Today marks a century since New Zealand’s largest zoo opened its gates for the first time.
It wasn’t much to speak of in the beginning – the cages had concrete floors and it was plagued by rats, but Auckland Zoo has come a long way since then.
“The zoo was a menagerie of curious animals for people to come and be entertained by,” says Richard Gibson, head of Animal Care and Conservation.
He says animal welfare has become front and centre for zoos all across the globe – and trends like chimpanzee tea parties, which Auckland Zoo had in the 1950s - are now a big no.
“I recognise that we’ve all been on a journey,” he says. “ What zoos do today is they focus on smaller numbers of species and manage them in demographic and genetically sustainable ways.”
The zoo is now home to more than 140 species, and former vet Richard Jakob-Hoff knows them better than anyone.
“My address was Auckland Zoo,” he says.
The vet, who was also responsible for the management of the Auckland Zoo animal collection, lived on-site for a decade of his 31-year tenure.
He says one of his favourite memories involves a very sick otter.
“I decided to pull a mattress on the floor and sleep with it,” he says. “The next morning it was still alive and pulled through. There’s not many people can say they’ve slept with an otter. But I’m one of them.”
There are the escape stories too – including one about another otter, named Jin, which spent 26 days at large around the Waitematā Harbour in 2006.
“We got her fat again and she was okay,” says Jakob-Hoff.
An exhibition has been launched at the zoo to mark the occasion with photos from the past, but Gibson says they’re not making a big fuss with the zoo’s residents.
“We’ve decided not to tell the animals it’s the 100th, because we don’t want them behaving in a crazy way, getting too excited.”
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