Heini Hediger

Heini Hediger (born November 30, 1908 in Basel , † August 29, 1992 in Bern ) was a Swiss zoologist and zoo director. Hediger is the founder of modern zoo biology. In the professional world, his advice on wild animals in captivity is still used today for equipping enclosures and dealing with the animals housed there. In addition, Hediger made significant contributions to animal psychology and the concept of a zoo, which, according to Hediger, is not a purely commercial operation, but has to have the character of a cultural institution.

biography

Heini Hediger was born on November 30, 1908 in Basel as the son of the merchant Gottfried Joseph Alfred Hediger and Maria Amalia Trueb. In 1927 he finished his school career with the Matura at the upper secondary school in Basel. In the following five years he studied zoology , botany , ethnology and psychology at the University of Basel . He received his doctorate in 1932 under Adolf Portmann . In 1935 he received his habilitation. In 1942 he married the zoologist Käthi Zurbuchen.

From 1938 to 1973 he worked as zoo director in Bern, Basel and Zurich . From 1942 to 1953 he was an associate professor at the University of Basel. For the next 26 years he worked as adjunct professor for animal psychology at the University of Zurich . Hediger is considered an important behavioral scientist, animal psychologist and founder of scientific zoo biology . He became an honorary member of various societies.

In 1960 he founded the magazine Das Tier together with Karl von Frisch , Bernhard Grzimek , Wolf Herre and Konrad Lorenz , which was one of the most successful animal magazines in Europe for almost forty years.

In 1974 he was awarded the Culture Prize of the City of Zurich. In 1996 the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums donated a prize in honor of Heini Hediger.

Career as a zoo director

Dählhölzli Zoo, Bern

From 1938 to 1943 Hediger managed the Dählhölzli zoo in Bern.

In his book Wildtiere in Gefangenschaft, a plan of zoo biology, Hediger largely relied on his experience as director of this zoo. Through the scientific studies he initiated, he found out, for example, that female rabbits can become pregnant again before they have given birth to their young. However, his activities are not limited to administrative matters, as he often had to replace zookeepers who had to do military service. He himself described his time in Bern as a “hard school”. Difficulties in obtaining animals and feed are the order of the day. Despite the difficult circumstances, the zoo received support from the zoo association.

Basel Zoo

okapi

African elephant

From 1944 to 1953 Hediger was the director of the Basel Zoo .

In 1949 the first okapi in the zoo named Bambe died of a serious worm infection after only two months . With this animal, Hediger was able to gain important experience in keeping okapi, which later made successful keeping in European zoos possible. In addition, very rare spectacled bears found their way into the bear enclosure. Two years later, Hediger took care of the expansion of the zoo and thus a second entrance was finally opened in 1951. The sea lion pool was surrounded by a spectator ramp and the giraffes were given a spacious run. The first male Indian rhinoceros was imported to Basel Zoo in the same year. A year later a female follows. The bull Gadadhar and the female Joymothi form the future progenitors for the famous Basler Indian rhinoceros breed . In 1952, five young elephants from East Africa arrive at the zoo. The group quickly became known as they were taken on regular walks through the city. A year later, the new elephant house opened , which is home to the African newcomers as well as the Indian rhinos and the pygmy hippos . A great success for Basel Zoo is the arrival of an adult pair of gorillas , as Basel is the first European zoo to have one.

Zurich Zoo

Between 1954 and 1973, Heini Hediger started the era of the scientifically managed Zurich Zoo .

At the beginning of his term of office, all members of the zoo staff who are over 50 years old, or at least 45 years with 25 years of service, due to the 25th anniversary of the zoo, received a fourth week of vacation. This was used by a nurse to cheer up the sick children in the children's hospital with a llama . In the same year, the zoo experienced an educational innovation, the so-called Hediger boards (see below). Another important event under the leadership of Heini Hediger was the construction of the first free flight hall, which can be seen as a milestone in modern bird keeping. In 1955, with an exact number of 527,332 visitors, the mark of half a million zoo visitors per year was exceeded for the first time. In 1960 the zoo was recognized as a cultural institution with charitable motives and thus exempt from taxes.

In 1961 Hediger presented an overall plan to enlarge the zoo. The new adjoining areas were intended to create separate areas for the clawed and non- clawed animals , whereby the zoo director hoped to avoid a renewed closure due to the foot and mouth disease . The implementation of the project failed for financial reasons. In 1962 it was decided that the city and canton should pay supporting amounts in favor of the zoo, which was justified by the zoo's scientific claim. Three years later, the new so-called Africa House with residents such as black rhinos , pygmy hippos and various African bird species such as maggot chopper , cattle egret or tokos can be opened. The Africa House exemplarily represented Hediger's philosophy. Different animal species were housed in the same enclosure, which also form a symbiosis in nature . The decisive factor here was not the size, but the possibility of being able to live all important behaviors, such as eating and reproducing , in your own enclosure . With Hediger's changes, the zoo's image could also be improved. From 1967 Heini Hediger and the head zoo veterinarian imparted their newly acquired knowledge about the successful keeping of wild animals in the zoo in evening courses .

At the end of his service, Hediger is honored by the City of Zurich with the award for cultural services . The laudation for him will be given by Konrad Lorenz .

The concept of the modern zoo (after Hediger)

• The zoo is a recreational area for the urban population and thus represents an emergency exit to nature .
• It is a source of information in the field of nature, especially animal science, and is therefore generally used for education.
• He pursues nature conservation and protects endangered species and is therefore important as a refuge and breeding station.
• It is important that the zoo participate in scientific research and, above all, study the behavior of the animals more closely.

Hediger's scientific achievements

The Hediger tablets

The Zurich Zoo is the first European zoo to receive information displays containing information on four areas

• the animal name in the national languages ​​and in its scientific form
• the distribution map
• a photograph (in some animal species a colored drawing) of the animal species
• a short text with special features of the described animal species

The system of the so-called Hediger boards has established itself in numerous zoos and has also proven itself.

The distinction between tameness and domestication

An essential behavioral characteristic of all pets is the lack of the tendency to flee. The best dairy cow would be of no real use if she did not allow humans to approach her and she also did not agree to be milked .

Almost all pets can be called contact animals, because not only the escape distance is missing, but also the individual distance , which makes them happy to be touched.

One speaks of tameness when the lack of tendency to flee is based on an individual loss. Domestication as the cause of the lack of the tendency to flee is due to genetic loss.

From kennel to territory

Thanks to Hediger, massive barriers are no longer used today, as symbolic borders are sufficient for most animal species . The animals that live in the zoo today are delimited by the territorial boundaries accepted by them , which are also marked. There is no complete freedom, neither in the zoo nor in the great outdoors, because even in nature there are boundaries that are invisible to humans, but existent for the species.

Hediger's goal is to show the animals, as far as possible, in natural breeding groups, i.e. in coexistence with their social partners, in an environment that is optimally geared towards the well-being of the animals. This concept is in stark contrast to the customary keeping of individual animals in small cages at that time, as they were common from the time of the menageries in the 19th century.

With the advent of vaccinations , the attitude that Hediger is striving for in social associations is significantly facilitated. In order to avoid boredom and stereotypical behavior of captured wild animals, Hediger propagates the method of behavioral enrichment without already knowing this term .

The streets of the animals

According to Hediger, certain animals, just like humans, move on roads , that is, they always use the same path to get around. It is noticeable that smaller animals often use the road ( alternation ) of larger animals and that these themselves often follow human roads. The meandering is very characteristic of the animal roads, because the geometric straight line is not biologically conditioned. The width of the change depends specifically on the species (bison: 30 cm; mouse: 3 cm).

In the zoo it is noticeable that a very heavily used change leads directly along the enclosure or cage border, which can be explained by a considerable reduction in the area of ​​the territory. But even flying animals, such as birds and bats, move on the same air changes over and over again.

Do certain animals have consciousness?

Honey badger

Heini Hediger is convinced that animals have “a kind of consciousness ” or at least “certain simple pre-forms” of it. It is unthinkable for him not to assume that this point of view is correct.

In the following, awareness is understood as knowing about oneself.

In order to support his results, Hediger gives an example of an African bird, the honey indicator , which likes to eat bee larvae. Usually the bird leads a honey badger to a beehive . The badger destroys the honeycomb and eats the honey. The rest is available to the honey indicator.

But when a human honey collector takes over the badger's job and hits the tree with a machete, the bird comes flying and leads the person to the next beehive.

For Hediger, this behavior can hardly be explained without the notion of an animal consciousness.

In addition, he underscores the correctness of his ideas with an example that assigns humor or at least a kind of “malicious pleasure” or “necklust” to certain animals. It has been observed how a young steppe baboon climbed down again and again from the acacia tree on which it sat and under which a pack of wild dogs rested, jumped around in front of the pack, and finally climbed up the tree again.

This form of “annoyance” can hardly be understood without a simple form of empathizing with others, combined with your own intention.

Another proof of the awareness of certain animals that Hediger shows is the awareness of one's own size, which is the most primitive, but also the most important form of self-awareness.

Horned people in zoos often force their heads through very tight meshes to get food. Humans can hardly understand the elegance with which the animals manage to pull their head with the long appendages back out of the opening.

The conscious use of an animal's shadow also allows conclusions to be drawn about its consciousness. For example, a Chapman mare, who was considered an exemplary mother, positioned her body in extreme sunlight in summer in such a way that her shadow fell on the foal resting on the ground.

See also

• Zoo semiotics

Publications (selection)

• Wildlife in captivity. A plan of the zoo biology. Schwabe, Basel 1942.
• Observations on animal psychology in the zoo and in the circus. Reinhardt, Basel 1961.
• People and animals in the zoo. Tiergarten Biology. Albert Müller, Zurich 1965.
• Hunting zoology - also for non-hunters. Reinhardt, Basel 1951; 2nd edition 1966.
• (Ed.) The streets of the animals. With contributions by J. Dobberstein and others. With 194 illustrations. Vieweg, Braunschweig 1967.
• Zoological gardens. Yesterday Today Tomorrow. Hallwag, Bern 1977, ISBN 3-444-10229-1 .
• (Introduction) The book from the zoo. Technical advice: Robert Keller, Christian R. Schmidt. CJ Bucher Verlag, Lucerne / Frankfurt am Main 1978 (children's and young people's books).
• Understand animals. Findings from an animal psychologist. Kindler, Munich 1984.
• A Lifelong Attempt to Understand Animals. In: Donald A. Dewsbury: Studying animal behavior. Autobiographies of the Founders. Chicago University Press, Chicago and London 1985, ISBN 978-0-226-14410-8 , pp. 145-181.
• A life with animals in the zoo and around the world. Werd, Zurich 1990, ISBN 3-85932-044-0 .

literature

• René E. Honegger: Heini Hediger (1908-1992). In: Copeia. Volume 81, No. 2, 1993, pp. 584-585.
• Terry L. Maple: In memoriam Prof. Dr. Heini Hediger (1908-1992). In: Zoo Biology. Volume 11, No. 6, 1992, pp. 369-372.
• George Rabb: Heini Hediger - A pioneer in the science of animal behavior. In: The Zoological Garden (NF). Volume 63, No. 3, 1993, pp. 163-167.
• Alex Rübel : Heini Hediger 1908–1992. Animal psychologist - zoo biologist - zoo director. Learned Society, Zurich 2009, ISBN 978-3-906262-21-5 .
• Bernhard Ruetz: From the animal show to the nature conservation center: Zurich Zoo and its directors (= Swiss pioneers in science and technology. No. 92). Association for Economic History Studies, Zurich 2011, ISBN 978-3-909059-51-5 .
• Christian R. Schmidt : In memory of Heini Hediger. In: The Zoological Garden (NF). Volume 63, No. 3, 1993, pp. 153-158.

Web links

• Literature by and about Heini Hediger in the catalog of the German National Library
• Barbara König: Hediger, Heini. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Zurich Zoo: 100 years of Heini Hediger