Klaus-Jürgen Jacob

Klaus-Jürgen Jacob (born February 29, 1940 in Cottbus ; † March 23, 2013 there ) was a German biologist and zoo director . He ran the Cottbus zoo for 36 years .

Origin and education

Klaus-Jürgen Jacob grew up as the son of a carpenter who was killed in World War II and a single paralegal. He completed twelve years of schooling in his hometown of Cottbus, which he completed in 1958 with the Abitur in the 4th standard school. Since he was interested in zoos and was passionate about keeping small animals himself, he consequently accepted an internship in rural areas and worked for a year at the LPG Frauendorf (Spree) . His further education led him to the Karl Marx University in Leipzig . At first he was part of a course for biology and chemistry teachers, but soon decided against the pedagogical career and, following his greater inclinations, took up microbiology and botany. In 1964 he graduated as a biologist. In the same year, the Cottbus zoo director Kunz Rauschert hired him as his scientific assistant.

Act as zoo director

In order to close the vacancy that arose after Rauschert's sudden departure in December 1965, Klaus-Jürgen Jacob became director of the Tierpark Cottbus on March 1, 1966 at the age of just 26, initially provisional, then regular, and stayed that way for 36 years long until the end of February 2002. He developed the facility, which was newly created in 1954 between Branitzer Park and the Spree and which enjoyed the active support of the Berlin and Dresden counterparts Heinrich Dathe and Wolfgang Ullrich , into a zoo of national importance. In 1993 Jacob and his zoo were given the honor of hosting the first meeting of the reunited Association of German Zoo Directors .

Klaus-Jürgen Jacob attached importance to maintaining and further accentuating the character of the park. He arranged groups of species that harmonize with one another in large, green areas. For ethical and not least economic reasons, he has never considered merely collecting animals. He drew great attention to the zoo with keeping birds, especially rare water birds, for which he got ideas from the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust in Slimbridge, England, and the Romanian Danube Delta . He succeeded in breeding for the first time with the Chilean flamingo , the West African crowned crane and the whooper swan . In addition, many dozen marabous grew up over the years .

In addition to numerous outdoor facilities, the predator and elephant houses, various bird quarters, farm yard, forest playground, children's zoo and park restaurant were built under Jacobs' direction. He set up a zoo-pedagogical department and used himself to found the zoo-sponsoring association, which took place in 1994. During his tenure, the number of visitors increased significantly.

Jacob wrote a large number of zoological and especially ornithological treatises. He acted as a consultant for animal books and films, was a member of the central examination committee for zoo animal keepers , gave the companies Eros and Busch from the GDR State Circus his expertise and also worked on friendly terms with a number of Eastern European zoos.

Familiar

Klaus-Jürgen Jacob was married to Vera Jacob (* 1932 in Riga ; † 2016 in Cottbus), a pediatrician who headed child neuropsychiatry at the Carl-Thiem-Klinikum Cottbus and who later set up the social pediatric center there. She was a granddaughter of the Latvian artist Alexander Petrovich Apsit .

Publications (selection)

• Klaus-Jürgen Jacob: Cottbus Zoo . Book printing Naumburg / Weißenfels. Weißenfels 1975.
• Wolfgang Puschmann , Michael Schröpel, Norbert Neuschulz, Klaus-Jürgen Jacob: BI-Lexicon zoo animals . VEB Bibliographical Institute. Leipzig 1989.
• Klaus-Jürgen Jacob, Stefan Fischer: Tierpark Cottbus - a companion . Cottbuser General-Anzeiger Verlag. Cottbus 1994.

Literature (selection)

• Jens Kämmerling : Cottbus Zoo . Cottbuser General-Anzeiger Verlag. Cottbus 2004. ISBN 3-937503-09-9 .
• Hartmut Schatte: The fathers of the Cottbus zoo . In: Cottbus home calendar 2010 . Pages 38-46. Cottbus 2010.
• Bernhard Blaszkiewitz : Leaves of memory for loyal friends: Klaus Jacob 1940 - 2013. In: Milu. Messages from the Tierpark Berlin. Volume 14, No. 1, 2013, ISSN  0076-8839 , pp. 150-152.
• Helmut Schmidt: Farewell - Klaus-Jürgen Jacob. In: marabu . Association of the supporters and friends of the Tierpark Cottbus eV, issue 1/2014.