Here is a different look at one of the Toronto Zoo's pavilions. In their day, the most amazing structures in the zoo world. So imposing I still remember the day in 1976 when I first entered one, on my first visit to the newly built Toronto Zoo.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Toronto Zoo "Zoogeographic Pavilion"
Ghost Zoo--Riverdale Farm, Toronto Canada
The back of this picture say's simply, " This appliance was left behind in the keepers break room at Riverdale Zoo. It is a best money can buy micro wave oven. That is what Toby Styles called it anyway, after collecting $50 from each of the keepers at Riverdale Zoo, so he could buy it from a Pakistani street peddler on Younge Street for $300." Can anybody verify this? If that is the case, this "Styles" chap is definitely zoo management material.
Riverdale Zoo/Toronto Zoo
Riverdale Farm is a 3.0 hectare (7.5 acres) municipally operated farm in the heart of Cabbagetown, an urban neighbourhood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
From 1888 this was the site of the Riverdale Zoo. The zoo relocated to a much larger facility in Scarborough in 1974 and became known as the Toronto Zoo.
Ghost Zoo--Riverdale Farm, Toronto Canada
This picture claims to be the handle for the gorilla cage door.
Ghost Zoo--Riverdale Farm, Toronto Canada
Is this the admissions/front gate, or another enclosure. Tough neighborhood if bars were need on the windows.
Ghost Zoo--Riverdale Farm, Toronto Canada
On this photo is says, "some type of grain silo at Riverdale Farm." Growing up in North Dakota, I know what a grain silo looks like, and none of them have barred windows, or a roof like this. It kinda looks like an "owl tower/enclosure" that ancient castle menagerie zoo's used to have.
How to write real by God Circus History.
Above is Terrell's he/she lion Sheba in 1953, when he/she was still a he, and not a she, and still had a fang. I asked the man putting the Craig Marsh/Ernest Angley healing touch on he/she Sheba, in an effort to arrest a complete mane loss, if he/she Sheba ever did a "kinda backward waltz." Historically he is the most honest man that has ever lived, next to Cherry tree Washington so I don't feel I have to qualify him or his integrity. He looked at me and said, "I don't know what you wild animal trainer types call it, but to me it looked more like a refusal to sit up. I guess maybe, if I was a horse trainer, it might have been a kinda backward waltz." So there you have it, it's in the books, so don't whine Steve Robinson.
For Glenn Sullivan--Update on your old mate, Simeon
Against your best efforts Glenn, to turn Simeon Shai from a herbivore to a carnivore, the boy is still holding his own in the breeding shed.
3 White Elephants!!!!!
This daring damsel must have had some blackmail information on Dr. Saw D. Po Min, because she got 3 white elephants.
Berets to Khaki's?
I don't know if beret's were an exclusive Jacot trademark or just the style of the day for dapper zoo professionals, which has given way to the equally dapper, yet dashing khaki preferred by zoo professional's today.
Studying and learning from history, so that it does not repeat it's self.
In the London Zoo file below, you will note this fellows name mentioned a couple of times. Who was he? He seemed to have the gaff on "white elephants". The one in the movie sure looked like it was different, at least around the eyes, it looks like a cremello horse. You will also note in the great London zoo file the name HH of Baroda. That's the same "family" that captured Mohan, and introduced the world to White Tigers.
http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=25297
The Bronx has kept 31 elephants in it's history, with 21 deaths, and 7 relocation's. There has been one birth that died, and almost no effort to bred since 1983. A knock against sanctuaries is that they don't bred the elephant's, isn't that correct? The Bronx is one of the greatest zoo's in the world, bar none, but elephant's have historically never been high on their list of priorities. I am not suggesting that the Bronx elephants are not "happy" in the picture you enclosed. Do you think it is possible that they could be "happier?"
I received 3 "irate" emails this morning, from dear friends who are circus friends, chastising me for the comment above, which I posted on the "history channel" in response to a comment about what a shame it would be if the Bronx Zoo no longer had elephants. The emails all suggested that I should quit giving the activist's fodder in which to use against elephants in captivity. To all the misguided, although wonderful and caring and loving of the circus, YOU HAVE GOT TO QUIT TAKING THE ANIMAL RIGHTS MOVEMENT PERSONAL. It isn't directed at you, or what you love. It is directed at what was, and as you having never dealt with a captive animal as the professionals have, you just have to accept that not a single professional that I know or am aware of want it the way it was. In order to make the world better for the animals we love, we have to learn, understand and accept where we came from. Let's get it back to animal welfare where it is a valid concern, and debunk the animal rights which isn't valid.
The Bronx Zoo making the decision after many years and 31 elephants, with one birth, to not have elephants anymore when the remain ones are gone, is not a bad thing. It is a brilliant illustration to the new way of thinking and the knowledge that is now being used in the world of captive animals and animal welfare. It is not the elephant right, but it is our responsibility as caretakers.
The file above illustrating the history of the London Zoo's elephant program, does not point a bad finger at them. It brilliantly illustrates great breeding program now carried on at Whipsnade. Again, history showing where we were and and where were are, and where we are going. The ar nitwits don't have a foot to stand on, when you look at fact's. It isn't the old days, it's a new day.
Inventory price list above from an early animal exhibition. Does anyone know who "Howe" was or what the exhibition was about?
Frank Mogorosi
Does anyone know what became of Frank Mogorosi? I recall meeting him in the mid 70's and he had a comedy lion act with a couple of male lions, but then he seemed to disappear.
Courtesy of Toby Stiles
Alfred Court
What are the chances the "photo" above is a doctored picture, more of an "artistic interpretation" or a "master plan" of what never happened. Many of the animals are out of proportion in size, accepting that they were young animals(see picture below) and note the "great danes" in back stretching on what are obviously the light up stand's that Court used for his leopard act, unless they were part of this act below, where we don't see them, but we do see electric cords. The picture above look's a lot like just a bunch of stuff put together to give the illusion of all the animals in the cage together using props from different act's. How much does the "fence" in the middle look like the "fence" in the above thread, in the tiger act presented by Franz Trubka.
Jim Clubb is currently penning the "definative Alfred Court", and I am expecting it to be one of the greatest wild animal trainer biographys ever written, given the subject matter and the knowledge of the author. Will it "dispel the myth," or "shore up the legend?" Let's hope Jim get's some free time to finish it, and doesn't keep us waiting forever.
Alfred Court
Obviously this is the same act pictured below with Fritz Shulz, or at least they are the same props, except the lions are sitting on "boxes", and I don't know if there are any Great Danes in the act below with Fritz where the Polar bears are sitting off to the sides, instead of in back as we see in the "pyramid" pictures in the last thread, so we have to assume the bears are sitting just off camera in this photo, or are they out of the arena?
Alfred Court
This is my favorite Court pyramid. If you have to do a pyramid, in my opinion, animals at different level's and different directions is much more visually appealing then the standard all stretching in one direction, or sitting up at gradual levels. As there are no wide angle pictures available of all the animals sitting on their seats in a Court act, I have often wondered if these 3 photos were just "staged" publicity shots" and not actually the act. First off, the seats are empty, and the "assistant" is wearing a plain shirt and pants. In the photo above, obviously the felines sat at the back of the arena, by the chute door, or they were brought to do the pyramid and let out after the pyramid, because there are no seats for them. 
In this photo, with the same costume, again the seats are empty, and the props appear to be pushed up almost against the front of the arena(where the bear seats are in the photo above), leaving no room for an assistant to stand. Either the animals all sat together at the back of the arena, by the chute, which I don't think they did, because they are obviously separated above, or they were let in one at a time to shoot this picture, with the Himalayan bears being put in first. No other behavior was done this pyramid, because there is no "assistant" to push the bears to Court.
This pyramid must have come after the top pyramid, as the Himalayan bears are gone(note their empty seat by the assistant). Either that or they were let in after this pyramid. Again, there is the "assistant" in street clothes as the props are back in the middle of the arena giving him room to stand, and empty seats, plus the tall pedestals that the bears are sitting on in the photo above, which are not in the top photo, instead there is the pyramid bridge seen here. Jim Clubb, help me out here please. Explain to me what I am seeing right, or what I am seeing wrong in these pictures.
Fritz Schulz
Steve, you are right about that being Fritz in the photo below. Also, here we can see that the "gate" was actually not a "swing gate" but instead one that was a bracket gate, put up before the bear got on the end pedestal.
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