Zdeněk Veselovský

Zdeněk Veselovský (2006)

Zdeněk Veselovský (born August 26, 1928 in Jaroměř ; † November 24, 2006 in Prague ) was a Czech zoologist and founder of Czech ethology (comparative behavioral research ). He was the director of the Prague Zoo from 1959 to 1988 and made a significant contribution to the rescue of the Przewalski horse .

Life

Veselovský was a student of the Nobel Prize winner Konrad Lorenz . He studied at the Faculty of Science at the University of Prague until 1952 and then worked as a teacher. On July 1, 1959, he was appointed director of the Prague Zoo , where he had previously worked as a zoologist. From 1964 to 1967 he held the office of Secretary General of the International Association of Zoo Directors , from 1967 to 1971 he was Vice-President, then until 1975 President of this organization.

Rescuing the Przewalski horses from extinction is counted among his great merits as director of the Prague Zoo. In the run-up to the Velvet Revolution , Veselovský was fired in 1988 for a confrontation with communist representatives of the city of Prague, which even led to an international boycott of Prague zoos. After 1989 he worked at the Physiological Institute of the South Bohemian University in České Budějovice and at the Faculty of Natural Sciences at the University of Prague .

Publications (selection)

In addition to numerous specialist articles, Veselovský published ten books, including those in German:

• Illustrated lexicon of birds
• Illustrated lexicon of animals
• The otter. K. Müller, Erlangen 1998
• The great colored handbook of birds
• Excursion to the tertiary . A zoologist is traveling through Australia. Brockhaus, Leipzig 1978
• Are animals different? Behaviors in the zoo. Bertelsmann, Gütersloh u. a. 1971
• (Ed.): Work of the II. International Symposium for the Rescue of the Przewalski Horse

Web links

Commons : Zdeněk Veselovský  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature and other media by and about Zdeněk Veselovský in the catalog of the National Library of the Czech Republic
• Literature by and about Zdeněk Veselovský in the catalog of the German National Library
• Obituaries and scriptures