The Biggest Zoo Animals

Tiger

Tiger

Well-Known Member
After reading about grey whale JJ who was at SeaWorld San Diego from 1997 to 1998, I wondered what the biggest zoo/aquarium animal ever was. In the 19th century, this was undoubtedly Jumbo the Savannah Elephant, but since the arrival of aquatic animals such as whale sharks, orcas and grey whales in zoos and aquariums, this position has surely been taken over by another specimen.
The largest gray whale ever kept in captivity and the largest zoo animal I have a length of so far was JJ with a length of 9 meters (29,53 feet) at release, but I can imagine that there were/are larger whale sharks or perhaps orcas kept in various aquariums around the world, if anyone has an idea or estimate of the lengths of various large zoo animals larger than the 9 meters (29,53) of JJ the gray whale please post it.
 
Canihelpyou? said:
Kinda blew my mind a grey whale was kept in captivity to be honest. Even if it isn't the largest animal kept in zoos, i think it's for sure the most unique and rare!
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Probably so, I was also dumbfounded when I first read about it. SeaWorld San Diego had a total of 3 gray whales: Gigi (February 1965-April 1965), Gigi II (1971-1972) and JJ (1997-1998). These were probably the only baleen whales ever kept in captivity.
 
I can't imagine a baleen whale of any type every being in captivity. No room.
 
World’s Tallest Living Giraffe

He’s not nine metres, but I thought you might be interested to know that Australia Zoo have the world’s tallest living giraffe.

Forrest was born at Auckland Zoo in 2007 and stands at 5.7 metres tall (typical height of a bull giraffe is 4.6 to 5.5 metres).

Australia Zoo are breeding giraffe calves like nobody’s business, so I’ll be interested to see if any of his many sons reach his record.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/...e/news-story/82a693d5f6aa5f52b6f87823358af806
 
elefante said:
I can't imagine a baleen whale of any type every being in captivity. No room.
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Canihelpyou? said:
Kinda blew my mind a grey whale was kept in captivity to be honest. Even if it isn't the largest animal kept in zoos, i think it's for sure the most unique and rare!
Click to expand...
There seems to be a misunderstanding of JJs story so here is a quick explanation. JJ is (very much still alive) a grey whale who as a calf was stranded of the coast of California. SeaWorld rescued her and raised her in one of the Orca pools. She was raised until she was deemed releasable after months of listening to whale calls and learning to feed. JJ was successfully released and is still alive today. Her time being raised in captivity gave the public a once in a lifetime opportunity to see a Grey Whale. Scientifically lots of research was done on JJ and much of what we know about young grey whales comes from her. JJ is an amazing example temporary captivity and what it can do educationally and scientifically.
 
Westcoastperson said:
There seems to be a misunderstanding of JJs story so here is a quick explanation. JJ is (very much still alive) a grey whale who as a calf was stranded of the coast of California. SeaWorld rescued her and raised her in one of the Orca pools. She was raised until she was deemed releasable after months of listening to whale calls and learning to feed. JJ was successfully released and is still alive today. Her time being raised in captivity gave the public a once in a lifetime opportunity to see a Grey Whale. Scientifically lots of research was done on JJ and much of what we know about young grey whales comes from her. JJ is an amazing example temporary captivity and what it can do educationally and scientifically.
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I perhaps should have described in my original post that JJ was a stranded calf, but the 2 other gray whales that lived in captivity named Gigi and Gigi II were captured by Seaworld in Scammon's Lagoon off the coast of Baja California in Mexico and were therefore not stranded.
 
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