The "green tile" Bernhard Grizmek style of animal facility's became very popular in the late 50's early 60's. While being easy to hose it they always left a damp cold feeling to the exhibits.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Unknown Zoo
Posted by
Wade G. Burck
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8 comments:
I watched the new Milwaukee County Zoo being built in the 60's. Sampson the gorilla was placed, alone, in a tiled room. It was the most unnatural looking and feeling place imaginable.But at the time I guess ease of cleaning was uppermost on their minds. By the way, all the primates lived in such exhibits when the zoo opened. Dion
The use of ceramic tile walls in the late 50s and 60s was a boon to cleaning but a loss to aesthetics. A late friend would refer to the Lincoln Park Zoo's large Bird House, that was tiled all around, as the world's largest rest room. You could just imagine rows of toilets and sinks.
A related comment: The Miller Park Zoo in Bloomington, IL recycled an old public rest room with the marble stall partitions and all into a very efficient, off-display bird breeding area. A great example of small zoo creativity.
Jim,
I guess in regards to Miller Park Zoo, that answers the age old question, what came first the donikers or the exhibits.
In the old buildings a blind man could tell which one he was in, just by the smells. It seemed to permeate the brick/tile and was there forever.
The continuous changing of zoo husbandry has always held a fascination for me.
Wade
Dion,
You may recall that the "new" Milwaukee Co. Zoo primate house not only had ceramic tile cages but they had an automatic cleaning system (of sorts). About once an hour the cage floors would be "flushed" like a toilet. The flush probably stressed a few primate that would deficate on the new "clean" floor giving the feces time to dry and making the "flush" ineffective.
The new Zoo had some interesting "Hagenbeck-like" exhibits with predators separated from hoofed stock and other nice exhibits. The Small Mammal House had several cages with large windows as the back wall that looked out into the woods. The rock work was a copy of Brookfield Zoo's, almost quarried blocks and not rounded shapes. The Director George Spiedel was Brookfield Director Bob Bean's brother -in-law (keep it in the family).
Jim,
Good stuff again. That explains why Milwaukee always seemed like a clone of Brookfield. I just thought it was the close proximity that made it easy to copy. Many of the zoo's of that era, after the 3rd exhibit it was almost like looking at barred cages side by side. Can you imagined a poor primate easing down to get a monkey chow, looking over his shoulder when all of a sudden here comes the water. I did not know of that "modern" hubandry practice. Brookfield used to have a lot of mechanical innovations that never lasted very long also.
Wade
Was this also the era of pelleted food for everything from lions to pelicans?
Steve,
You remember that era, huh. Many also got a pinball machine or some other mechanical marvel to manipulate, in an effort to stimulate "natural behavior" while snacking on a bowl of man made biscuits. Kind of like the circus doing gay shows or nude water dips for "children of all ages". The zoo field really didn't know in what direction they wanted to go.
Wade
Here in Atlanta we built a new Primate House in 1958-59. It was based on Milwaukee's. It too had all tile interior cages with glass fronts.
There was only one outdoor cage, supposedly for gibbons. Our Mayor had seen them brachiating somewhere and insitsed we have the same here. But the outdoor cage was not built with enough expanse for the gibbons to really do their thing.
The cages had the floor flushers like Milw.
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