Elephants at the National Zoo--Yesterday and today.

	The first phase of Elephant Trails, the Zoo's innovative new home for Asian elephants is ready for residents and visitors! The Zoo's three elephants can now enjoy the barn, yards, and quarter-mile walking path, and the public can see interactive exhibits, tools for conservation, sculptures, and much more. Find out about Elephant Trails

White tiger cub turns black in Chennai Zoo

One of the three 'white' tigers born in Vandalur zoo in June seems to have changed its colours — most of its body and legs are now black.

The black cub, along with its completely white siblings, was on display for the public to see for the first time at the Arignar Anna Zoological Park in Vandalur on Sunday, and drew hordes of excited visitors.

A black tiger is something of a rarity and zoo officials are quite excited by the development. "The colouring might be due to genetic reasons. A black cub is exactly the same as a regular tiger in all aspects, except for its skin colour," said zoo director KSSVP Reddy, who is also chief conservator of forests.

Reddy ruled out the possibility of inbreeding as the reason for the unusual colouring. "Inbreeding occurs only over generations. The mother, white tigress Anu, has only given birth twice," he said.

Zoo biologists said the large presence of the pigment melanin in the cub was probably the reason for 80% of its skin being black. The skin colour of tigers is determined by the presence of black and yellow pigments. In most tigers, the colour yellow dominates over black to give them their characteristic colouring.

"In this cub, the reverse has happened — black is the dominant colour," said senior zoo biologist Dr Manimozhi. "We are monitoring the cub. The skin colour that he grows into when he reaches adulthood will be the permanent one," he said. It is the dominance of yellow pigment that enables tigers to survive in the wild for long, he added. "In fact, this is the reason why most white tigers are found only in zoos and not in the wild," Manimozhi said.

The birth of the three cubs on June 6 has taken the tiger population in the zoo to 15. Zookeepers said the cubs, which weigh about eight kg each, are active and healthy. They are given a regular diet of chicken and beef.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/White-tiger-cub-turns-black-in-Chennai-Zoo/articleshow/6458955.cms

Courtesy of Josip Marcan

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I have included the two above photo's with the story sent to me by Josip Marcan. Although Josip is an amateur and knows next to nothing about tigers, let alone white tigers, I have chosen to post this story as it is most interesting. Apparently one of the three white cubs born in June has turned black. In the top photo, which I posted a while back, we discussed the "odd" coloration of one of the cubs. The second photo of a single cub, shows one of two surviving cubs, born last year in March to the same mother, sired by the same father of the litter born in June of this year. Note the wide, dark stripes on it's side. Not unusual by it's self, but considering she is a full sibling to the cub's in the first picture, and one of them has now apparently turned black, it is of value, and well worth looking into. Click on the link Josip sent to see a photo of the "black" cub.

Mable Hall, daughter of Col. Hall and Charlie the Elephant

Col. George W. Hall--Circus owner from Evansville, Indiana

Silvery Gibbon birth at the Hellabrunn Zoo in Munich, Germany

Silvery gibbons, native to the Indonesian island of Java, are endangered, primarily as a result of habitat loss due to deforestation.

According to the advocacy group the Silvery Gibbon Project, an estimated 98% of the gibbons' forest home has been destroyed through logging and tree clearance to make room for expanding human developments. It's believed that only a few thousand remain in the wild, and a small number live in zoos.

Carl Hagenbeck's Human Zoo

Some folks suggest that the "Human Zoo" which Hagenbeck is famous for, in addition to his brilliant zoological exhibit's was nothing different than a circus or wild west show, with the use of performers from different nationality's or races in the exhibitions. I really, really question whether that was his intention. In his memoirs, Carl Hagenbeck praised himself, writing, "it was my privilege to be the first in the civilized world to present these shows of different races." That statement reaks of a superiority(not unlike a 7th Day Adventist, "God loves us, but he hates you.")

Human Zoos

This image comes from Hagenbeck show called "Les Indes" about indigenous people from India.

Human Zoos

One of Hagenbeck's human zoo shows received half a million visitors in Paris. Many of those put on display died quickly of diseases unknown in their homelands.

Human Zoos

Carl Hagenbeck's "Galla Truppe," a group of Oromo people, kidnapped from Ethiopia. and displayed with native animals.

Human Zoos

Human zoos were popular in Europe at the end of the 1800s and the beginning of the 1900s. They included indigenous peoples kidnapped from all corners of the globe. This group is from Ceylon, present day Sri Lanka

Human Zoos

Abraham Ulrikab (c. 1845 – January 13, 1881) was an Inuk from Hebron, Labrador, in the present day province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, who along with his family was to become a zoo exhibit in Europe in 1880 as an attraction at the Hamburg Germany zoo.

Remains of Indigenous Abductees Back Home after 130 Years

These five members of the Kawesqar tribe, which is home in Tierra del Fuego in Chile's far south, were kidnapped in 1881, by Carl Hagenbeck and sent to Europe to be displayed in human zoos, normally with animals from the same area. Below is the entire group which were brought to Europe.
January 13, 2010

The remains of five members of the Kawesqar Indian tribe, abducted by a German explorer 130 years ago for display in "human zoos," found their way back home to Tierra del Fuego on Tuesday. Theirs is a story of degradation, shared by indigenous peoples from around the world.

It was a greatly delayed homecoming. But on Tuesday, the remains of five Kawesqar Indians, kidnapped in 1881 and brought to Europe for display in zoos, were returned to Chile for burial in their ancestral homeland in Tierra del Fuego in the country's far south.

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet was on hand for the arrival of the remains, contained in five baskets. In light of recent evidence indicating that the Chilean government had allowed the abduction of Kawesqars, in addition to those belonging to a number of other native tribes, Bachelet said her country had been guilty of "neglect in the face of such abuses." She went on to say that "as we near the bicentennial of our independence, we have to confront both the brightest points and the darkest moments of our history."

But it's not just Chile that has to confront the fate of those who were put on show across Europe. The five who arrived back in South America on Tuesday -- given the names Henry, Lise, Grethe, Piskouna and Capitán by their captors -- were just some of the hundreds of natives put on display across Europe at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th.

Human Zoos

Known as "human zoos," the shows involved the abduction of indigenous peoples from around the world, particularly Africa. Often they were displayed in villages built in zoos specifically for the show, but they were also made to perform on stage for the amusement of a paying public.

One of the most prominent of the human zoo operators was the Hamburg animal trader Carl Hagenbeck, whose name still graces the zoo in Hamburg. Indeed, it was a Hagenbeck expedition which brought the five Kawesqars to Europe (along with six others, five of whom were allowed to return with the sixth dying on the way home). They took part in Hagenbeck shows in Berlin, Munich, Leipzig, Stuttgart, Nuremberg and Zurich in addition to Hamburg. In Paris, the show, called "The Savages from the Land of Fire," attracted a half-million visitors.

The remains were discovered during research for a documentary film about the human zoos. Chilean filmmaker Hans Mülchi not only found evidence that the Chilean government had cooperated with Hagenbeck, but also learned that the five Kawesqars had died in Zürich, victims of European diseases such as measles. Their remains were stored in the Anthropological Institute at the University of Zürich and were identified by anthropologist Christoph Zollikofer, who accompanied them back to Chile.

The bones have been handed over to surviving members of the Kawesqar tribe and are to be buried in a traditional indigenous ceremony on a remote island in Tierra del Fuego.

Ota Benga

The story of Ota Benga

In 1904, Ota Benga was brought to the United States by the missionary and explorer Samuel Phillips Verner. Verner had been hired by the St. Louis World's Fair to bring back pygmies for one of their ethnographic exhibits.

Verner's story is recounted by his grandson Phillips Verner Bradford in the book ‘Ota Benga: The Pygmy in the Zoo’. According to this account, Verner purchased Ota Benga from African slave traders - his wife and children had been killed in a massacre. Verner brought Benga, seven other pygmies and a young Congolese man to St Louis where they proved to be one of the most popular attractions at the fair. The crowds gawked, jeered and at one point threw mud pies at the human exhibit.

From St Louis, the group travelled to New Orleans just in time for Mardi Gras, and finally back to Africa. Benga - expressing a desire to learn to read - asked Verner to take him with him when the explorer returned home.

Verner and Ota Benga arrived in New York in August 1906. Verner, looking for a place for Benga to live, finally brought him to the Bronx Zoo, where, at first, he walked the grounds and helped the workers. But in early September, it was decided to move Benga's hammock into an orang utan's cage, where he was encouraged to play with the orang utan and weave caps out of straw and to shoot his bow and arrow. The zoo was encouraged by prominent eugenicist and head of the New York Zoological Society Madison Grant and a sign soon read:

The African Pigmy, ‘Ota Benga.’

Age, 23 years. Height, 4 feet 11 inches.

Weight, 103 pounds.

Brought from the Kasai River, Congo Free State, South Central Africa, by Dr. Samuel P. Verner.

Exhibited each afternoon during September

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Renowned clergyman Reverend Dr Robert Stuart MacArthur of the Calvary Baptist Church in New York was outraged and was quoted in The New York Times on Sept. 10, 1906 as saying, ‘The person responsible for this exhibition degrades himself as much as he does the African. Instead of making a beast of this little fellow, he should be put in school for the development of such powers as God gave to him. It is too bad that there is not some society like the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. We send our missionaries to Africa to Christianise the people, and then we bring one here to brutalise him.’

African American church leaders also expressed outrage. ‘Our race, we think, is depressed enough without exhibiting one of us with the apes,’ wrote one such minister, James H. Gordon to the mayor of New York. ‘We think we are worthy of being considered human beings, with souls.’ Gordon was to become Ota Benga’s guardian after the zoo ultimately bowed to public pressure and had Benga removed.

Ota Benga after Bronx Zoo

Ota Benga came under the guardianship of Gordon, who placed him in the Howard Colored Orphan Asylum, a church-sponsored orphanage.

In January 1910, Gordon arranged for Benga's relocation to Lynchburg, Virginia. His teeth, which he had filed to points in the Congo, were capped and he was dressed in American-style clothes. His English improved and he eventually began working at a Lynchburg tobacco factory. Despite his small size, he proved a valuable employee because he could climb up the poles to get the tobacco leaves without having to use a ladder. His fellow workers called him ‘Bingo’ and he would tell his life story in exchange for sandwiches and root beer.

He began to plan a return to Africa but when the First World War broke out, a return to the Congo became impossible, and he became depressed.

On March 20, 1916, at the age of 32, Ota Benga built a ceremonial fire, chipped off the caps on his teeth and shot himself in the heart with a stolen pistol. The death certificate listed his name as "Otto Bingo."

Ota Benga--The Bronx Zoo's least shining moment.

Ota Benga, the Congolese pygmy once lived at the Museum of Natural History (where he was forced to wear a duck costume!) before being scandalously exhibited for a short time in the Bronx Zoo monkey house in 1906. Part of his allure to shocked New Yorkers were his filed teeth.