San-Diego Zoo
INTRODUCTION
We humans have had a long association with wild animals. For all but
the last few thousand years of our two million years, we have depended on
them for our very existence. We were hunters in our early days, drifting
along with the game herds, dipping into that seemingly inexhaustible river
of life for our food and clothing. When the herds prospered, we are well;
when hard times came on them, our bellies shrank. So close was our
relationship with wild animals, we called them our brothers.
The Chinese and Egyptians were the first to establish collections of
wild animals. About five thousand years ago, Chinese emperors maintained
animal parks for their private use, usually hunting. The Pharaohs of Egypt
sent expeditions into the interior of Africa to collect animals for royal
menageries. Later, Roman legions sent back wild animals, along with human
slaves, from their conquests. Often these two – animals and humans – ended
up pitted against each other in gladiatorial battles for their captors’
entertainment.
The first true zoo was built in France by Louis XIV, but it was modern
only in comparison with what had existed before. Louis’ wild animals were
housed in champed, dirty cages, often by themselves, and fed food which
rarely approximated their natural diet. Mortality rates were high, but
little attention was given to this; dead animals could be replaced easily
from the rivers of wildlife still flowing in the wilderness.
At the turn of the 20th century the first modern zoo was designed and
built at Stellingen, near Hamburg, Germany. It had a minimum of cages and
barred enclosures; animals were exhibited in large, “natural” surroundings
of artificial mountains, plains and caves, usually with others of their
species.
THE HISTORY
And now I want to tell you about the most famous zoo in the world –
The San-Diego Zoo.
In Began with a Roar
The San Diego Zoo, established in 1916, was far different from today's
grand; exotic, zoological garden. For the most part, it grew from a small
collection of animals held in traditional circus like cages that formed a
portion of the city's 1915-1916 Panama-California International Exposition
held in Balboa Park. After the close of the Exposition, a San Diego
physician, Dr. Harry Wegeforth, rescued these animals and started the
present Zoo. He would later recall how it all began:
On September 16, 1916, as I was returning to my office after
performing an operation at St. Joseph Hospital, I drove down Sixth Avenue
and heard the roaring of the lions in the cages at the Exposition then
being held in Balboa Park.
I turned to my brother, Paul, who was riding with me, and half
jokingly, half wishfully, said, "Wouldn't it be splendid if San Diego had a
zoo! You know ...I think I'll start one."
Wegeforth's idea, with the help of other interested San Diegans, would
take shape and prosper over the years. Even as a child, growing up in
Baltimore, Maryland, he was fascinated by animals. He regularly staged
"circuses" in his backyard, using toy animals and stitched-together flour
sacks for a "big top" tent. This interest went far beyond normal childish
play, because young Harry had done extensive research on the real-life
behavior and characteristics of his animal menagerie and enthusiastically
explained all of this to visitors at his "performances."
Later on, as an adult, Wegeforth obtained a medical degree and moved
to San Diego in 1908 to set up his practice. The work of building the Zoo,
however, was soon to consume almost all of his time. It was a gamble and a
dream that he lived daily, but a task he relished.
Together with four other men—Dr. Paul Wegeforth, Dr. Fred Baker, Dr.
Joseph H. Thompson, and Frank Stephens—Wegeforth founded the Zoological
Society of San Diego on October 2,1916. In 1921, the City of San Diego
granted the Society its present home in Balboa Park, and, by 1922,
Wegeforth, a few staff members, and a small collection of animals had begun
moving in.
Even at this early date, Wegeforth was promoting a zoo that was
different from most in existence at that time, including demerits that
would, as years passed, result in its being called the "world's greatest
zoo." For example, he envisioned a zoological garden where animals could be
integrated with plants in pleasing settings with no bars or traditional
cages to obstruct a visitor's view. He promoted the idea of grotto and moat
enclosures—something just being tried in European zoos and almost unknown
in America.
While riding around the Zoo grounds on his Arabian stallion, Wegeforth
would map out in his mind the location of exhibits. Mesas would hold hoofed
mammals, reptiles, and birds; the canyons would be reserved for bears and
cats. In Johnny Appleseed fashion, he scattered and planted seeds for the
new plants he desired. Roads that were laid out for the first bus tours are
still used today.
To supplement the initial group of animals gathered from the Balboa
Park Exposition, Wegeforth made collecting trips to other countries and
other zoos, both here and abroad. His aggressive style of exchanging local
animals, such as rattlesnakes and California sea lions, for more exotic
species soon earned him the title of "Trader Wegeforth." Other animals were
donated to the Zoo from private individuals or Navy ships that docked in
San Diego and brought "gifts" to Dr. Harry's Zoo.
Through personal vision, determination, his own financial
contributions, and those of others, Harry Wegeforth created the San Diego
Zoo. To the uninformed observer of the time, it might have seemed that he
realized his dream from almost nothing. Indeed, some of the early exhibits
were built from castoffs and discards from other construction projects —
things that he could acquire for free4 much as he had built his play
menageries as a child. He cajoled local wealthy citizens to help him by
arousing their' concern for the animals and their city pride. One of his
greatest benefactors was newspaper heiress Ellen Browning Scripps, who, by
the time of her death, had donated some quarter of a million dollars to the
project.
Wegeforth's concern about animal nutrition and health is additionally
noteworthy. While not trained as a veterinarian, he nonetheless applied his
medical knowledge to the care of Zoo animals and brought in others trained
to assist him in this work. This care was reflected in the Zoo's low animal
mortality figures.
One day a tiger, writhing in pain with what his keepers suspected to
be intestinal problems, needed immediate treatment. As a result of his
condition, they considered him too dangerous to rope and tie down for
examination (this was an era before the tranquilizer dan gun). Wegeforth
sized up the situation and entered the animal's enclosure with a handful of
beneficial tablets. The animal crouched, made ready to leap, and opened his
gaping jaws to unleash a ferocious roar. At that instant Wegeforth tossed
several of the pills into his mouth. Surprised at this action, the tiger
backed off momentarily, swallowing the medicine. Not one to back down, the
tiger again gathered himself in a crouch, opened his cavernous mouth, and
prepared to pounce. Once more Wegeforth administered the medicine, and this
time the animal retired to his water basin to wash down the irritating
pills. Such examples of Wegeforth's "make do" philosophy of animal medicine
made for popular conversation among early Zoo employees.
In April of 1927, just over ten years after the Zoo's founding, he
succeeded in opening the Zoological Hospital and Biological Research
Institute, a major contribution to the further achievements of the San
Diego Zoo. This facility was yet another gift from Miss Scripps.
The Zoo Lady
Also in 1927, the Zoological Society hired its first executive
secretary, Mrs. Belle Benchley, an individual who would share Wegeforth's
dream and assist him with his goals and plans. She had come to the
organization as a bookkeeper in 1925, but soon proved so adept that
Wegeforth began using her as his primary assistant. Among other things, he
encouraged her to be the Zoo's public relations spokesperson, speaking at
civic luncheons—a job she did reluctantly at first but soon mastered. Her
work earned her high praise over the years, and following Wegeforth's death
in 1941, she took over management of the Zoo.
It was in large part due to Mrs. Benchley that the San Diego Zoo began
to achieve a national, even worldwide, prominence. Her books about life at
the Zoo, published during the 1940s, made many new friends for the
organization. They included My Life in a Man-made Jungle (1940), My Friends
the Apes (1942), My Animal Babies (1945), and Shirley Visits the Zoo
(1946). Mrs. Benchley's continued care and concern for the Zoo animals'
welfare prompted one zoo expert to remark that the San Diego Zoo was "the
only zoo in the world that is run for the animals."
Among Mrs. Benchley's more famous accomplishments was the arrival at
the Zoo in 1949 of Albert, Bata, and Bouba, a male and two female western
lowland gorillas from French West Africa. All less than a year old, these
gorilla babies captured the hearts of San Diegans, who lined up by the
hundreds to see them. Their first day on exhibit a crowd of some 10,000
arrived, setting a new Zoo attendance record.
The Schroeder Years
Following the retirement of Mrs. Benchley in 1953, Dr. Charles
