Smithsonian Libraries

Celebrate National Zoo and Aquarium Month

June is National Zoo and Aquarium Month. In honor of that let’s revisit one of the Libraries' online exhibitions in the digital library:

—Polly Lasker

 

December 27—Visit the Zoo Day

If you visited the zoo prior to the twentieth century you would most likely have seen the animals behind bars in cages. But in the early 1900s Carl Hagenbeck decided he wanted to display animals in a more "natural" venue. After years of working in his family's wild animal trade business he created his "Tierpark" in Stellingen, Germany.

Animals were exhibited in open settings, no bars or cages, often mixed with other species seen together in the wild. Moats, separating some of the animals groups, were constructed based on measuring leaping distances of animals. Animal training and taming by the keepers at the Tierpark was encouraged to be kind and coaxing, rather than the harsher methods that were typical at the time. There’s much more to the Carl Hagenbeck ‘Tierpark’ story. But there’s no question as to his influence on modern animal exhibitions at zoos. Consider this quote:

“What is now taken for granted by almost every visitor to a zoo—moated exhibits in a landscape simulating nature; gregarious animals of mixed species kept in herds in large enclosures; and animal performances based on conditioning and sensitivity, not on brute force and intimidation—all started at Hagenbeck’s Tierpark”—Herman Reichenbach, New worlds, new animals: from menagerie to zoological park in the nineteenth century, edited by R.J. Hoage and William A. Deiss. Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.

—Polly Lasker

Additional resources consulted:

A crowded ark, by Jon R. Luoma. Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1987.

Zoo: animals, people, places, by Bernard Livingston. New York: Arbor House, [1974].

Zoos without cages, by Judith E. Rinard. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, c1981.

Also in the Smithsonian Institution Libraries collections:

Carl Hagenbeck’s autobiography: Beasts and men: being Carl Hagenbeck's experiences for half a century among wild animals, an abridged translation by Hugh S.R. Elliot and A.G. Thacker; with an introduction by P. Chalmers Mitchell; with photogravure portrait of the author and ninety-nine other illustrations. London; New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1910.

The Libraries' online exhibition: Zoos: a historical perspective, by Alvin Hutchinson.

Related:

Visit the Zoo Day—Dec. 27th!

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Happy Boxing Day

Well, no not that type of boxing, exactly ... but hey, it's a great image. Boxing Day has turned into yet another shopping opportunity these days, although its origins were once more charitable in nature:

... The tradition has long included giving money and other gifts to those who were needy and in service positions ... metal boxes placed outside churches were used to collect special offerings tied to the Feast of Saint Stephen ... it certainly became a custom of the nineteenth-century Victorians for tradesmen to collect their "Christmas boxes" or gifts on the day after Christmas in return for good and reliable service throughout the year ... in exchange for ensuring that wealthy landowners' Christmases ran smoothly, their servants were allowed to take the 26th off to visit their families. The employers gave each servant a box containing gifts and bonuses (and sometimes leftover food) ... around the 1800s, churches opened their alms boxes (boxes where people place monetary donations) and distributed the contents to the poor.—Wikpedia

Hopefully as everyone recovers from yesterday's glut of food and presents some real boxing matches will not develop.

Happy Boxing Day!

—Elizabeth Periale

Image: Belle Vue Zoological Gardens, Guide to the Gardens: Zoo Belle Vue, 1944. Belle Vue Zoo was one of many to hold sporting and social events on its grounds. From the online collection, Zoos: A Historical Perspective.

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• Boxing Day (time.com)

Elephant Appreciation Day

The National Zoological Park’s First Elephants

The first elephants acquired by the National Zoological Park were ‘Dunk’ and ‘Gold Dust’ in April of 1891.

James E. Cooper, owner of the Adam Forepaugh Shows, donated the two to the National Zoological Park. They were actually the first animals to take up residence on the Zoo grounds (the live animals that were to move there from the Mall and the U.S. National Museum didn’t start arriving until shortly after the two elephants).

There was no facility to house them when they arrived, so they had to be chained to trees until a shelter was built. Water had to be tediously hauled in barrels from the Rock Creek. Both elephants had a reputation of a mean disposition—probably why the circus was eager to unload them!

‘Gold Dust’ died in 1898 after falling while taking a walk with ‘Dunk.’ ‘Dunk’ lived until 1917 when he fell while sleeping, leaning against a wall, breaking his shoulder. He had to be put down.

—Polly Lasker

Source:

-Wild animals in and out of the Zoo, by William M. Mann

Further Elephant Reading:

Asian elephant: ecology and management, by R. Sukumar

Elephants and ethics: toward a morality of coexistence, edited by Christen Wemmer and Catherine A. Christen; foreword by John Seidensticker.

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