deck routemaster, with the conductor shouting out"next stop for the zoo" when approaching the zoo stop, far better than what it is today on the 274 with those plastic single deck excuses for buses when full you can also get someones armpit in your face , just like the tube!

 

[Dassie rat]

Originally Posted by Dassie rat : Last year, the posters promoting the 'Biome' and 'Night Life' included photos of animals that weren't in the collection e.g. common marmosets, three-toed sloths and horseshoe and spear-nosed bats. Surely encouraging people to pay money to see something you don't have contravenes the Trades Description Act. Perhaps there aren't many people who want to see a three-toed sloth.

Quote originally posted by johnstoni: I think you would be in a small handful of people in this country willing to quote the trades description act because they were disappointed to discover, on their arrival at London zoo, a common-or-garden two-toed sloth when they had been promised a medley of three-toed sloths, common marmosets and spear-nosed bats....I think they are working on the assumption that most visitors would be blown away watching their pair of two-toed sloths make full use of the biome exhibit. Isn't it sad that you could show up at a zoo and not enjoy that because you'd been psyched to see a different species? Where has your wonderment at nature gone?! [End quote]

I have been doing zoo volunteering for many years and have had to tell visitors why London Zoo doesn't have giant pandas, elephants, polar bears and various other animals that they expect to see. Several years ago, a general website showed sealions at London Zoo, even though the zoo hadn't shown sealions for years. This was not ZSL's fault, but people still come to zoos expecting to see certain animals. When the elephants went to Whipsnade, some volunteers said there should be a notice outside London Zoo saying that there were no elephants there. I can't see any point in saying what you haven't got, but if a zoo spends a fortune on an advertising campaign and shows animals that it doesn't have, this is fundamentally dishonest.

Do you honestly think that a concert promoter would get away with a poster showing photos of bands that were not going to appear? People would feel cheated. I know there aren't many people who would pay over £20 to see three-toed sloths, horseshoe bats and spear-nosed bats, but if the posters show those animals are kept at London Zoo, they should be kept there.

I saw the two-toed sloths when the biome was originally opened and I accept that many visitors are pleased to see them and ask where they are. All I am saying is, "Why didn't the poster campaign show species that are in the collection, rather than those that are not?"

I suppose, Johnstoni, you wouldn't mind it if a zoo poster showed kakapos, mountain nyalas, Ethiopian wolves and Chinese river dolphins, when the zoo really had keas, greater kudus, coyotes and bottle-nosed dolphins. After all, most zoo visitors would be none the wiser and would probably enjoy seeing the animals. Wouldn't it be sad if Zoochatters showed up at a zoo and didn't enjoy the animals because they'd been psyched to see a different species? Where would their wonderment at nature have gone?!

 

[johnstoni.]

If they used photographs of kakapos, Ethiopian wolves and Chinese river dolphins, I probably would mind.

 

[dublinlion]

I think ZooCheck and the advancement of the animal rights movement had a part to play, though I speak subjectively. I feel personally that London zoo was harmed by the campaigning around Pole-Pole in the early 80s. ZooCheck published a book at the time, called 'Beyond the Bars - The Zoo Dilemma', or similar, its worth tracking down on Amazon as it really gives you an idea of the turmoil created by the Pole-Pole situation/ZSL's treatment of their elephants (depending on how you see it).

I agree that the animal rights movement combined with the advance of political correctness damaged London zoo. Dublin zoo and other city zoos were also plagued by this and the bad publicity that followed. Company sponsers and politicians distanced themselves, and the tabloids were only too happy to put the boot in. Zoos rather than battery and fur farms have always been a soft target for protesters and this will probably always be the case. Those who shout loudest and all that, even a small group of fanatics can bully the majority who are just looking for a quiet life.

I visited London zoo several times in the 80s and i absolutely loved it and at that time it had a huge collection of amazing animals and i would have regarded it as the best zoo by a mile. When i returned 20+ years later
(2010) it had lost some of the magic and seemed fairly average compared to how i remembered it.
having said that i will always visit whenever i'm in London as it is still a very good zoo with many interesting animals and exhibits.

 

[IanRRobinson]

I agree that the animal rights movement combined with the advance of political correctness damaged London zoo. Dublin zoo and other city zoos were also plagued by this and the bad publicity that followed. Company sponsers and politicians distanced themselves, and the tabloids were only too happy to put the boot in. Zoos rather than battery and fur farms have always been a soft target for protesters and this will probably always be the case. Those who shout loudest and all that, even a small group of fanatics can bully the majority who are just looking for a quiet life.

I visited London zoo several times in the 80s and i absolutely loved it and at that time it had a huge collection of amazing animals and i would have regarded it as the best zoo by a mile. When i returned 20+ years later
(2010) it had lost some of the magic and seemed fairly average compared to how i remembered it.
having said that i will always visit whenever i'm in London as it is still a very good zoo with many interesting animals and exhibits.

Very interesting perspective. I know that Dublin had similar problems to London in the 1980s - there the zoo got more money and more land from the Government and now appears to be thriving. Is that a fair summary, Dublinlion?

BTW - Hoover is doing very nicely at Whipsnade!!

 

[dublinlion]

Very interesting perspective. I know that Dublin had similar problems to London in the 1980s - there the zoo got more money and more land from the Government and now appears to be thriving. Is that a fair summary, Dublinlion?

BTW - Hoover is doing very nicely at Whipsnade!!

Yes ian, Dublin zoo got extra land and govt. money and appears to be thriving and is up to a million visitors per year. The downside being it is down to about 40 mammal species and even less birds. All animals are well cared for and enclosures are large but new exhibits are always to house current stock, as new species to the collection are rare.
Dublin has the most pleasant site of any zoo I have visited as there are 2 large lakes running through the zoo, it is very well planted and the only hills are within the enclosures so it is not a tiring walk.

ps. Nice to hear hoover is doing well.

 

[wenxue]

Joined London Zoo as a member a few weeks ago. That sort of makes it financially worthwhile for me as I only have to pay £80 (ish) up front and then can go every week all year if I want.

I usually spend about 4 hours at the zoo on a visit - I'd spend more but my feet start hurting by then and I need food (which it's difficult for me to get out and about because I can't eat certain things).

I first went to the zoo about 13 years ago - I dug out some photos from then earlier today. It's obvious that things have changed a lot for the better for many of the animals there but there is still a lot to be done. As a photographer and just someone who gives a darn about animals I really dislike the old wire mesh enclosures but I can see that where they have the money they are trying to move away from this- at least with high profile creatures like the tigers and gorillas. It takes time and cash though and there is a mountain to climb.

In terms of visitor numbers London Zoo simply don't do enough to engage people before they get to the gate. They have just revamped their website but put exactly no additional information on there. Three line descriptions of just a few of their species are not going to pull in kids who have a million other shiny marbles to play with.

Some detailed biographies of well known residents would help. Everyone has heard of Guy. How many people outside this place know who Kesho is (apart from all that awful tabloid garbage written after the baby died)? Give people something to find empathy with. Give them a meaningful connection with the animals and they will come and see them.

Or how about a few keeper blogs? Something ongoing that people could follow. You get the odd photo on their facebook page but it's very shallow marketing. You don't sell a zoo to people like you sell toothpaste.

You need to have people who are informed and interested before they get there - then their experience on the day is so much more worthwhile and memorable and they have the knowledge to make the connection with the animals they see in front of them.

I was watching the Mangabeys and there was a boy there of about 10 who said to his mother "I don't want to look at these. They are just boring". Mother was either too ill informed or too lazy to reply. No one was there to tell the kid exactly why there was nothing boring about Mangabeys at all and that perhaps they were just fed up with hearing dumb kids telling them how boring they are.

Perhaps having some weekend volunteers/staff standing by some exhibits to tell people the basic facts about some animals would help? I ended up explaining to a little boy that not all lions have manes. He refused to believe that the cubs were actually lions because they didn't have "big hair".

Their signage is pretty lousy too - and not always 100% accurate I fear. I took a picture of what, according to their signs was a Jade Wrasse (fish). Could I find anything on Jade Wrasse when I got home? Could I diddly because they are commonly known as Pastel Green Wrasse. Also they seem to have some confusion over Coppery Titi and Red Titi (monkey). Their inventory and signs call it a Red Titi but gives the latin name for a Coppery Titi. So I really don't know what Titi I actually photographed that day.

I'll be back as often as I can (sadly surgery on Wednesday will keep me away for a few weeks now) and as often as the weather allows but I do find a lack of information on the website and at the zoo itself frustrating.

If they want people to put their hands in their pockets make them care. If you want them to care then make them well informed. The adults too not just the kids. If you make everything kid focussed (like the three line descriptions on the website) then you are missing the important point that a lot of stuff kids learn comes from their parents. Get the parents and the kids will follow.