Zoo guidebooks

robmv

robmv

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
Like most zoo enthusiasts that I have met, I collect zoo guidebooks from any zoo, aquarium, etc. that I visit (and even those that I have not yet visited or which have closed down). None of us get to visit all zoos as often as we would like, and it is all too easy to miss new guidebooks from collections at the other end of the country.

I am sure there must be other like-minded people on this forum, so if anyone is interested in exchanging guidebooks (new or old), please contact me at robmvaughan@dsl.pipex.com
 
lol if you have an from western plains zoo dubbo, very kool, i am very lucky to have the original one produced when the park first opened! mint condition, and much thanks goes to mark for that 1--- bloody legend!
 
I only have a couple of guides from Western Plains - 1986 and 2002 (both with tigers on the front cover). Do you know how many other guides there have been?
 
ive got 4 book like ones, with 3 diff paper ones, of these 7, i have a few diff editions of some versions, so reprints, with small changes.

i also have lots of memorabliia, news apper articles, plus a promotional map, and panmplets
 
Guidebooks

I also enjoy reading guidebooks from other zoos , as it helps me get a feel for the layout of the zoo , and sometimes zoochitecture .
Although the next few months I will be busy with other business , I am happy to help out other zoobeat members with any old zooguides which I pick up at book fairs or second hand bookshops every now and then .

Please contact Paul who is a zoobeat member from Liverpool . He is slowly developing a website of archived zoo guides , maps and paraphanalia . He may be able to help out .

Mr Hornybill , I havent forgotten you . I will post the goodies that I promised to you sometime this week .
 
When I was a kid (yonks ago) I wrote to every zoo I could think of, saying I'd be grateful for anything they could send me. (Cost my mum a fortune in postage.) This was way before the internet existed.

Months passed, I forgot all about it, and suddenly out of the blue I received all this fantastic stuff from overseas! It all arrived surface mail, not airmail (cheaper) but boy it was worth the wait!

I got all these guidebooks from all around the world and a lot of other stuff as well. Bristol zoo sent me a published history of the place, as did Dallas. Smaller zoos which probably didn't have guide books sent me pamphlets. To a young zoo nut like me, it was better than Xmas!

I still treasure alll that stuff today.
 
I'm collecting the guidebooks of Amsterdam Zoo or Koninklijk Zoölogisch Genootschap Natura Artis Magistra as it's full name is. This is the oldest zoo of my country (founded 1838), and my oldest guide is from 1906.

Recently I bought one of the first membership cards of this zoo. Dated 1838!
 
There are good and not-so-good zoo guidebooks, just as there are good and not-so-good zoo websites, and for the same reason; the good guidebooks and websites tell you about THEIR animals and THEIR facility.

The crummy ones just discuss the animals they keep in general terms, as if they were some sort of "Child's ABC of Animals."
 
After my grandfather died I was cleaning out some of his things. I found a very old book. Probably half the height of an A4 page. from Taronga. the prices are in pounds, it has pictures of a young bull elephant giving rides, baby bear cubs being hand raised, tigers, leopards etc. very interesting book, very old, good condition. can't find a date on it though.
 
Ara said:
There are good and not-so-good zoo guidebooks, just as there are good and not-so-good zoo websites, and for the same reason; the good guidebooks and websites tell you about THEIR animals and THEIR facility.

The crummy ones just discuss the animals they keep in general terms, as if they were some sort of "Child's ABC of Animals."
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Slightly off topic, but that's exactly my criticism of most Zoo websites nowadays. They increasingly omit any reference to their own animals at all and have become extremely 'impersonal' by doing this.
 
grantsmb said:
Slightly off topic, but that's exactly my criticism of most Zoo websites nowadays. They increasingly omit any reference to their own animals at all and have become extremely 'impersonal' by doing this.
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I couldnt agree more! I collect guide books from the zoos i visit, and i am sick of getting the same info about the animals everywhere i go. The good guides and the good zoos have info on THEIR animals, and not only the species itself.
 
if any one wants aussie ones, i can easily pick guide books up from zoos i visit, most aveagre about $4 aussie dollars. i have lots of western plains zoo ones, often about 3 copies of each, so if anyone overseas has dubbo zoo anything please get onto me!
 
i've got some early 80's taronga (you know the ones that had the red panda on the front) a melbourne zoo guidebook.

the melbourne one has some oddities i don't much remember. in it are common hippo housed in what looks to be like the old concrete and brick hippo pools that used to house the pygmies next door to the old elephant exhibit (this was demolished in the very early 90's to make way for the japanese garden).

the bengal tigers were housed in an exhibit i certainly don't remember, grassy, it had tall concrete walls on all sides. at a guess i'm thinking this may have been one of the old bear pits that are now apparently buried.

there were juaguar cubs.

teh old baboon cages held a lot more primates. mandrill and ring-tailed lemurs. i certainly remeber mandrill and de brazza in there when i was a kid.

the lemur islands had a family of lar gibbons. i believe these animals are the ones at gorge wildlife park and last i saw, they are still "owned" by melbourne zoo.

the australian section was much bigger.

and naturally, the zoo held a lot more ungulates than they do now, llamas, eland, red deer, barbary sheep etc..
 
;)
patrick said:
i've got some early 80's taronga (you know the ones that had the red panda on the front) a melbourne zoo guidebook.
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Memories..... light the corners of my mind......" - I remember it well ;)

patrick said:
teh old baboon cages held a lot more primates. mandrill and ring-tailed lemurs. i certainly remeber mandrill and de brazza in there when i was a kid.
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Ahhh, the famous "Top six" that became the "Top three"! Yes, there used to be six nice concrete primate "exhibits" up there. Left to right (if memory serves me correctly), Mandrills, Gelada Baboons, Sacred (Hamadryas) Babbons, Ring-tailed Lemurs, Black-Capped Capuchins and Macaques (I must be getting old, can't remeber what species they were - Rhesus, I think?) The six were turned into three about 12 years ago, in an attempt to "beautify" them!

patrick said:
the lemur islands had a family of lar gibbons. i believe these animals are the ones at gorge wildlife park and last i saw, they are still "owned" by melbourne zoo.
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Indeedy. There used to be white-handed and Muller's gibbons on the islands - White-handed on the island down the bottom end near the old big cat cages, and Muller's on the island at the back of the kiosk near the Japanese garden.
 
ZooPro said:
;)
Indeedy. There used to be white-handed and Muller's gibbons on the islands - White-handed on the island down the bottom end near the old big cat cages, and Muller's on the island at the back of the kiosk near the Japanese garden.
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ah ha!!!! thats why there is still an old primate cage on that island!!

they should use it again. there are good views from the bistro (that admittedly i have never, ever eaten at)!

geladas! bet theres a few hera who wish they still had em. yes, i too think i can remember macaques at melbourne. pig-tailed?

was i right about the hippo? and where was that tiger exhibit?

the giraffe exhibit also had a tall mesh fence around it in the photos.
 
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