A Guidebook Library: TLD's year-long randomised walkthrough of zoo guides

Very nice indeed; if (as I hope) I reach Walsrode again this year, I may well have to pop back to Schwarze-Berge as well.... it appears that although the guidebook in question is available for purchase online, they don't offer shipping outside Germany!

That's quite the coincidence!

 

Day 16: Zoo Antwerpen (2015) - Okapi head (English language)




Page count: 50
Photographs: c.80
Illustrations/diagrams: one double-page diagram showing concept art for then-upcoming African aviary and restaurant
Layout: General overview of collection
Map: Double-page map in centre of guidebook

And now we come to the first Belgian item to be discussed in this thread, albeit one which is presented in Engish-language format; as I intend to relate, I think this is a rather good guidebook, if a little generalist in parts, which calls attention to several of the key historical and zoological features which makes Zoo Antwerpen a must-visit for any European zoo enthusiast. I believe it is also the first item in this thread to have been written by someone whom I have met in person; Harry Schram, who was employed at Antwerp as the head of the education department for several years before his very untimely passing in 2017, previously held the position of EAZA executive director, and whom I met on a single occasion at the 2013 Zoohistorica event in Bristol. He was well-known in the zoo enthusiast community, and many reading this thread were fortunate enough to have known him far better than I did.

The first notable feature of this item which strikes me as worthy of mention is the fact that the interior front and back covers comprise adverts for the pair of collections which also fall/fell under the purview of the Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp; the recently-closed Serpentarium Blankenberge and Zoo Planckendael. I think that this guidebook may have been the first place I ever heard of the former collection, and as such probably has a reasonable degree of responsibility for the fact that I managed to visit Blankenberge in 2019, thereby managing to view the collection before it ultimately closed (something which I missed out on doing at Aquatopia Antwerpen, having first visited the city a year after said collection closed). Beyond here, and a brief introduction to Zoo Antwerpen written by the commercial director, the guidebook proper begins with a summary of the major events throughout the history of the collection and the Royal Zoological Society; as will be rather obvious at this juncture, I always rather like it when a zoo guidebook provides due consideration and attention towards the development and heritage of the collection in question, and given the age and significance of this particular collection this applies all the more here. The only real downside to this historical overview to my mind is the fact that it is rather brief, and displays a definite recency bias with almost half of the timeline covering events subsequent to the early 1990s.



From here, the bulk of the guidebook comprises a general overview of the various exhibits at Zoo Antwerpen at the time of publication, with a page or so devoted to each exhibit, within which a variety of historical notes, references to the fauna and flora within and other useful information is relayed. Although - as I noted above - sometimes a little too brief and superficial for my tastes, these segments are nonetheless very interesting and well-presented, and most importantly make constant reference to the history and heritage of the collection; for instance, when discussing the exhibits around the Melkerij and the Flemish Garden, much of the text is devoted to discussing the past usage of this area of the collection, details of the original construction of the Melkerij, and the architectural and aesthetic choices which were made in their design, whilst when the Egyptian Temple is discussed the species inhabiting the house at the time of publication are almost an afterthought compared to the historical and architectural discussions - all aspects of this guidebook which certainly add to its overall charm, and paint a rather vivid picture of a collection which is very much in tune with both the past and the future, and which has a flair for the aesthetically striking and appealing when it comes to making the most of the historical structures and exhibits found throughout a site limited in space by its city-centre location.... a picture which, having visited Zoo Antwerpen twice since first obtaining this guidebook, is very much borne out in the flesh.



The central point of the guidebook is a large and attractive map of the collection as a whole, which both serves as a clear representation of the layout of Zoo Antwerpen and as an attractive item in its own right - as all the best zoo maps should. The only major fault I have to note regarding this map is the fact that it is very obviously taken directly from the collection map available independently of the guidebook with no editing having taken place to reflect the fact it has been incorporated within the text; as such, the various exhibits and enclosures throughout the map are methodically labelled with numbers which doubtless corresponded to labels within a key provided alongside the map available elsewhere..... a key which has not been replicated here.



Dotted throughout the text, between the various segments discussing the exhibits, houses and species held at the collection, there is also a very strong through-line of references to the conservation work undertaken by the collection, and by the Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp as a whole; not only within the discussion of the exhibits, but also in distinct segments devoted to the captive breeding programmes, scientific research and ex-situ projects managed or supported by the Society; for instance within the wider discussion of the "Moorish Temple", within which the okapi held at Antwerp are displayed and housed, there is not only discussion of the history of the "Temple" in and of itself, and of the long tradition which Zoo Antwerpen has established of keeping the species in question, but also significant attention paid to the in-situ activities of the Society with regards to the protection of the species, as well as its status as the studbook coordinator for the overall captive breeding programme. Similarly, there is an entire segment devoted to discussing the various European and worldwide studbook programmes for which the Society is responsible.





Along with the copious attention paid to the historical and architectural heritage of the collection, the wide range of species displayed throughout, and the conservational and scientific work undertaken by the Royal Society, the final major through-line which is clearly apparent in the text and various photographs within this guidebook is the constant spotlight cast upon the botanical and artistic decoration found throughout Zoo Antwerpen, from the myriad statues, sculptures and mosaics to the numerous flower beds, avenues of trees and landscaped lawns which all contribute to giving the collection a sense of being much larger and more expansive than it actually is, with the thick vegetation in the heart of the zoo drowning out the sounds of the surrounding city.



As such, this guidebook does a very good job of representing Zoo Antwerpen, highlighting the strengths of the collection - its history, the conservation work it is involved with, the wide array of species which it holds and the sheer beauty of the zoo on architectural, botanical and artistic grounds - and making constant reference to the ongoing efforts of the collection to remain a relevant and developing in line with modern zoo practice.... something that other space-constrained city centre collections, such as London Zoo, have very much struggled with. When read by someone only familiar with Zoo Antwerpen on a general level, as those reading this thread who have never visited but have read about the collection many times on Zoochat will be, this guidebook is both enjoyable and informative. When read by someone who has actually visited the collection, as I have, the best summary and praise I can give is that it conveys the *feel* of Zoo Antwerpen rather well!

 

Day 17: Tierpark Berlin (1992) - Red Pandas



Page count: 96 (including index)
Photographs: 104 (c.50 in colour)
Illustrations/diagrams: One double-page image discussing elephants and the key differences between species
Layout: Comprehensive walkthrough account of collection.
Map: Fold-out map within back cover

So, we return to Tierpark Berlin - and by happy coincidence, this time we are discussing the guidebook which directly follows the 1989 edition previously featured in this thread. As such, whilst *that* guidebook marked the end of an era, being the last edition published at Tierpark Berlin before the end of the Cold War, and also the last written by the inaugural director of the collection Heinrich Dathe, this edition represents a new beginning for the Tierpark under a new Germany, a new Berlin and a new director.



When this guidebook was published three years had passed since the previous edition had been issued, and although the collection was by no means entirely out of the woods, the question of whether or not the re-united Berlin could support the existence of two separate zoos had been more or less settled; as such, the process of repairing and replacing those exhibits and enclosures which had suffered worst as a result of the economic conditions of 1980s East Berlin, further expanding the collection and generally-speaking developing Tierpark Berlin into a collection which could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the wealthier and more "modern" Zoo in the west had been able to begin in earnest under the new director, Bernhard Blaszkiewitz. Although the two Berlin collections remained independent from one another at this time, co-operation between the two definitely flourished from all that I know - doubtless due in part to the professional connection which Blaszkiewitz had to Zoo Berlin, having worked there in the 1980s. This may also have a bearing on the fact that the general style of the guidebooks issued at Tierpark Berlin during the post-reunification years - which were written by Blaszkiewitz in much the same way that Dathe had written the guidebooks issued prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall - changed slightly from that seen previously, to an aesthetic which in many ways matched the guidebooks issued by Zoo Berlin. However, one key difference between the guidebooks issued at the Tierpark in these years when compared to those released at their counterpart during the same timespan - something which I very much appreciate, as I shall doubtless mention at various points over the coming months - is that whilst the Zoo abandoned their tradition of using high-quality artwork for the front covers of their guidebooks and switched to the use of photographic covers, Tierpark Berlin continued to use paintings of various species in their collection. As was visible in the montage I uploaded at the weekend, the quality and range of these guidebook covers was one of the myriad features which makes these guidebooks so appealing to own and collect.





One aspect of the guidebooks issued by Tierpark Berlin which did not change, however, was the general walkthrough format within the main body of the text, carefully detailing the species held within each area and implicitly following a suggested route which the visitor could take through the collection. The level of detail within is extremely good - as was always the case with these guidebooks - but it must be said that the minor stylistic change of displaying the common name of a species in bold when first mentioned within the text (something which those reading this thread may well have noticed I have a tendency to do when writing my own zoo reviews and travel reports, a habit I picked up from the guidebooks released at the two Berlin collections in recent decades) makes the text much easier to follow than was the case in earlier editions. Another notable difference between this guidebook and the one which immediately preceded it, and a stylistic change which only improves the overall feel of the guidebook as a whole, is the fact that the distribution and density of colour photographs has increased by a significant margin - from perhaps a quarter of the total number of photographs and largely concentrated within the central pages of the guidebook in 1989, to nearly half of the total number distributed throughout the entirety of the text in 1992. As such, the wide variety of often unusual species displayed at the Tierpark is showcased here to a level which it never had been before.





At the end of the walkthrough account of Tierpark Berlin, a short segment follows which truly does symbolise the reunification of Berlin, and of Germany as a whole - a pair of pages advertising Zoo Berlin and giving an extremely-brief summary of some of the key highlights, both in terms of exhibits and species, and moreover providing photographs of two such highlights, the Komodo Dragons held there at the time and the group of Western Lowland Gorilla. A few short years before, the idea that either of these rival collections would be openly and actively trying to encourage people to visit their counterpart would have been undreamed-of; perhaps just as undreamed-of as the wider political events which allowed it to happen!

Beyond here, a detailed index of all species directly mentioned within the main body of the text, and a handful of advertisements (mostly for banks and security firms, as far as I can gather from my shaky understanding of the text) concludes the guidebook, before we reach the rather excellent and detailed fold-out map located within the interior back cover; unlike the map I highlighted within the 1989 edition, this is by no means a work of art and is very much a functional object, but is copiously-labelled and shows the layout of the footpaths and exhibits throughout the Tierpark to a high degree of accuracy. As such, it is without a shadow of a doubt a better map of the collection than those which preceded it, even if it is nowhere as attractive. With adjustments as the collection expanded, exhibits and species came and went, and areas of the Tierpark underwent new developments, this basic map would be the one which occurred within all of the guidebooks released by the collection until the final edition in 2013.



I'm pretty damn certain I have glossed over large swathes of the actual *contents* of this guidebook, so feel free to ask any and all questions about the species held, the exhibits discussed within, differences you may notice between the above map and the collection as it would later develop.... basically, anything goes for my part, I would be interested to learn whether any of the older Zoochatters reading this thread visited Tierpark Berlin in these pivotal years, and might have insights to share into the collection at the rough time this guidebook was published.

 

Of the six species in those photographs which I would classify as a rarity now....

Baikal Seal - three holders in Europe at the time of publication (barring Russia)
Harpy Eagle - six holders in Europe at the time of publication
Bay Owl - two holders in Europe at the time of publication
Shoebill - seven holders in Europe at the time of publication
Spruce Grouse - one holder in Europe at time of publication, and only two ever.
Sparkling Violetear - commonplace in Europe at the time of publication.

 

Day 18: Highland Wildlife Park (2006) - Explorers Guide



Page count: 15 (including rear cover)
Photographs: 27
Illustrations/diagrams: 24 (including two large diagrams showing relative size of species in collection)
Layout: Comprehensive walkthrough account of collection.
Map: Double-page map within centre of guidebook

This time round we come to a guidebook for one of my favourite UK collections - and, indeed, the first I ever visited. This particular item originates from a fairly significant point in the history of Highland Wildlife Park, being issued in the final year or so before the focus of the collection was significantly retooled, from strictly displaying species which were native to Scotland - whether present-day, historic or prehistoric - to the display of species native to mountainous and boreal habitats throughout the world. As such, it provides a rather interesting look at the status of HWP immediately before these massive changes took place, and does so in a rather appealing fashion; as I shall demonstrate anon, the best way to describe this guidebook is "short but choice" methinks.

This guidebook - as with many of the items I have discussed thus far - more or less comprises a walkthrough account of the species and exhibits within the collection in question, in this case divided into various ecological sub-sections and biomes, preceded by a general introduction to the collection. Given the relative brevity of this guidebook, the aforementioned significance it holds as a record of Highland Wildlife Park immediately before it ceased to focus purely on native fauna, and the fact that this collection is both one of the more highly-regarded amongst European zoo enthusiasts yet also one of the least-visited in relative terms due to how remote it is, I feel it is reasonably justified to discuss the individual segments of this guidebook in more detail than I have for some of the preceding items in this thread. This will, I think, allow me to fully illustrate the quality in content and presentation visible within. I will also list each of the species mentioned in the text, highlighting in bold italics those which are still displayed at Highland Wildlife Park now.



The guidebook opens with a brief summary detailing the focus of Highland Wildlife Park at the time of release, before noting the fact that the guidebook segments and the map within are all colour-coded to match the signposts and educational material within the collection; this is stated to be a deliberate choice to allow the reader of the guidebook to quite literally use it as a guide around the collection during their visit, something which several zoo guides attempt to do but due to either the length of the guidebook, or the quality of the contents within, is easier said than done. Having never visited the collection during this timespan, with all of my visits coming either significantly earlier or rather later, I can only make an educated guess at how well it would have achieved this objective; however, given the brevity of the guidebook, the format and presentation, and the content of the text I suspect it probably served this purpose well.

Beyond here, the text moves onto discussion of various aspects of the "Main Reserve" of Highland Wildlife Park; that is to say, the sizeable drive-through area which was, and is, stocked with the larger hoofstock within the species collection at HWP. This segment is a particular highlight of the guidebook I feel, pointing out the glacial features dotted throughout the reserve (erratic boulders, morraines and drumlins), discussing the native vegetation and forest which once blanketed the Scottish Highlands, and highlighting the various species of wild birds - especially waders such as curlew, redshank and woodcock - which breed within the reserve over the summer months.



Overleaf, this section of the guidebook contains a rather excellent diagram of the various hoofstock species held within the reserve with a human figure to scale, along with short descriptions of the various species in question; these make note of various aspects of their behaviour and biology, discuss their place within the native fauna of Scotland, and in some cases make allusions to the extinct taxa they are standing-in for.

Species held within the Main Reserve at this time were as follows:

• Domestic Reindeer
• Red Deer
• Mouflon
• Highland Cattle
• Przewalski's Horse
• Soay Sheep
• European Bison.

The next pair of exhibit complexes discussed are "Animals Of The Past", a segment devoted to species which had once been native to Scotland but which had been extirpated over the centuries; and "Forest Habitat", which as the name would tend to suggest focused on various species native to the ancient Caledonian forest which once covered vast stretches of the Scottish Highlands,. Each species account - as is the case throughout the remainder of this guidebook - is accompanied by a small cartoon symbol which is replicated on the collection map within the centre pages, and much like the accounts within the "Main Reserve" segment of the text are short - seldom more than a sentence or so - but provide a pretty good range of information detailing key features of the species in question. Given the fact that this general layout is replicated throughout the species and exhibit accounts within the guidebook, the below image of these particular pages can be taken as a fairly good representation of those that follow.



Species held within "Animals Of The Past" are listed as follows:

• Eurasian Lynx
• Red-billed Chough
• European Wolf
• European Forest Reindeer
• Wild Boar

Incidentally, this area of the collection was located in the general area where Snow Leopard, Markhor and Polar Bear can be found now, as far as can be judged from the map.

Species held within "Forest Habitat" are listed as follows:

• European Polecat
• Scottish Wildcat
• European Eagle-owl
• Pine Marten
• Red Squirrel (wild)
• Capercaillie

Beyond this point, we reach the central pages, where the above map can be found; as can be seen it is somewhat more stylised and cartoonish than the current map, but nonetheless is clearly labelled with key information - including the aforementioned symbols for each species discussed within the guidebook - and suits the overall aesthetic of the guidebook well.

The next sub-section of the guidebook pertains to an area of the collection which, as far as I can tell, is now located somewhere in the rough vicinity of the Siberian Tiger exhibit complex and was devoted to "Moorland Habitat" - judging from the text, this area contained a small area of strip-burned heather used as an educational tool for discussing this particular ecological biome within the Scottish Highlands, along with an exhibit for the native Red Grouse. The guidebook then discusses the "Tundra Habitat" found within the various high plateaux of the Cairngorms, within which the two species displayed in this area at the time of publication - and uniquely for this guidebook, still displayed in the exact same area of the collection today - are cited as Arctic Fox and Snowy Owl.

The guidebook then continues the walkthrough account of the collection with discussion of the "Wetland Habitat" of Scotland; as can be seen from the map, this was not one discrete area of Highland Wildlife Park but represented two or three sections within the site, all broadly linked by the ecosystem which they represented. For instance, mention is made here of a large lochan running alongside the Visitor Centre which was used by various species of wintering and breeding waterfowl - the current location of the Japanese Macaque exhibit - and of a small vivarium exhibit containing a number of native reptiles and amphibians, designed to resemble the source of a river.

Species held within "Wetland Habitat" are listed as follows:

• European Otter
• Slow Worm
• Common Lizard
• Palmate Newt
• Beaver
• European Elk

The final ecosystem discussed within the guidebook represents the "Woodland Habitat", an area which appears to have been located within the general footprint of the current Red Panda exhibit and its environs, and which was devoted to the species native to the broadleaf woodland which once covered the vast majority of the UK; it is noted within the text that whilst very little native broadleaf woodland survives in Scotland, as recently as the 1950s almost the entire site on which Highland Wildlife Park is located was covered by such habitat.

Species held within "Woodland Habitat" are listed as follows:

• Tawny Owl
• European Badger
• Red Fox
• Black Grouse

Beyond here, the walkthrough account of the collection ends with a second diagram, very much akin to that shown within the account of the "Main Reserve", showing the relative sizes of several of the species discussed over the preceding pages - both in comparison to one another and to a human being - after which the guidebook itself concludes with a rather attractive segment showing a compilation of various photographs taken at Highland Wildlife Park at different points across the year, alongside brief sentences explaining the images in question, with the general aim of depicting the wide range of captive and wild life-cycles taking place within the collection.



As I noted at the start of this particular review, I am rather taken with this guidebook; although it is not very long, and the species accounts are the very opposite of detailed, it nonetheless performs the task at hand - promoting the collection, guiding the visitor throughout the collection and helping to give an insight into the motivation and focus of the collection... and thus, the wide variety of interlinked ecosystems which once spanned Scotland, along with the rest of the UK, and which now survive only in a stunted and impoverished form. Much as I very much like the "new" Highland Wildlife Park, and think that it is a better collection now in all relevant aspects, reading this guidebook does make me wish that more collections like *this* Highland Wildlife Park still existed now.

As ever, any questions, remarks or observations are very much welcome!

 

We have the massive monoculture plantations of Scots Pine here too - the issue is precisely that they are monocultural with no other vegetation present, a million miles away from the varied and diverse (but Scots Pine dominated) Caledonian Forest of times past, rife with mosses, lichens, juniper, birch and aspen as well as the pines, and representing the western extent of the temperate rainforest which one covered much of western Europe.

 

Day 19: Southampton Zoo (c.1970) - Assorted animal heads



Page count: 8
Photographs: 7
Illustrations/diagrams: N/A
Layout: Summary of species held in collection
Map: Located within inside front cover.

This one will be a *very* short discussion, both due to the fact that the item in question is very brief and somewhat insubstantial - more or less comprising an introduction to the collection, followed by a summary of some of the species held there at the time of publication - and more importantly because I know little-to-nothing about Southampton Zoo off the top of my head, barring the information I have learned from this guidebook, that it was more-or-less a "holding site" for the various more well-known Chipperfield collections, and that a few years prior to the publication of this guidebook the zoo was the home to a Northern White Rhinoceros subsequently shipped to the United States.

To be honest, given the fact that the collection closed down nearly 40 years ago I *was* tempted to scan the entirety of this guidebook for inclusion in the thread, so as to maximise the potential for discussion, but I didn't want to stray too far into the murky realms of copyright despite the unlikelihood of anyone having a vested interest in the collecton now! As such I shall content myself with providing three images (which still comprise around 50% of the total text) as examples of the whole.



As the above map shows, Southampton Zoo appears to have been a fairly small collection - perhaps not much larger than the present-day Shaldon Wildlife Trust to be honest - and not a particularly exceptional one. That said, as far as zoo maps within guidebooks go, this is actually a pretty good one, being well-labelled and very clear in design; increasingly there is a trend towards the flashy, confusing and not particularly informative I feel. The introduction to the collection is pretty standard - nothing astonishing or out of the ordinary, but it serves the stated purpose perfectly well.... and of course, the fact it pertains to a closed collection *does* add a little extra interest value in retrospect!



The guidebook then goes onto the species accounts which more-or-less form the remainder of the text; these are very much akin to those we have seen in various of the items we have discussed thus far, with the closest similarity being to the Riber Castle guidebook; appropriately enough given the fact they originate from roughly the same timespan, and the same general collection "niche" - that is to say, both represent guidebooks from the rash of small UK collections which opened throughout the 1960s and 1970s and ultimately faltered.

Many of the species mentioned throughout the text are discussed only in the most general terms - mention is made of "various species of deer and antelope", "a wide and varied selection of birds...both free and in large aviaries" and "rhinos and hippos" with very little indication of precisely which species are held - even where specifics are discussed, such as when the difference between Black Rhinoceros and White Rhinoceros is briefly mentioned, it is not always clear which species were *actually* held within the collection; as previously noted, at one point Southampton did hold a single Northern White Rhinoceros, but as far as the efforts of the Bartlett Society have been able to glean, this particular guidebook originates from after this timespan.

However, specific taxa *are* sometimes highlighted - very few are worthy of particular note as oddities now, of course, but it should be noted that given the timespan in question the discussion of the "Indian or Royal Bengal" tigers in the collection *may* actually pertain to genuine pure-blooded stock, as Bengal were indeed found in the true form in UK collections at this time. Of course, given the fact that even then "zoomix" tigers were generally referred to by this moniker as well, we will probably never know for sure. One other aspect of the section of text discussing tigers does amuse and intrigue me however; reference is made to Siberian and Korean races as if they were distinct, and the Bali Tiger (which was extirpated by the 1930s) is referred to in the present tense, yet neither Caspian nor Javan Tiger - both of which were, just about, still extant at the time - are mentioned whatsoever. I can only assume that the Bali and Javan populations were being regarded as synonymous by the author of this guidebook, in which case it is possible the reference to "Siberian" tiger pertains to the Caspian population and "Korean" to the populations we now call Siberian or Amur Tiger.



As can be seen above, after the species accounts conclude, this guidebook rapidly winds up with a brief conclusion, a summary of feeding times and other notes for visitors, and information on public transport to the zoo.

So, a short account relating to a short guidebook for a (relatively) short-lived collection there have been odds and ends of information posted on Zoochat about Southampton Zoo over the years, mostly just snippets of information given in passing, but as noted I really know very little about the collection... as do the vast majority of those reading this thread. However, I *do* know that at least three members of this forum *did* visit Southampton Zoo - in some cases their experience of the collection may well pertain to a later point in time than that covered by this guidebook, but this strikes me as an opportune time and place to ask them to post any thoughts, recollections or opinions which they may have to offer.

As such, I humbly ask @Tim May , @Pertinax and @FBBird for their insights