The 1st Zoo you visited

London Zoo - in the late 60s (yikes !) when Guy the Gorilla was there and Chi-Chi the panda. If I recall correctly, it was a time when you could still have camel rides (and possibly elephant rides though I'm not sure how accurate that "memory" is ?) around a large open quadrangle ...... I couldn't place this area when I visited last year.
 
Of course the old Los Angeles Griffith Park Zoo, since I was born and raised in Los Angeles. Couldn't even begin to say how far back, since I can remember going all my life.
 
GillP said:
London Zoo - in the late 60s (yikes !) when Guy the Gorilla was there and Chi-Chi the panda. If I recall correctly, it was a time when you could still have camel rides (and possibly elephant rides though I'm not sure how accurate that "memory" is ?) around a large open quadrangle ...... I couldn't place this area when I visited last year.
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They had camel rides in the early 1990s, when I saw them the riding area was between the big lawn and the bird flying arena.

My first visit was either Chester or Whipsnade, don't know which.
 
GillP said:
London Zoo - in the late 60s (yikes !) when Guy the Gorilla was there and Chi-Chi the panda. If I recall correctly, it was a time when you could still have camel rides (and possibly elephant rides though I'm not sure how accurate that "memory" is ?) around a large open quadrangle ...... I couldn't place this area when I visited last year.
Click to expand...

I think that the elephant rides actually stopped in the late 1950s although, as Bongorob said, the camel rides continued for decades after this.
 
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My family took me to the Auckland Zoo in late 1988, when I was 1-3 months old, to see the visiting pandas! Not that I can remeber that. But thats the zoo I grew up with, visiting at least yearly, and more often when I got my drivers license.
 
Chessington early 70's with school and family.
I seem to remember a big pit (Bear) and being able to go into an open cage and bounce on logs like a monkey!
 
I wish I could recall which zoo was the first I ever visited. Linton Zoo in Cambridgeshire was, and still is, my local zoo, but that didn't open until 1969, by which time I was already 4 years old, and I refuse to believe I wasn't taken to a zoo until then. The only other three zoos I was taken to regularly as a child were Whipsnade Zoo, Colchester Zoo and Mole Hall Wildlife Park. Whipsnade Zoo is a very big, and quite exhausting zoo, if you're a toddler. My pushchair was a large and cumbersome model, and too big to keep shunting in and out of the car; so I'm inclined to think I wasn't taken to Whipsnade for the first time until a little later. So my first zoo was probably either Colchester or Mole Hall. The only memory I have of Linton Zoo circa 1969 is of loads of Greek Tortoises covering the floor of one of the aviaries. The tortoises were for sale (unfortunately). My mum bought me one. This was my first tortoise, but regrettably it died in hibernation during the following winter, as was the fate of most of those tortoises I shouldn't wonder.
 
Either Edinburgh, or Stanley Zoo in County Durham, both too early for memory.

Being a North Eastern lad there were many childhood trips to Flamingo Park/Flamingoland, and one or two to Lambton Lion Park, but I think my earliest zoo memory is of London Zoo on a weekend down there in 1971/2 ish. I was awestruck by the sheer numbers of wierd and wonderful animals on show, despite being very young at five. And I haven't been to London Zoo since.:eek:
 
I don't recall my first visit to a zoo as we used to visit lots of them when I was small (in the 1970s) but I'm told by a reliable source (my mum) that it was Riber Zoo.
 
Colchester zoo in the late 60's :eek:
From my childhood I remember the model railway and the tree you could go inside, the car ride, the vultures were in the church ruins and the geese and swans down by the lakes that would chase and peck you whenever you picniced there. Loved the kangaroo :D

I can remember my first trip to a safari park sometime in the 70's. It was to Woburn, we went in 2 cars, my uncle, aunt and cousins in 1 car and my family in another. My uncle had a new car he was very proud of and a lion sprayed all over the back of the car and we watched from behind him lol :p!! It ruined the paint work and the stain was there until he sold it! A family memory that is brought up EVERY time I mention going to a safari park :D
 
I think mine was Whipsnade but wherever it was I caused a bit of a fuss (enough to attract the attention of a keeper) because I wanted to see a tiger walk, I'd been looking forward to it for ages and he was asleep with his back to us. According to the keeper he was unhappy because he'd just become a father and was separated from the female. I feel as though we were able to peer through a small window at the mother & cubs.

The most traumatic thing I remember was a place in Newquay with a childrens zoo/pets corner where someone's pet dog jumped into an exhibit and killed one of the animals.
 
Apparently the first Zoo I was taken to was Antwerp ( I would`ve been about 6 months old ) but I certainly can`t remember that !!
Next was Bristol and have vague recollection of Twycross ( must`ve been 3 or thereabouts ) . Bristol was definitely the first Zoo I really remember - dragging my long-suffering Mother around in the pouring rain on my 4th Birthday ( and this was back in the days of the bear pits , black rhino where the pygmy hippos are now and I`m fairly sure some cages with the old thick iron bars ...) . Had the great pleasure of taking my Mother back again to Bristol a couple of years ago and needless to say she could hardly recognise the place , she really enjoyed it and thought the place had improved beyond recognition ( her local Zoo is Chester so her standards are high !! )
 
This might surprise most of you but the first zoo I visited was none other than...Kansas City! Up until the last couple of years, I went to the Kansas City Zoo a few times each year.
 
I just asked my parents to find out and bizzarely it was Dubbo Zoo. About 7 hours away. I can't remember it because I was so small but the first zoo I remember visiting is Kyabram Fauna Park and that's only because I remember the train ride.
 
When I was 2 we lived in Seattle for a few months so my dad could take some training. Apparently I cried buckets that I wanted to "see Attle", so they finally took me to the zoo, "named" the lion "Attle", and I was happy. Phoenix Zoo didn't open 'til I was 7, so the 2nd zoo might have been the Tropic Garden Zoo - a small (now closed) zoo in Phoenix, where at a birthday party, I remember a monkey taking a bandaid off the head of a boy.
 
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