this is a historical review of the North Brighton Zoo, ubiquitously known as "the Mini Zoo" for its miniscule size. It was the first zoo of any kind in Christchurch. The owner was Bill Grey, born 15 October 1914, died 25 October 2003 at the age of 89. The zoo closed upon Grey's retirement in August 1996. Although it was a tiny zoo that certainly fitted the description of a "roadside zoo", it was only half an hour's walk from my house and as a young lad I visited every weekend. Today I would be the first to say it should be closed down, but back then it helped fuel my enthusiasm for animals and zoos (not that it really needed fueling as such, but I had no way of getting to Orana Park or Willowbank and so there was no place else for me to see exotic animals).
The site where the zoo stood in eastern Christchurch was first occupied by a small aquarium called the North Brighton Mini-aquarium (or possibly the North Beach Aquarium), owned by Jack Taylor whom Bill Grey met in the early 1940s. The aquarium had been opened by Taylor in the 1920s and was run by himself, his wife and their four sons until they sold it to Grey in 1958 when they moved to Auckland. Grey formed a fish-club and beginning importation and exportation of tropical fish. I'm not sure when the zoo part started up, but the aquarium remained at the site until the zoo's closure. It was a VERY small aquarium building, about the size of a garage with individual tanks about 60-90cm in length housing common aquarium fish, axolotls, seahorses and snake-necked turtles. At the end of the aquarium was the crocodile enclosure. Two saltwater crocs had been imported from Australia by Taylor in 1954. They measured about 35cm long at the time and one of them, Charlie (on death determined to actually have been a female), lived in the cramped quarters for forty-one years, dying in August 1995 at 2.8 metres long, just a year before the zoo closed down. The crocodile tank really was tiny; from memory it was little longer than the length of the animal so must have been about 3 metres square, half of which was a shallow pool. However there was also an outside area accessed via a ramp (although in Christchurch the outdoor area could usually only be used for about half the year because of the weather).
The zoo part of the establishment was equally tiny, probably well under half an acre. At the time it was built the surrounding area was mostly scrub and sand-dunes but as the suburbs expanded the zoo became surrounded by houses, which began to result in complaints from neighbours about the noise from big cats and monkeys. There were also protests from animal rights groups, notably SAFE ("Save Animals From Exploitation", who seem to protest against everything including keeping pets and farming livestock) and "Friends Of Caged Animals" (a group with a twenty-strong membership apparently formed specifically against the Mini Zoo). It certainly was a tiny zoo with tiny cages, but many of the animals were ex-circus that had nowhere else to go, and they were all well cared for. The zoo had monthly inspections from MaF officials (something that doesn't happen with zoos nowadays!) and there were rarely any problems.
There was a very diverse collection crammed into the grounds in a variety of home-made cages, some passable, some very poor, almost all very small. Amongst the more popular inhabitants were four ex-circus big cats (a leopard, a black panther, a tigress and a lioness) whom Grey went in and played with every day; a pair of bobcats; and a wide range of monkeys (bonnet macaques, crab-eating macaques, pig-tailed macaques, rhesus macaques, black-capped capuchins, three De Brazza's monkeys imported from Taronga Zoo in about 1988 -- the only ones in NZ -- and, near the end of the zoo's life, a Geoffroy's spider monkey which must have been a spare male from Auckland). There was also a trio of caracals imported from Australia (presumably Taronga Zoo again) which were also the only ones in NZ. I think one may have died soon after arrival or been kept off-display because I only ever saw two. They never bred, not surprisingly given the small cage they inhabited, and they were gone (dead?) before the zoo closed down.
The zoo housed quite a number of small-clawed otters. Despite the zoo's small size, the breeding record for the otters here was truly remarkable. Grey was the first person in NZ to breed them and for a very long time this was the ONLY zoo in NZ to be successful. By 1988 he had bred and reared 35 small-clawed otters. At this time most or all of the otters in NZ zoos had originally come from Grey's zoo. He also bred many of his monkeys which went on to other zoos. Other mammals were a massive feral pig which rarely did anything except sleep, red-necked wallabies, coatis, and towards the end, maras, meerkats and two servals. There was a substantial collection of parakeets as well as common mynahs (in a converted garden shed, from which they regularly escaped due to the lack of a safety porch), emus, kea and weka. In June 1990 three kea were stolen from the zoo by notorious animal-smuggler Freddie Angel.
Entry fee for the zoo was $3 for adults and $1.50 for children. Little tins of chopped fuit and vegetables could be bought for 20 cents to feed to the animals, which of course resulted in all the monkeys scrambling to the front wire whenever anyone approached, in the hope of being fed.
In August 1996 Bill Grey retired and regretfully closed the zoo down. By this time Charlie the crocodile had died, as had the tigress of old age. The leopard and panther I think had gone to another collection (I don't know where) - and what I was told at the time may have been a euphemism for "died" - and their cage had been turned over to Susie the lioness (and Susie's cage and the tigress' old cage had been combined into a larger cage for the servals). The bobcats were still there but the caracals were not. There were about twenty monkeys of seven species. After closure most of the birds, fish and reptiles were sold off privately. Most of the monkeys and otters went to Pouakai and Franklin Zoos. The blue-tongued skinks, the rhesus macaques, and some of the otters and capuchins may have gone to the Moana Zoo. I had been told that the two bobcats went to Moana Zoo as well, but that seems to not have been the case so I'm not sure what happened to them.The servals and lioness went to Orana Park. The two servals, ironically, ended up in a smaller cage at Orana than they had been in at the Mini Zoo and were only on display for a relatively short period then were removed to an even-smaller off-display cage in which they remained until their deaths in 2011. Susie the lioness was originally given to the Mini Zoo by a circus in 1979, and was 23 years old when she went to Orana Park. She died the following year in June 1997 of kidney failure.
Bill Grey died on 25 October 2003 at the age of 89. One of his many newspaper obituaries remarked that "His family included lions, monkeys and a crocodile with an assortment of Japanese man fish, eels, Australian meerkats [sic], water lilies and whistling frogs."
There are photos in the gallery, which rather speak for themselves on the condition of the cages. The camera was one of the dodgy little point-and-shoot jobs that were current then, hence the poor quality and odd colouring!
Susie the lioness: North Brighton Zoo, Christchurch - Photo Gallery
bobcats: North Brighton Zoo, Christchurch - Photo Gallery
caracal: North Brighton Zoo, Christchurch - Photo Gallery
feral pig: North Brighton Zoo, Christchurch - Photo Gallery
pig-tailed macaques: North Brighton Zoo, Christchurch - Photo Gallery
De Brazza's monkeys: North Brighton Zoo, Christchurch - Photo Gallery
small-clawed otter: North Brighton Zoo, Christchurch - Photo Gallery
kea: North Brighton Zoo, Christchurch - Photo Gallery
Charlie the crocodile: North Brighton Zoo, Christchurch - Photo Gallery
The site where the zoo stood in eastern Christchurch was first occupied by a small aquarium called the North Brighton Mini-aquarium (or possibly the North Beach Aquarium), owned by Jack Taylor whom Bill Grey met in the early 1940s. The aquarium had been opened by Taylor in the 1920s and was run by himself, his wife and their four sons until they sold it to Grey in 1958 when they moved to Auckland. Grey formed a fish-club and beginning importation and exportation of tropical fish. I'm not sure when the zoo part started up, but the aquarium remained at the site until the zoo's closure. It was a VERY small aquarium building, about the size of a garage with individual tanks about 60-90cm in length housing common aquarium fish, axolotls, seahorses and snake-necked turtles. At the end of the aquarium was the crocodile enclosure. Two saltwater crocs had been imported from Australia by Taylor in 1954. They measured about 35cm long at the time and one of them, Charlie (on death determined to actually have been a female), lived in the cramped quarters for forty-one years, dying in August 1995 at 2.8 metres long, just a year before the zoo closed down. The crocodile tank really was tiny; from memory it was little longer than the length of the animal so must have been about 3 metres square, half of which was a shallow pool. However there was also an outside area accessed via a ramp (although in Christchurch the outdoor area could usually only be used for about half the year because of the weather).
The zoo part of the establishment was equally tiny, probably well under half an acre. At the time it was built the surrounding area was mostly scrub and sand-dunes but as the suburbs expanded the zoo became surrounded by houses, which began to result in complaints from neighbours about the noise from big cats and monkeys. There were also protests from animal rights groups, notably SAFE ("Save Animals From Exploitation", who seem to protest against everything including keeping pets and farming livestock) and "Friends Of Caged Animals" (a group with a twenty-strong membership apparently formed specifically against the Mini Zoo). It certainly was a tiny zoo with tiny cages, but many of the animals were ex-circus that had nowhere else to go, and they were all well cared for. The zoo had monthly inspections from MaF officials (something that doesn't happen with zoos nowadays!) and there were rarely any problems.
There was a very diverse collection crammed into the grounds in a variety of home-made cages, some passable, some very poor, almost all very small. Amongst the more popular inhabitants were four ex-circus big cats (a leopard, a black panther, a tigress and a lioness) whom Grey went in and played with every day; a pair of bobcats; and a wide range of monkeys (bonnet macaques, crab-eating macaques, pig-tailed macaques, rhesus macaques, black-capped capuchins, three De Brazza's monkeys imported from Taronga Zoo in about 1988 -- the only ones in NZ -- and, near the end of the zoo's life, a Geoffroy's spider monkey which must have been a spare male from Auckland). There was also a trio of caracals imported from Australia (presumably Taronga Zoo again) which were also the only ones in NZ. I think one may have died soon after arrival or been kept off-display because I only ever saw two. They never bred, not surprisingly given the small cage they inhabited, and they were gone (dead?) before the zoo closed down.
The zoo housed quite a number of small-clawed otters. Despite the zoo's small size, the breeding record for the otters here was truly remarkable. Grey was the first person in NZ to breed them and for a very long time this was the ONLY zoo in NZ to be successful. By 1988 he had bred and reared 35 small-clawed otters. At this time most or all of the otters in NZ zoos had originally come from Grey's zoo. He also bred many of his monkeys which went on to other zoos. Other mammals were a massive feral pig which rarely did anything except sleep, red-necked wallabies, coatis, and towards the end, maras, meerkats and two servals. There was a substantial collection of parakeets as well as common mynahs (in a converted garden shed, from which they regularly escaped due to the lack of a safety porch), emus, kea and weka. In June 1990 three kea were stolen from the zoo by notorious animal-smuggler Freddie Angel.
Entry fee for the zoo was $3 for adults and $1.50 for children. Little tins of chopped fuit and vegetables could be bought for 20 cents to feed to the animals, which of course resulted in all the monkeys scrambling to the front wire whenever anyone approached, in the hope of being fed.
In August 1996 Bill Grey retired and regretfully closed the zoo down. By this time Charlie the crocodile had died, as had the tigress of old age. The leopard and panther I think had gone to another collection (I don't know where) - and what I was told at the time may have been a euphemism for "died" - and their cage had been turned over to Susie the lioness (and Susie's cage and the tigress' old cage had been combined into a larger cage for the servals). The bobcats were still there but the caracals were not. There were about twenty monkeys of seven species. After closure most of the birds, fish and reptiles were sold off privately. Most of the monkeys and otters went to Pouakai and Franklin Zoos. The blue-tongued skinks, the rhesus macaques, and some of the otters and capuchins may have gone to the Moana Zoo. I had been told that the two bobcats went to Moana Zoo as well, but that seems to not have been the case so I'm not sure what happened to them.The servals and lioness went to Orana Park. The two servals, ironically, ended up in a smaller cage at Orana than they had been in at the Mini Zoo and were only on display for a relatively short period then were removed to an even-smaller off-display cage in which they remained until their deaths in 2011. Susie the lioness was originally given to the Mini Zoo by a circus in 1979, and was 23 years old when she went to Orana Park. She died the following year in June 1997 of kidney failure.
Bill Grey died on 25 October 2003 at the age of 89. One of his many newspaper obituaries remarked that "His family included lions, monkeys and a crocodile with an assortment of Japanese man fish, eels, Australian meerkats [sic], water lilies and whistling frogs."
There are photos in the gallery, which rather speak for themselves on the condition of the cages. The camera was one of the dodgy little point-and-shoot jobs that were current then, hence the poor quality and odd colouring!
Susie the lioness: North Brighton Zoo, Christchurch - Photo Gallery
bobcats: North Brighton Zoo, Christchurch - Photo Gallery
caracal: North Brighton Zoo, Christchurch - Photo Gallery
feral pig: North Brighton Zoo, Christchurch - Photo Gallery
pig-tailed macaques: North Brighton Zoo, Christchurch - Photo Gallery
De Brazza's monkeys: North Brighton Zoo, Christchurch - Photo Gallery
small-clawed otter: North Brighton Zoo, Christchurch - Photo Gallery
kea: North Brighton Zoo, Christchurch - Photo Gallery
Charlie the crocodile: North Brighton Zoo, Christchurch - Photo Gallery
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What an amazing range of animals for such a small zoo. It's such a shame the zoo didn't have better financial support so it could provide it's animals with a better standard of living. Thanks Chlidonias for an interesting insight into this zoo I had previously never heard of!
