This is a beautiful zoo. A number of years ago, I wrote to them inquiring about employment. They wrote back that it is difficult to hire from another country, and that they depended on their citizens. I regretted that as I sure would have liked to have been here.
Anybody that has been holding back any elephant questions, now it the time to ask while we have Dan Koehl on board.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Elephant facility--Djurpark Kolmården, Sweden
Posted by
Wade G. Burck
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2 comments:
Dan,
Almost a year ago I read "The Zookeeper's Wife" by Diane Ackerman. It is about Jan and Antonina Zabinski, the wartime director of the Warsaw Zoo and his wife. The book mentions Tuzinka, the Asian elephant calf born there. The book states that her father was shot by Polish soldiers, along with other animals, to prevent their harming people if they were to escape in the event that their habitats were bombed. The book also states that Tuzinka's mother died when her habitat was later bombed, leaving Tuzinka an orphan. Lutz Heck then supposedly took Tuzinka and placed her at the Koenigsberg Zoo. Tuzinka's page in the elephant studbook is: http://www.elephant.se/database2.php?elephant_id=299
Perhaps you could clear up the discrepancies between "The Zookeeper's Wife" and the elephant studbook:
1. Did Tuzinka die in the Allied bombing of Koenigsberg? "The Zookeeper's Wife" makes no mention of her returning to Warsaw, and the studbook does not say that the Nazis ever transferred her from Warsaw.
2. "The Zookeeper's Wife" says that she was an orphan because her father was shot by Polish soldiers, along with the lions, tigers, and polar bears, and her mother died in a subsequent Nazi bombing. However, the studbook lists both parents' deaths as 1956.
Any information that you could provide would be most appreciated. Thank you.
Mary Ann
Dear Mary Ann, I have no personal insght in this, but Ill try to find out
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