Going back several decades to the 1960's and thereabouts, French zoos seemed almost non-existent to me, and completely eclipsed by the big city zoos of Germany- and even Holland. I visited both the Paris Zoos but apart from them I can't remember knowing of any other major collections in France at that time. Nowadays its very different of course and the major French zoos that have grown up(or expanded) in the past decades put France's collections on a similar footing with its neighbours.
Visiting zoos 25 years ago
- Thread starter Simon Hampel
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Going back several decades to the 1960's and thereabouts, French zoos seemed almost non-existent to me, and completely eclipsed by the big city zoos of Germany- and even Holland. I visited both the Paris Zoos but apart from them I can't remember knowing of any other major collections in France at that time. Nowadays its very different of course and the major French zoos that have grown up(or expanded) in the past decades put France's collections on a similar footing with its neighbours.
Haliaeetus
Well-Known Member
I talked mainly about the zoos of Paris, but there were pretty large collections in cities like Lyon and Marseille.
Of course the zoos of Paris were much bigger, probably an effect of the centralisation of the country.
I would add that the 1960's were the beginning of the safari parks like Thoiry (and Saint-Vrain, Fréjus...) : these parks lived their golden age for one or two decades, and - at least at the beginning - displayed enormous collections of large mammals, directly imported from Africa (tens of antelope species, Cape Buffaloes, Black Rhinos, Elephants, Lions, Cheetahs, Hunting Dogs...). It lasted few years later, with the first restrictions to imports, and deliberate choices of the parks in favour of the most popular and/or easier to breed species.
I add also that even small private zoos could get strange and rare species in these times : it could be an effect of the colonial/postcolonial context, some former residents and soldiers that lived in the colonies gave monkeys, gazelles, small carnivores, reptiles or birds to the local zoo when they went back to France.
I know I'm a bit late, but wanted to share my memories.
Being a child of the 80s-90s, I mainly found out about zoos my family didn’t know about through library books and leaflets. I was brought up in north London so frequently visited London Zoo, both with family and as a school trip a few times (I have a very clear memory of Moonlight World in the mid 90’s with my primary school teacher Mrs Ball, looking at the Bruijn’s echidna, and a kid asking Mrs Ball, “what’s that?”, and her reading off the sign right in front of the kid, “Bruijn’s echidna”, and everyone being herded along to the next exhibit. I don’t remember if she pronounced “Bruijn” correctly though). We visited Paradise Wildlife Park in nearby Broxbourne a few times as well.
My dad took us on a trip to Windsor Safari Park one year, or at least, tried to. We got there and it had been closed for quite some time, but not having access to the Internet, we had no way to know that.
My dad also used to take me to Angel Market in Islington on a Sunday a few times a year, and there was (still is?) a what we’d call nowadays “vintage” shop selling taxidermied specimens, fur stoles, other antiques, and second-hand books. I remember the strange old woman who used to run the shop, I was even afraid of her (she might have told me off for attempting to pet one of the stuffed animals!). I picked up a book there, “Our Magnificent Wildlife” with a bald eagle on the cover, and if I remember correctly, it had a lot of pages about zoo management and curation, and a list of zoos in the back for each country of the world. I first found out about places such as Bronx and San Diego zoos from that book and longed to visit them. It was in 1999 that I’d get the chance to visit one of those, the latter, on a family holiday to California.
Being a child of the 80s-90s, I mainly found out about zoos my family didn’t know about through library books and leaflets. I was brought up in north London so frequently visited London Zoo, both with family and as a school trip a few times (I have a very clear memory of Moonlight World in the mid 90’s with my primary school teacher Mrs Ball, looking at the Bruijn’s echidna, and a kid asking Mrs Ball, “what’s that?”, and her reading off the sign right in front of the kid, “Bruijn’s echidna”, and everyone being herded along to the next exhibit. I don’t remember if she pronounced “Bruijn” correctly though). We visited Paradise Wildlife Park in nearby Broxbourne a few times as well.
My dad took us on a trip to Windsor Safari Park one year, or at least, tried to. We got there and it had been closed for quite some time, but not having access to the Internet, we had no way to know that.
My dad also used to take me to Angel Market in Islington on a Sunday a few times a year, and there was (still is?) a what we’d call nowadays “vintage” shop selling taxidermied specimens, fur stoles, other antiques, and second-hand books. I remember the strange old woman who used to run the shop, I was even afraid of her (she might have told me off for attempting to pet one of the stuffed animals!). I picked up a book there, “Our Magnificent Wildlife” with a bald eagle on the cover, and if I remember correctly, it had a lot of pages about zoo management and curation, and a list of zoos in the back for each country of the world. I first found out about places such as Bronx and San Diego zoos from that book and longed to visit them. It was in 1999 that I’d get the chance to visit one of those, the latter, on a family holiday to California.
Aardwolf
Well-Known Member
One thing that I do miss about the pre-internet days of zoo-going was the element of surprise. I remember visiting a zoo for the first time, rounding a corner and having absolutely no idea what would happen next - what kinds of animals I might see, what the exhibits might look like, etc. Now, before I visit a place, I usually read reviews of it, look at species list to prioritize what I'm going to see, and otherwise prepare myself so I can make the most of the visit - but it does take away some of the magic of a visit.
Granted, 25 years ago I was also a kid, so the biggest change is that now I can go to a new zoo without someone having to take me. It blew my mind when I realized that I could go to the zoo - any zoo, really - whenever I wanted to.
Granted, 25 years ago I was also a kid, so the biggest change is that now I can go to a new zoo without someone having to take me. It blew my mind when I realized that I could go to the zoo - any zoo, really - whenever I wanted to.
At the time there were 3 species of long-beaked echidnas: the Bruijn's echidna (Zaglossus bruijni) with 3-4 toes per fore-foot) and the Barton's echidna (Z bartoni) and Bubu echidna (Z bubuensis( with 5 toes per forefoot. I drew pictures of specimens of the latter two species at the Natural History Museum. I also was dubious about the number of toes on the forefeet of the echidnas at London Zoo, so I spent some time watching an echidna walk around its enclosure and lift one of its forefeet. There were 5 toes on its forefoot, so I considered it to be a Barton's echidna. Some time later, all the long-beaked echidnas were considered to belong to Z bruijni. Later, the genus was altered again with varieties classified as Z bruijni, Z bartoni or as the Attenborough's echidna (Z attenboroughi). The echidnas kept at London Zoo in the 1980s were Barton's echidnas. While ZTL says that they remained at London Zoo until 1994, I am dubious. I visited Taronga Zoo in 1991 and I think the echidnas had been sent there in the 1980s, although the Nocturnal House was closed during my visit, so I didn't see bilbies and some other species I wanted to see.
Indeed it would have now been classified as Zaglossus bartoni. I distinctly remember this happening in such clarity so I doubt I'm mistaken. This would have been in the early 90s so it does corroborate with ZTL. Possibly one remained behind for a while longer?
There are photos in the gallery which were taken at London in the 1990s by @Tim May - so they were indeed still present.
I think Taronga already had the species, which will be the reason for the confusion.
1996 : mine last year as being a professional zoo-keeper. I spend most of the year in Pairi Daiza because I lived in the middle of it ! By this time I had visited around 70 - 80 zoos in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium and the most noteble difference with zoos today is that the collections were so much more diverse.
Loads of species seen at zoos during this period are now very rare or completley disappeared - esp. the bird-collections are now-a-days so much smaller ! In these days it was still possible to order large shipments of all kinds of birds from a large number of dealers.
luckily this is not possible anymore and if we look at breeding-results, these are now-a-days so much better !
Evenso I loved zoos in the old days but still love zoos now-a-days in their own way !
Loads of species seen at zoos during this period are now very rare or completley disappeared - esp. the bird-collections are now-a-days so much smaller ! In these days it was still possible to order large shipments of all kinds of birds from a large number of dealers.
luckily this is not possible anymore and if we look at breeding-results, these are now-a-days so much better !
Evenso I loved zoos in the old days but still love zoos now-a-days in their own way !
Thanks @TeaLovingDave for confirming.
Great point. I was explaining to a colleague why my recent trip to London Zoo, while perfectly good, was nothing like it was in my youth, but it's not completely for the worse. As you say, breeding is better, indeed husbandry and hence living conditions are vastly improved. Also, more globally endangered species tend to be held these days, proportionally, at least anecdotally, from my own experience.
The long-beaked echidnas were definitely still at London Zoo in early 1994; I saw them there.
The Animal Inventory in the ZSL Annual Report for 1994/5 lists three individuals there as at 1st January 1994 and none as at 31st December 1994.
According to Weigl (2005) the echidnas were sent to Taronga 25th May 1994.
In 1996 I've just started my time at university and have already been a (junior) zoo enthusiast for more than a decade.
My hometown zoo has been Wilhelma Stuttgart which I used to visit during my school time every 1-2 weeks.
That time I've been very active in slide photography and just recently started working through my roughly 20.000 slides I've still in various boxes in my cellar.
With my parents and grandparents I've visited many zoos in Germany since I was a small child and managed to visit some zoos in other European countries (London, Basel, Zürich, Paris,...)
In 1991 I've been with my parents in Florida visiting Bush Gardens which was the first time I saw the difference in zoo design between zoos in Germany and the US at that time. While in Germany many zoos still had buidlings and enclosures from the 60s with some being really ugly and small I was impressed on how zoos in US had already thematic arranged huge enlosures.
This impression was even increased in 1994 when I've been for the first time to San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park which by that time were clearly the best zoos in the world for me.
That time they had a pair of sumatran rhinos at the zoo and several northern white rhinos at the wild animal park which was such a great thing for me!
It's great to see how the enclosure quality of many zoos in Europe has improved since than and also how the focus has changed from showing many species to showing selected (endangered) species in good to great enclosures.
My impression is also that compared to 25 or 30 years ago the public reputation of zoos has increased significantly.
My hometown zoo has been Wilhelma Stuttgart which I used to visit during my school time every 1-2 weeks.
That time I've been very active in slide photography and just recently started working through my roughly 20.000 slides I've still in various boxes in my cellar.
With my parents and grandparents I've visited many zoos in Germany since I was a small child and managed to visit some zoos in other European countries (London, Basel, Zürich, Paris,...)
In 1991 I've been with my parents in Florida visiting Bush Gardens which was the first time I saw the difference in zoo design between zoos in Germany and the US at that time. While in Germany many zoos still had buidlings and enclosures from the 60s with some being really ugly and small I was impressed on how zoos in US had already thematic arranged huge enlosures.
This impression was even increased in 1994 when I've been for the first time to San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park which by that time were clearly the best zoos in the world for me.
That time they had a pair of sumatran rhinos at the zoo and several northern white rhinos at the wild animal park which was such a great thing for me!
It's great to see how the enclosure quality of many zoos in Europe has improved since than and also how the focus has changed from showing many species to showing selected (endangered) species in good to great enclosures.
My impression is also that compared to 25 or 30 years ago the public reputation of zoos has increased significantly.
My thoughts on visiting zoos in the pre-internet days as a child.
One of the things I remember most strongly is a book "The Spotters Guide to Zoo Animals". Each animal in the book also had a box you could tick to say you saw it in a zoo. At the back it also had a list of major zoos in several countries. I think I remember about 30 or 40 listed for the UK.
When we went on holiday it was usually to another part of the UK and when my parents told me where we would be going I would look at that list to see what zoos were nearby. When we arrived on holiday, the holiday park or hotel would always have a load of leaflets for local tourist attractions so I would look at those to see what zoos there were and what species those zoos might have. I was allowed one zoo visit per holiday.
One big difference with visiting a new zoo back then was that there were a lot more unknowns. You would know some of their headline species that featured in their leaflets, but that was about it. Today you can look up a species list and map for any zoo in the world, so you know exactly what to expect. Back then I wouldn't know which new species I would get to tick off in my book and that added to the excitement.
One of the things I remember most strongly is a book "The Spotters Guide to Zoo Animals". Each animal in the book also had a box you could tick to say you saw it in a zoo. At the back it also had a list of major zoos in several countries. I think I remember about 30 or 40 listed for the UK.
When we went on holiday it was usually to another part of the UK and when my parents told me where we would be going I would look at that list to see what zoos were nearby. When we arrived on holiday, the holiday park or hotel would always have a load of leaflets for local tourist attractions so I would look at those to see what zoos there were and what species those zoos might have. I was allowed one zoo visit per holiday.
One big difference with visiting a new zoo back then was that there were a lot more unknowns. You would know some of their headline species that featured in their leaflets, but that was about it. Today you can look up a species list and map for any zoo in the world, so you know exactly what to expect. Back then I wouldn't know which new species I would get to tick off in my book and that added to the excitement.
On my first overseas trip (not counting Australia) I passed through Singapore and tried to visit the Van Cleef Aquarium. I couldn't find it and later found out that it had closed about a decade earlier!
Yes, you've triggered another memory! Perhaps in that same book I mentioned earlier, "Our Magnificent Wildlife", I'd seen a mention of a "Verulamium Nature Centre" in St Albans. I must have dragged my dad there and we couldn't find it, realising it had closed at some point in the past. Sounded interesting: had a variety of native British species, some of which I probably still haven't seen.
More recently, I took a trip to Rare Species Conservation Centre in Kent, while it was in its second incarnation, so under 10 years ago, as I was trying to source crocodilian shed teeth for my Masters project (heard they had a Tomistoma). They were closed so never did get the false gharial teeth, but did see the immature golden-necked cassowary they had from the gate.
Unrelated to zoos, but my family planned a trip to Manchester around getting a studio tour of Granada Studios. We rocked up outside the doors to find it closed down!
Vale Sheila the Long-beaked Echidna
Taronga does confirm that they got the London Echidnas in their announcement of the passing their female long-beaked echidna Sheila
Haha I remember a friend of mine coming into work with a face like a slapped backside, having travelled to Windsor Safari Park on her day off with her many children, long after it's well publicised closure, only to find the gates firmly shut!
Obviously this was before Lego World was built on the site!
The wonders of the Internet nowadays!
Obviously this was before Lego World was built on the site!
The wonders of the Internet nowadays!