ZSL London Zoo Old Annual Reports. Really really Old

Zooplantman said:
Just found this great resource:

Annual report ZSL 1833: Biodiversity Heritage Library: Annual report / Zoological Society of London.

Above the scan there is a drop-down menu showing links to report from 1861 and another from 1877

Also see:

Biodiversity Heritage Library: The gardens and menagerie of the Zoological Society delineated :

Biodiversity Heritage Library: List of the animals in the gardens of the Zoological Society :

There's a great deal more ZSL history to be found here
Biodiversity Heritage Library
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I have a orginal 1975 annual report in my draw, if anyone whats to know anything from that year.
 
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This is an incredible source of information: I've just lost a couple of hours and I've barely scratched the surface. My top tip is C. V. A. Peel's "The Zoological Gardens of Europe":

http://www.archive.org/download/zoologicalgarden00peel/zoologicalgarden00peel.pdf

Peel may have been the original zoo nerd and travelled around the zoos of Europe at the turn of the 19th Century (no cheap Easyjet flights for him!). If he were alive today, I guarantee he would be an active zoochatter.
 
London Zoo Old Annual Reports

I stayed up until goodnes knows when last night reading this stuff. Absolutely fascinating.
 
Paradoxurus said:
Information overload
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Agreed! There's so much fascinating stuff that it's hard to concentrate on one thing without your mind drifting on to something else.

I was having a look at the Knowsley catalogue this afternoon: I was aware of the mammals from previous research, but I was surprised at the size and diversity of the bird collection. Some stats: the whole collection consisted of 1617 specimens of 412 species and took six days to auction. Must have been one hell of a place!
 
We were born too late.

I wonder who bought the 70 Passenger Pigeons.

Then there's the famous Quagga.
 
robmv said:
This is an incredible source of information: I've just lost a couple of hours and I've barely scratched the surface. My top tip is C. V. A. Peel's "The Zoological Gardens of Europe":

Peel may have been the original zoo nerd and travelled around the zoos of Europe at the turn of the 19th Century (no cheap Easyjet flights for him!). If he were alive today, I guarantee he would be an active zoochatter.
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that was a fantastic read! He really was ahead of his time with his thoughts on how animals should be kept, remarking on which cages were suitable and which weren't etc, and his delight at seeing rare and unusual animals. Fascinating too reading about the zoos then, including 12,000 species on display in the Berlin Zoo, and apparently a platypus in Frankfurt Zoo! (And of course the only pretty girl in Denmark working at the Copenhagen Zoo).

Not forgetting either, the bit about Hagenbeck at the end. Well worth reading!
 
I also added links for other historical stuff in the Bronx Zoo thread, Philadelphia Zoo thread, the Paris Jardin des Plantes thread, Franklin Park Zoo (Boston) and the General Zoo thread (Hagenbeck's autobiography)
 
Chlidonias said:
that was a fantastic read! He really was ahead of his time with his thoughts on how animals should be kept, remarking on which cages were suitable and which weren't etc, and his delight at seeing rare and unusual animals. Fascinating too reading about the zoos then, including 12,000 species on display in the Berlin Zoo, and apparently a platypus in Frankfurt Zoo! (And of course the only pretty girl in Denmark working at the Copenhagen Zoo).

Not forgetting either, the bit about Hagenbeck at the end. Well worth reading!
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I love some of his incredibly English comments. One of my personal favourites appears at the end of his Dresden account:

Whilst I was taking photographs, a gentleman walked quickly up to me and began a long harangue in a very angry tone of voice, accompanied by scowls and many gestures of disapprobation. I listened attentively until he had finished, and then asked: 'Spraken ze English?' Whereupon he turned on his heel and walked off as quickly as he had come, not to reappear again.

Wonderful!
 
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