Your Zoo's Significant Firsts

Blackduiker

KEEPER said:
Bioparc in Valencia the first in Spain to display fossas, aardvarks and 7 lemur species in a walk thought exhibit. (it´s a poor balance I known :D)
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I'm guessing the Fossas and Lemurs are totally separate in this "walk through exhibit" right? :confused:
 
Of course, :) Fossas have their own island, separated from the island of lemurs.
 
Ara said:
Hasn't happened yet, but Taronga zoo here in Sydney is well on the way to becoming the first to breed sea leopards. (Keep your fingers crossed!)
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Do you know if this will be from mating and conception in captivity-or is it a wild caught animal that was pregnant already?
 
Pertinax said:
Do you know if this will be from mating and conception in captivity-or is it a wild caught animal that was pregnant already?
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seeing as both animals are in captivity for a little while AND that it's male and female, I'm guessing it happened in the zoo.
quite funny, because I seem to remember Taronga explicitely saying they keep the animals strictly because they couldn't return them to the wild. they never wanted them to reproduce...

Either way, while we're at it:
Parc Paradisio:
-first and thusfar only shoebill storks born in captivity. both artificial (2 chicks) and maternal incubation (1 chick, allthough it died after a few weeks)
-biggest chinese garden of europe

Olmense zoo:
-first white lions and white tigers born in Belgium (not to difficult as they are the only belgian zoo that have them)

Antwerp:
-thank antwerp for almost all okapi in captivity
- one of 2 zoos to house eastern lowland gorillas
-first takin born in Belgium (but same story als olmens white tigers and lions)
 
okapikpr said:
I believe that title would go to Frankfurt...since their bloodline is the most represented in the world.
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and which zoo started the initial imports of okapi?
not to mention they were the first to "crack the code" on how to keep them. they even had a special shipping station in the Congo, now the epulu research center.

As I said:
-thank antwerp for almost all okapi in captivity
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and which zoo started the initial imports of okapi?
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Antwerp imported one in 1919...only really because the Congo was a territory of Belgium and the country had banned the capture and hunting of the okapi without special permit. But the Bronx started their first attempt to import a live okapi in 1909.

not to mention they were the first to "crack the code" on how to keep them.
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That first can be given to a Belgian Catholic missionary, Brother Joseph Hutsebaut in Buta, Belgian Congo. This man was the reason why some zoos were able to exhibit the first okapi.

they even had a special shipping station in the Congo, now the epulu research center.
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Antwerp didnt start the Epulu Station, the Belgian Congo government and and Joseph de Medina created the Station. He also should be credited with the first successful surviving calf in 1953, a whole year before Antwerp had their first (unsuccessful) birth.

I still wouldnt credit Antwerp for almost all the okapi in the world. Many other zoos were successfully breeding and shipping okapi to institutions many years before Antwerp could do the same.

Really it should be the Okapi Station in Epulu (a zoological facility that receives guests, has a keeper staff, and breeds okapi) that is credited for almost all the okapi in the world. Most of the founders of the captive population spent some bit of time at the facility and it was there that most of the export originated from.

Antwerp had the first captive okapi...but I wouldnt credit Antwerp for the existance of the captive Okapi population.
 
okapikpr said:
Antwerp didnt start the Epulu Station, the Belgian Congo government and and Joseph de Medina created the Station. He also should be credited with the first successful surviving calf in 1953, a whole year before Antwerp had their first (unsuccessful) birth.

I still wouldnt credit Antwerp for almost all the okapi in the world. Many other zoos were successfully breeding and shipping okapi to institutions many years before Antwerp could do the same.

Really it should be the Okapi Station in Epulu (a zoological facility that receives guests, has a keeper staff, and breeds okapi) that is credited for almost all the okapi in the world. Most of the founders of the captive population spent some bit of time at the facility and it was there that most of the export originated from.

Antwerp had the first captive okapi...but I wouldnt credit Antwerp for the existance of the captive Okapi population.
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according to my source (which is the historical book on the antwerp zoo)
the zoo started the transit station to ship okapi to zoos worldwide. a few years later this station was moved to Epulu.

not that I don't believe you, but I'm pretty curious to know your source.
 
"Okapi Experiences" by William Bridges (not sure what book/periodical this came out of)
"A Visit to Brother Joseph" by William Bridges. Animal Kingdom 1947.
"Muyoni, Our New Female Okapi" by Ralph Graham. Animal Kingdom Nov 1956.
"Okapi and Epulu - A Long-term Conservation Project" by Rick Barongi. AAZPA 1985 Annual Conference Proceedings.
The Okapi by Lindsey & Bennett c. 1999

None of these indicated that Antwerp Zoo built or directed any of the okapi captures or station management (of course these are all american sources)...it all appeared to have be done under the supervision of the local government. From what I could read...it wasnt until the 1980s when Miami Metrozoo went into the Congo to rebuild the station and capture okapi that a zoo first had direct involvement with the capture and station management.
 
"de tuin van het leven" (the garden of life)
achter de schermen van de antwerpse zoo en dierenpark planckendael (behind the scenes of the antwerp zoo and animal park planckendael)

was published in 2003 and written by the zoos director Rudy Van Eysendeyk and Roland Van Bocxstaele.

of course the phrase: "if it's in a book, it must be true" is completely outdated (quite obvious since both our sources tell a different story).
but given the belgium-congo history, I tend to believe that the antwerp zoo was at least involved in setting up the initial transitstation.
 
Blackduiker

According to the latest issue of Zoo View, L.A. Zoo's quarterly magazine, the Los Angeles Zoo was the first in the world outside of Australia to ever witness the birth of a "puggle" or baby Echidna. That Echidna, now one of four still exhibited here is a female named Koo.
 
Not really a zoo but Cotswold Falconry center bred the first Yellow Headed caracara in the UK

In 2003 the Hawk conservancy Trust became the first organization to breed and release Red Kites into the wild.
The Hawk Conservancy also has the only public Great Bustard aviary in England
 
Marwell Zoological park was the first zoo to open in the Uk to be devoted entirley to rare species.
 
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Cat-Man said:
Marwell Zoological park was the first zoo in the Uk to be devoted entirley to animal conservation.
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Have you got a link or any evidence. No zoo is devoted entirely to animal conservation. To be devoted entirely to conservation is quite an opinion, for example you could say London zoo, being the forst scientific zoo, was the first to be devoted enitrely to conservation as the research and scientific study would lead to developments in animals care and a better understanding of animal species.
 
MARK said:
How so?, Have you heard of Jersey zoo ;)
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Much as I think Cat-Man is barking up the wrong tree on this occasion, if we're playing the pedant game then Jersey is not strictly a part of the UK, but a Crown Dependency of it. :p


Cat-Man, I think you're going to have a tough time arguing that one!
 
That is untrue Catman. Whilst John Knolwes was one of the zoo founders who set up a zoo with the preservation of species in mind from the start in the UK, there was also Durrell, Aspinall, and doubtless others throughout the world who did this beforehand.

Some more accurate firsts would be the first breeding of Addax and Takin in the UK.
 
Marwell the story so far states it, and Durrell was originally devoted to un-ussual and non-crowd pleasers and Aspinall zoos were opened after marwell
 
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