99 Fun Facts About Zoos and Zookeeping

In which city is Tiergarten Schönbrunn, the world's oldest zoo, open since 1752?

Vienna is home to Tiergarten Schönbrunn, founded in 1752 as a Habsburg imperial menagerie on the palace grounds and operating without interruption ever since.

What is a zookeeper's main job?

Feeding and daily care of the animals is the keeper's core job; animal collections needing keepers go back to about 3000 BC.

What does the accrediting body AZA stand for?

The Association of Zoos and Aquariums began as the American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums, the AAZPA, and accredits institutions on animal care, conservation and education.

The vaquita, target of a failed 2017 captive-rescue attempt, is what kind of marine mammal?

The vaquita is a porpoise, endemic to the northern Gulf of California, whose collapse is driven by illegal gillnets set for totoaba, a fish whose swim bladder fetches high prices.

What is the cooperative programme, launched in 1981, under which AZA zoos manage selected threatened species for genetic diversity?

The Species Survival Plan, launched in 1981, manages selected species across member zoos for genetic diversity and demographic stability, most of them threatened or endangered in the wild.

Opened on 27 April 1828 for scientific study, which institution is the world's oldest scientific zoo?

London Zoo opened in Regent's Park on 27 April 1828, run by the Zoological Society of London founded two years earlier by Sir Stamford Raffles and Sir Humphry Davy.

'Zoo' is short for what?

Zoological garden is the full term; the abbreviation caught on after Alfred Vance's music-hall song 'Walking in the Zoo', some twenty years after it first appeared in print.

Which was the first true zoo in the United States, chartered in 1859 but not opened until 1874?

Philadelphia Zoo was chartered in 1859, delayed by the Civil War, and opened on 1 July 1874, drawing more than 3,000 visitors through its Victorian gates that first day.

Which equine, once extinct outside captivity, has been returned to Mongolia's Hustai National Park since the 1990s?

Przewalski's horse survives only through zoo breeding: every living animal descends from about a dozen foals caught in Mongolia around 1900 plus one mare captured in 1947.

What term do zookeepers use for stimulating an animal's brain through its physical and social surroundings?

Environmental enrichment shows up in the brain itself: animals in richer surroundings form synapses faster and grow more complex dendrite branching, while a lack of stimulation can impair cognitive development.

The oldest known zoo collection, from about 3500 BCE, was excavated in 2009 at which Egyptian site?

Hierakonpolis, in Upper Egypt, yielded the oldest known zoo collection: elephants, hippos, baboons and wildcats buried in its elite HK6 cemetery around 3500 BCE, announced in 2009.

By Roman accounts, how many animals died in one day at Titus's dedication of the Colosseum?

Five thousand: Suetonius records that 5,000 wild animals of every kind were killed in a single day of Titus's AD 80 inaugural games, which ran for 100 days.

Which German animal dealer's Tierpark, opened at Stellingen in 1907, is considered the first modern zoo?

Carl Hagenbeck opened Tierpark Hagenbeck at Stellingen in May 1907, replacing bars with moats and panoramic enclosures, a design copied by zoos worldwide.

In 1993 the body running New York's zoos changed its name to what?

The New York Zoological Society became the Wildlife Conservation Society in 1993 and rebranded the Bronx Zoo and its sister zoos as 'wildlife conservation parks'.

The Regent's Park zoo opened the world's first reptile house in which year?

1849: London Zoo's reptile house was the world's first, and the zoo followed with the first public aquarium in 1853, an insect house in 1881 and a children's zoo in 1938.

Whipsnade, the world's first open zoological park, opened in which year?

Whipsnade opened on 23 May 1931 on Hall Farm in Bedfordshire, which the Zoological Society of London had bought in 1926 to give animals open paddocks.

The San Diego Zoo grew out of animal exhibits abandoned after which event?

The 1915 Panama–California Exposition left caged animals behind in Balboa Park; Harry Wegeforth founded the Zoological Society of San Diego in October 1916 to house them.

Which bookkeeper became San Diego Zoo's director from 1925 to 1953, one of the first women to run a major zoo?

Belle Benchley was hired as bookkeeper in 1925 and ran San Diego Zoo until 1953; animal collector Frank Buck had lasted only three months as director in 1923.

How many animals did the Bronx Zoo have when it opened on November 8, 1899?

843 animals were on show across 22 exhibits when the Bronx Zoo opened on 8 November 1899 under first director William Temple Hornaday.

The Rockefeller Fountain at the Bronx Zoo was originally a landmark in which Italian city?

Como: the fountain stood in the lakeside city's Piazza Cavour until William Rockefeller bought it in 1902 for 3,500 lire, about $637, and shipped it to the Bronx Zoo.

Knut, the polar bear cub who caused 'Knutmania' in 2007, was born at which zoo?

Berlin Zoological Garden: Knut was born there on 5 December 2006, rejected by his mother Tosca and hand-reared, the first polar bear cub to survive at the zoo in over 30 years.

Knut was estimated to have boosted his zoo's revenue by how much in 2007?

About €5 million: 'Knutmania' lifted Berlin Zoo's 2007 revenue by roughly that much as attendance jumped by a third; Knut died at four in 2011 of anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis.

Harambe, the gorilla shot at Cincinnati Zoo in 2016, was born at which Texas zoo?

Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville, Texas, where Harambe was born on 27 May 1999; he was named after a Rita Marley song, harambee being Swahili for communal labour.

How old was the boy who climbed into Harambe's enclosure on May 28, 2016?

Three: the three-year-old climbed a barrier and fell about 15 feet into the moat of Gorilla World; the zoo's Dangerous Animal Response Team shot Harambe within ten minutes.

The 2015 national survey estimated how many wild giant pandas over 1.5 years old?

1,864 wild pandas were counted in China's fourth national survey, released in 2015, up from 1,596 a decade earlier; the IUCN downgraded the species from Endangered to Vulnerable in 2016.

At which zoo was Hua Mei, the first American-born panda to reach adulthood, born in 1999?

San Diego Zoo: Hua Mei was born there on 21 August 1999 to Bai Yun after artificial insemination, and was sent to China's Wolong breeding centre in 2004.

Jumbo the elephant was sold in 1882 to which American showman despite public protest?

P. T. Barnum paid London Zoo £2,000 for Jumbo in 1882 over public protest; the elephant's name gave English the word 'jumbo' and he became Tufts University's mascot.

Jumbo was born in Sudan and first exhibited at which Paris zoo before moving to London in 1865?

The Jardin des Plantes menagerie in Paris held Jumbo before London Zoo swapped a rhinoceros for him in 1865; a train killed him at St. Thomas, Ontario, in 1885.

The Central Park Zoo's precursor menagerie, the first public zoo in New York, was founded in which year?

1864: the menagerie grew from donated animals kept at the Arsenal and was formalised that year; the present Central Park Zoo opened in 1934 and was rebuilt with naturalistic habitats in 1988.

How much did the 1980s renovation replacing Central Park Zoo's cages with natural habitats cost?

$35 million: the rebuilt Central Park Zoo reopened on 8 August 1988 under the New York Zoological Society, replacing cages with a rainforest, temperate and polar zone.

Besides animals, the founder of Tierpark Hagenbeck pioneered which now-notorious form of exhibition?

Human zoos, or Völkerschauen: from 1874 Hagenbeck toured Sámi, Nubian and other peoples alongside his animals across Europe, a format widely copied and now condemned.

What did Carl Hagenbeck's father give him as a teenager, launching his animal-trade career?

Some seals and a polar bear: his fishmonger father handed the animals to the teenage Carl Hagenbeck in 1859, and he built them into a trade spanning nearly every continent.

The Bronx Zoo is the largest metropolitan zoo in the US, covering how many acres?

265 acres: the Bronx River runs through the grounds, and the 1899 Astor Court buildings ring a sea lion pool at the zoo's historic core.

The American Bison Society aimed to save a species reduced from tens of millions to roughly how many?

A few hundred: barely 325 wild bison remained in the United States by 1884, and the American Bison Society, founded at the Bronx Zoo in 1905, bred herds there to restock the plains.

The Regent's Park zoo received its royal charter in 1829 from which monarch?

George IV granted the Zoological Society of London its royal charter in 1829, a year after the gardens opened; early exhibits included quaggas and thylacines, both now extinct.

How much land in Balboa Park does the San Diego Zoo lease from the city?

100 acres: the zoo leases its Balboa Park site from the city, which under a 1921 arrangement owns all the animals while the zoological society manages them.

According to a 2016 census, roughly how many animals did the Central Park Zoo hold?

About 1,500 animals, representing 163 species, lived on the Central Park Zoo's 6.5-acre plot in the 2016 count.

The word 'zoo' first appeared in print around 1847 as a nickname for which zoo?

Clifton Zoo in Bristol: the clipped form 'zoo' first appeared in print around 1847 for it, and caught on twenty years later through the music-hall song 'Walking in the Zoo'.

Which zoo bred Tohui, the first giant panda born outside China to survive, in 1981?

Chapultepec Zoo in Mexico City: Tohui was born there on 21 July 1981 to Ying Ying and Pe Pe, a pair China gave Mexico in 1975, and lived until 1993.

By 2007, how many giant pandas were held in captivity outside China?

Another 239 lived in Chinese breeding centres and zoos.

Sydney's Taronga Zoo takes its name from an Aboriginal word meaning what?

'Beautiful view': Taronga is an Aboriginal word chosen for the site's outlook over Sydney Harbour from Mosman, where the zoo opened in October 1916.

Covering 287 hectares (710 acres), which is the largest zoo in Canada?

It opened in 1974 as the Metropolitan Toronto Zoo and dropped the 'Metropolitan' after the city amalgamated in 1998.

The world's first nocturnal zoo, the Night Safari, opened in 1994 in which country?

Singapore: the Night Safari opened beside Singapore Zoo in 1994 as an open-air park that runs only after dark under lighting that mimics moonlight, rather than reversing animals' cycles indoors.

Who bought Oakfield Manor for £3,500 in 1930 and opened Chester Zoo in its grounds?

George Mottershead, wounded in the First World War and told he would never walk again, bought Oakfield in 1930 and opened Chester Zoo there in June 1931, a bar-free zoo from the start.

Zoo Atlanta began in 1889 when businessman George V. Gress donated what to the city?

Animals from a bankrupt circus: Gress bought them at auction in 1889 and gave them to Atlanta, which housed the bear, hyena, jaguar, camels, monkeys and lionesses in Grant Park, the zoo's home ever since.

Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo pioneered 'landscape immersion' in the late 1970s with a home for what?

Gorillas: the 1978 gorilla habitat, built under director David Hancocks from Jones & Jones's 1976 plan, put visitors and animals in the same replicated forest, an approach zoos worldwide copied.

The Dutch zoo Artis is named from the Latin motto Natura Artis Magistra, meaning what?

'Nature is the teacher of art': the 1838 society split the motto across three gate inscriptions, and visitors took the middle word, Artis, as the zoo's name.

Dublin Zoo, opened 1831, won over poorer visitors by cutting Sunday admission to what?

One penny: from 1840 Dublin Zoo cut Sunday admission to a penny so poorer Dubliners could visit; its first stock, 46 mammals and 72 birds, came from London Zoo.

Slats, a lion born at Dublin Zoo in 1919, became the first 'Leo' for which studio?

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer used Slats as its first Leo from 1924; Dublin's big cats had survived the 1916 Easter Rising only because other zoo animals were killed to feed them.

In 1943 Tokyo's Ueno Zoo was ordered to kill its dangerous animals on what stated grounds?

Bombs might free them: Tokyo's governor claimed air raids could loose dangerous animals into the streets; staff pleas to evacuate them were refused, and a memorial service was held that September.

The author of My Family and Other Animals, who founded Jersey Zoo, was born where?

India: Gerald Durrell was born in Jamshedpur in 1925, where his father was an engineer; the family left for England in 1928, and the Corfu years behind his books began in 1935.

Which zoo euthanised healthy giraffe Marius in 2014 and fed him to its lions in public?

Copenhagen Zoo shot the 18-month-old Marius in February 2014 because his genes were over-represented in Europe's captive herd; the public dissection drew death threats and worldwide headlines.

'Jungle Jack' Hanna, a fixture on Letterman, was director of which zoo from 1978 to 1992?

Columbus Zoo: Hanna turned the run-down Ohio zoo into a national draw during his 1978–1992 tenure, building its profile with animal segments on Letterman and Good Morning America.

Colo, the first gorilla ever born in captivity (1956), was born in which US state?

Ohio: Colo was born at the Columbus Zoo on 22 December 1956, rejected by her mother and raised by hand in clothes and bottles; she died in 2017 as the oldest known gorilla.

Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo began in 1868 with a gift from New York's Central Park of what?

Two pairs of swans, sent by Central Park's commissioners in 1868, started the collection; the zoo's first purchase, in 1874, was a $10 bear cub that kept escaping to roam the park at night.

Which institution built the Saint Louis Zoo's 1904 Flight Cage for that year's World's Fair?

The Smithsonian Institution built the walk-through aviary for the 1904 World's Fair; St. Louis bought it for $3,500 rather than let it be dismantled and shipped to Washington, and the zoo grew around it.

At 6,714 feet, the highest US zoo is Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in which city?

Colorado Springs: the zoo grew from a bear given to Broadmoor hotelier Spencer Penrose in 1916 and opened on the mountainside in 1926 after his hotel menagerie wore out its welcome.

Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo houses its indoor desert in the world's largest glazed what?

A geodesic dome: the 2002 Desert Dome is the world's largest glazed one, with the Kingdoms of the Night nocturnal exhibit beneath it and the Lied Jungle indoor rainforest nearby.

Brookfield Zoo near Chicago won fame on opening in 1934 for using what instead of cages?

Moats and ditches: Brookfield opened in 1934 with bar-less, Hagenbeck-style enclosures, and in 1937 became the first US zoo to show a giant panda, Su Lin, now a Field Museum specimen.

Which Brookfield Zoo gorilla cradled a boy who fell 24 feet into her enclosure in 1996?

Binti Jua carried the unconscious three-year-old to a keeper door in August 1996 with her own 17-month-old daughter Koola clinging to her back the whole time.

'Crocodile Hunter' Steve Irwin died in 2006 from an injury caused by which animal, while filming on the Great Barrier Reef?

A stingray killed Steve Irwin while he was filming an underwater documentary on the Great Barrier Reef; a land snail, Crikey steveirwini, and asteroid 57567 Crikey were later named for him.

Bob and Lyn Irwin opened the future Australia Zoo in 1970 in which Queensland town?

Beerwah: the Irwins opened the two-acre Beerwah Reptile and Fauna Park there in 1970; son Steve took over in 1991, renamed it Australia Zoo and funded its expansion with TV money.

Which Swiss city's zoo, the country's oldest (1874), is nicknamed 'Zolli' by locals?

Basel: Zoo Basel opened in 1874, recorded the first greater one-horned rhinoceros birth in any zoo in 1956, and founded the herd from which every Somali wild ass in zoos descends.

The Paris menagerie founded in 1794 was stocked largely from which royal residence's zoo?

Versailles: the Revolution left the royal menagerie there neglected, and its surviving animals, with beasts seized from street showmen, stocked the Jardin des Plantes menagerie in 1794, the world's second-oldest zoo.

A 'frozen zoo' stores sperm, eggs and tissue from endangered species in tanks of what?

Liquid nitrogen at about −196 °C: the original Frozen Zoo, started at San Diego by pathologist Kurt Benirschke in the 1970s, banked samples before any technology existed to use them.

Martha, who died at Cincinnati Zoo on 1 September 1914, was the last known of which bird?

Passenger pigeon: Martha, named after Martha Washington, died in her Cincinnati cage at about 29, ending a species that had once darkened American skies in flocks of billions.

Cincinnati Zoo's preemie hippo Fiona (2017) was named because her ears recalled what film?

Shrek: keepers thought her ears looked like Princess Fiona's; born six weeks early at 29 pounds in January 2017, she was the first hippo imaged by prenatal ultrasound and was nursed with help from Cincinnati Children's Hospital.

In return for pandas Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing in 1972, the US sent China a pair of what?

Musk oxen: Milton and Matilda went to Beijing Zoo after Zhou Enlai told Pat Nixon 'I'll give you some' pandas; Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing drew millions to Washington.

Washington's 2005 panda cub Tai Shan was popularly nicknamed what before he was named?

Butterstick: a zoo worker said the newborn was about the size of a stick of butter, and fans kept the nickname even though it never appeared on the naming ballot.

Smokey Bear, living symbol of the US fire-prevention icon, spent most of his life where?

Smithsonian's National Zoo housed Smokey from 1950 until his death in 1976; he was 'married' to Goldie Bear in 1962 and the pair later 'adopted' a cub named Little Smokey.

What is the 145-foot artificial baobab tree that serves as the icon of Disney's Animal Kingdom in Florida called?

The Tree of Life stands 145 feet tall and 50 feet wide at Disney's Animal Kingdom, which skips nighttime fireworks to avoid disturbing its animals and was the world's most-visited zoo as of 2019.

Adwaita, who died in a Kolkata zoo in 2006 at a claimed 255, was what kind of tortoise?

Aldabra giant: Adwaita, a 250 kg Aldabra tortoise, died at Kolkata's Alipore Zoo in March 2006; legend says he was one of four given to Robert Clive after Plassey in 1757.

Harriet, a tortoise who died at Australia Zoo in 2006 aged ~175, was reputedly whose find?

Charles Darwin, supposedly, from the 1835 Beagle visit; but DNA traced Harriet to Santa Cruz, an island Darwin never landed on, and she was taken for a male named Harry for decades.

Which Mbuti man was exhibited in the Bronx Zoo's Monkey House with an orangutan in 1906?

Ota Benga was displayed with the orangutan Dohong in September 1906; handed a bow as a prop he shot at jeering visitors, and Black clergy led by James Gordon forced his release within weeks.

Zoo Atlanta's gorilla Willie B. spent 27 years alone in a cage with a tire swing and what?

A television: Willie B. watched TV in his indoor cage from 1961 until 1988, when Zoo Atlanta's new rainforest habitat let him outdoors to lead a troop; he was named for Mayor William B. Hartsfield.

Species360 (formerly ISIS) gives member zoos which animal record-keeping system?

ZIMS, the Zoological Information Management System, replaced the older ARKS software and pools records on millions of animals across well over a thousand member institutions.

Dudley Zoo's 12 modernist 1937 enclosures were designed by which architect's Tecton Group?

Berthold Lubetkin's Tecton Group designed Dudley's 1937 concrete enclosures with Ove Arup engineering a site riddled with old limestone mine caverns; Tecton also built London Zoo's 1934 spiral penguin pool.

Which estate opened the first drive-through safari park outside Africa in 1966?

Longleat: circus man Jimmy Chipperfield and the Marquess of Bath opened the Lions of Longleat in the Wiltshire estate's grounds in 1966; Woburn followed in 1970 and Knowsley in 1971.

Knowsley Safari near Liverpool built a bypass so drivers can avoid which animals?

Baboons: Knowsley's troop is notorious for stripping wipers and trim, so the park, opened in July 1971 on the Earl of Derby's estate, offers a bypass around their enclosure.

Which is Australia's oldest zoo, opened in Royal Park on land given by the city in 1862?

Adelaide's followed in 1883 as the second oldest; both are run by non-profit zoological societies.

Giza Zoo, opened in 1891 as the Middle East's first, was built by which Egyptian ruler?

Khedive Ismail laid out the grounds as part of his harem gardens and planted a banyan there around 1871; the state, holding the estate against his debts, opened it as a zoo on 1 March 1891.

Chi Chi, the Regent's Park zoo's 1960s star panda, inspired Peter Scott's logo for what?

World Wildlife Fund: Peter Scott drew its 1961 panda logo from Chi Chi, who had reached London only because the US embargo on Chinese goods barred her from an American zoo; she is now stuffed in the Natural History Museum.

Guy the Gorilla, named for Guy Fawkes Night, reached London Zoo in which year?

1947: Guy arrived on 5 November, Guy Fawkes Night, weighing about 23 pounds and clutching a tin hot-water bottle; a mate, Lomie, was introduced only in 1969 and he died in 1978.

Harry Colebourn bought Winnie, the bear behind Winnie-the-Pooh, at a rail stop for what?

CA$20: Colebourn bought the cub from a trapper at White River, Ontario, in August 1914, named her after Winnipeg, and left her at London Zoo that December when his unit shipped to France.

Gus, Central Park Zoo's obsessively swimming polar bear, was the first zoo animal on what?

Prozac: in 1994 Gus, who swam figure-eights for up to 12 hours a day, was prescribed it after a $25,000 behaviourist pronounced him 'bored and mildly crazy', like many New Yorkers.

Feral hippos in Colombia's Magdalena River region descend from whose private zoo?

Pablo Escobar kept four hippos among elephants, giraffes and a bullring at Hacienda Nápoles; after his 1993 death the state gave most animals away but the hippos stayed and multiplied in the Magdalena.

Which Jersey Zoo silverback guarded five-year-old Levan Merritt after his 1986 fall?

Jambo's gentleness, caught on home video as he stroked the unconscious boy's back, went worldwide and did much to soften the apes' violent public image.

Edinburgh Zoo was the first zoo in the world to house and breed which birds?

Penguins: king penguins arrived from a Salvesen whaling expedition in 1914 and the zoo hatched the first chick bred outside the wild in 1919; the daily penguin parade began by accident in 1950 when several wandered out.

Edinburgh Zoo's Sir Nils Olav, knighted in 2008, is mascot of which nation's King's Guard?

Norway: the King's Guard adopted a king penguin as lance corporal in 1972 while at the Military Tattoo, and Nils Olav has been promoted on later visits, the rank passing to each successor bird.

Kolkata's Alipore zoo, the nation's oldest, was opened by a Prince of Wales in which year?

1876: the future Edward VII opened Alipore Zoo on New Year's Day during his Indian tour, and it admitted the public from May that year.

Tierpark Berlin, East Berlin's 1955 zoo, was laid out in the grounds of which palace?

Friedrichsfelde: East Berlin built the Tierpark around Schloss Friedrichsfelde in Lichtenberg because the old Zoologischer Garten lay in the West; at 160 hectares it became one of Europe's largest zoos.

Loro Parque, home to the world's largest parrot collection, is on which Canary Island?

Tenerife: Wolfgang Kiessling opened Loro Parque at Puerto de la Cruz in 1972 with 150 parrots on 1.3 hectares; it grew to 13.5 hectares and its owners also built the Siam Park water park.

Which is the only tropical zoo in the continental United States?

Zoo Miami traces back to 1948, when a stranded road show swapped some monkeys, a goat and two bears for about $270 in truck repairs, seeding the Crandon Park Zoo on Key Biscayne.

Hellabrunn, the first zoo laid out by geography rather than species, is in which city?

Munich: Hellabrunn reopened in 1928 as the world's first 'Geo-Zoo', grouping animals by continent, so wood bison share an enclosure with prairie dogs; it is one of few zoos that admits visitors' dogs.

Honolulu Zoo is the only US zoo established by grants from what kind of figure?

A sovereign monarch: King Kalākaua set aside royal land in 1877 for Queen Kapiʻolani Park, where his exotic birds and horses became the nucleus of the Honolulu Zoo.

Packy, born at the Oregon Zoo in 1962, was the Americas' first of what in 44 years?

Asian elephant: Packy's birth on 14 April 1962 pushed attendance to 1.2 million that year; he grew to 10.5 feet and sired seven calves in one of the world's most productive zoo elephant programmes.

Which English king received the Tower of London's polar bear from Norway in 1252?

Henry III: Haakon IV of Norway sent the bear in 1252, and London's sheriffs were ordered to pay fourpence a day for its keep, plus a muzzle and chain so it could fish in the Thames.

Which Chinese ruler's 'Garden of Intelligence', around 1000 BC, is among the earliest recorded zoos?

King Wen of Zhou: his Ling-yu, or Garden of Intelligence, covered about 1,500 acres of deer, birds and fish around 1000 BC and is described in the Book of Songs.

Zoo breeding programmes record every animal's parentage in a registry called what?

A studbook: EAZA and the AZA keep one per managed species, from aardvarks to zebras, and coordinators use its parentage records to decide which animals should breed.