Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden

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The Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden is a zoological and botanical garden in Cincinnati in the US state of Ohio . Founded in 1875, it is the second oldest zoo in the United States. It is located in what is now the Avondale district and covers an area of ​​around 30  hectares .

The zoo was built on the former Burnet Woods and Blakeley Woods lands . The future zoo founder and director, Andrew Erkenbrecher , was director of the Society for the Acclimatization of Birds and the Acclimatization Society of Cincinnati and had bought the land from their respective previous owners William and George Wilshire and Augustus Winslow . Erkenbrecher initially used the facilities as winter quarters for imported songbirds from Europe in order to combat a local caterpillar plague. The mass release of the birds was already criticized by conservationists back then. The Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden was finally opened on 18 September 1875 after 1873, the Zoological Society of Cincinnati ( dt. Zoological Society of Cincinnati ) was founded. The Philadelphia Zoo , the oldest zoo in the United States, had just opened fourteen months earlier . One of the first (and thus also the oldest) zoo buildings is today's reptile house (formerly the monkey house ). To support the numerous breeding and conservation programs (the zoo had initial successes with trumpeter swans and sea ​​lions ), the zoo company founded the Lindner Center for Conservation and Research of Endangered Wildlife (CREW) in 1986.

The Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden has over 500 different species of animals. In addition to the "classic" animals (such as lions and giraffes ), numerous rarities such as the potto ( Perodicticus potto ) from West Africa and the fish cat ( Prionailurus viverrinus ) from Southeast Asia will be presented.

On May 28, 2016, the male western lowland gorilla Harambe was shot dead by zookeepers. A three year old had fallen into the gorilla enclosure and Harambe had dragged the boy around with him. Harambe's shooting was and is controversial.

On January 24, 2017, the female hippo Fiona was born. It became known through internet memes and visitor videos that were (and are) uploaded primarily to Youtube and Facebook .

literature

  • Joy W. Kraft: The Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden . Arcadia Publishing, San Francisco / Chicago 2010, ISBN 978-0-7385-7782-1 .
  • David A. Oehler: Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden (= Great Zoos of the United States series). PowerKids Press, New York 2003, ISBN 0823963209 .

Web links

Commons : Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden  - Collection of Images, Videos, and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Joy W. Kraft: The Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden . P. 9.
  2. ^ David A. Oehler: Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden . Pp. 5-7.
  3. ↑ a b Article on the history of the zoo on cincinnatizoo.org (multilingual); last accessed on July 9, 2018.
  4. ↑ Andrew Bleiman, Chris Eastland: ZooBorns . Simon and Schuster, New York 2010, ISBN 1451609760 , pages 30 & 40.
  5. ↑ Andrew Bleiman, Chris Eastland: ZooBorns Cats !: The Newest, Cutest Kittens and Cubs from the World's Zoos . Simon and Schuster, New York 2011, ISBN 1451651899 , p. 21.
  6. ↑ Natalie Angier: Do Gorillas Even Belong in Zoos? Harambe's Death Spurs Debate. Internet article dated June 6, 2016 on nytimes.com (English); last accessed on July 13, 2018.
  7. ↑ Internet article on Fiona on bbc.com (English); last accessed on July 13, 2018.