Monika Meyer-Holzapfel

Monika Meyer-Holzapfel (born April 14, 1907 in Lausanne , † September 10, 1995 in Bern ) was a Swiss zoo director , author and honorary professor of animal psychology , behavioral research and biology .

biography

Monika Holzapfel was born as the daughter of the cultural psychologist and philosopher Rudolf Maria Holzapfel (1874–1930) and the sculptor and writer Bettina Holzapfel-Gomperz (1879–1948). She had a sister, Myrrha (1905–1979). In 1935 she was granted Swiss citizenship through naturalization in Reisiswil .

She studied zoology , botany , geology and mineralogy at the Universities of Bern and Munich . In 1932 she acquired the high school teacher patent , in 1933 received his doctorate them at the University of Bern to the doctor of philosophy . During her time as assistant to Fritz Baltzer at the Zoological Institute of the University of Bern , from 1933 to 1944, she met her future husband Gilbert Victor Meyer, and they married in 1940. From 1943 Meyer-Holzapfel began teaching as a private lecturer at the University of Bern. In 1954 she became an honorary professor. In 1944 she took over the management of Heini Hediger at the Dählhölzli zoo and remained loyal to the zoo until 1969. Her interest was in increasing the biodiversity in the vivarium , she had new facilities built and old ones expanded, with them the zoo expanded to include a pheasantry , and animal species such as lynx , wolf and bison were added. In the years 1954–1973 she worked part-time as an honorary professor for animal psychology , behavioral research and animal biology at the University of Bern and became internationally known through numerous works.

Meyer-Holzapfel was the first woman in Europe to head a zoo in 1944 and the first woman to be accepted as a member of the International Union of Directors of Zoological Gardens (IUDZG), now WAZA , founded in 1946 . In 1988 Meyer-Holzapfel was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Hamburg .

In addition to Meyer-Holzapfel, who was the first woman in Europe to run a zoo in 1944, Katharina Heinroth , succeeding her husband, headed the Berlin Zoo from 1945. The American Belle Benchley had also directed the San Diego Zoo from 1927.

Meyer-Holzapfel's estate was handed over to the Bern Burger Library and will be processed as part of a two-year research project and made available by the end of 2020.

Works

• On stereotypes of movement in kept mammals, Paul Parey , 1938
• The emergence of some stereotypical movements in kept mammals and birds, 1939
• Monika Meyer-Holzapfel, University of Basel. Zoological Institute: Analysis of Locking and Picking in the Development of the Star: A Contribution to the Instinct Problem, Zoological Museum, 1939
• Drive-related states of rest as the goal of acts of appetite, J. Springer, "Naturwissenschaften" 28th year, issue 18, from January 28, 1940
• Disturbances of the psychological balance in animals, 1947
• Relations between the drives of young and adult animals, 1949
• Our Dählhölzli zoo, Verbandsdruckerei AG., 1949
• The importance of property in animals and humans, Institute for Psycho-Hygiene 1952
• The game in mammals (= Monika Meyer-Holzapfel, Werner Fischel, Erna Mohr, Hilde Gauthier-Pilters: Handbuch der Zoologie, Volume 8: Mammalia, Part 2, Edition 10), W. de Gruyter 1955, ISBN 3-1100-5425 -6
• The game in mammals - Domestic dogs - The behavior of the Pinnepedier - The behavior of the Tylopods (= Handbook of Zoology, Vol. 5, 8, 10), W. de Gruyter 1955, ISBN 3-1100-5425-6
• Insecurity and danger in the life of higher animals, 1955
• On the willingness to play and act instinctively, 1956
• The game in mammals, Handbook of Zoology Volume 8, W. de Gruyter 1956
• Methods of behavioral research (= Konrad Lorenz, Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt, Monika Meyer-Holzapfel: Handbuch der Zoologie, Volume 8: Mammalia, Part 8, Edition 10), W. de Gruyter 1957
• Methods of behavior research - Mammalian forms of expression - The behavior of bears (Ursidae), (= Konrad Lorenz, Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt, Monika Meyer-Holzapfel: Handbuch der Zoologie, Volume 8: Mammalia, Part 1, Edition 10), W. de Gruyter, 1957
• Group formation in vertebrates, 1958
• Social Relationships in Mammals, 1958
• About the game of fish, especially the tapir elephant fish (Mormyrus kannume Forsskål), 1960
• Monika Meyer-Holzapfel, Emil Hostettler: Dählhölzli Zoo, Paul Haupt Publishing House, 1962
• Animal Psychology, Behavioral Science, and Psychiatry, 1964
• Mosaic stones: Sonnets, Benteli Verlag Bern 1965
• Animals, my daily companions. Serious and cheerful things from a zoo, Benteli Verlag Bern 1966
• Tierpark kleine Heimat, Benteli Verlag Bern 1968
• Monika Meyer-Holzapfel, Heini Hediger: Hediger Festschrift: Heini Hediger 60 Years, Geest & Portig, 1968
• Breeding Kestrels, 1970
• Hans Herren, Max Bloesch, Monika Meyer-Holzapfel, Schweizer Schulfunk: Endangered animal world - save instead of exterminating !: Reading booklet of the Swiss school radio in the service of nature conservation with four introductory and broadcast texts (partly revised), Schweizer Schulfunk, Bilder und Schriften, 1971
• World of painters - painters of the world, poems about great painters and their works, Benteli Verlag Bern 1974
• Animal stories and poems
• Rudolf Maria Holzapfel. Life and Work, on the 100th birthday, Neue Ideen Verlag, 1974
• Monika Meyer-Holzapfel, Swiss National Circus (Rapperswil, Sankt Gallen): A zoo comes to us !, Gebr. Knie 1974
• On the ontogeny of prey capture in tawny owls (Strix aluco L.): Observations and Experiments, 1976
• Looking outside, looking inside: Poems, M. Meyer-Holzapfel, 1978
• Bettina Holzapfel-Gomperz, Monika Meyer-Holzapfel: Like on a quiet pond. Poems, Österreichische Verlagsanstalt 1979, ISBN 3-8520-2057-3
• Bettina Holzapfel, Monika Meyer-Holzapfel, Cedric Host: Reisnerstrasse 13. My youth in Vienna d. Turn of the century. From the estate, Österreichische Verlagsanstalt & Schroll, 1980, ISBN 3-7031-0513-5
• Human - Earth Cosmos: Life and Work of Rudolf Maria Holzapfel. Society for a total culture, Bern 1980
• Mosaic stones. Look outside, look inside. Poems, J. Druck & Verlag 1992, ISBN 3-2600-5339-5

Web links

• Luc Lienhard: Meyer [-Holzapfel], Monika. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Prof. Dr. Monika Meyer-Holzapfel , website of the Association of German Zoo Directors .
2. ↑ https://www.burgerbib.ch/de/burgerbibliothek/aktuelles/news/nachlass-monika-meyer-holzapfel , accessed on June 16, 2020