Berggren's Beasts - by Sigvard Berggren This 1969 publication essentially covers the first 5 years of "Boras Animal Park", now known as Boras Zoo. That Swedish establishment is most famous for its immense African Savanna, a large paddock that is, according to the zoo's website, 5.68 acres in size. Sigvard Berggren, the founder of the zoo, believed in natural-looking exhibits and that "buildings in an animal park must exist but they must not be visible. It is the free-run enclosures which must dominate the scene". Berggren's book details the arrival of the animals for the brand-new zoo and there are a fascinating few chapters discussing the enormous African Savanna and how all of the species were gradually released into the exhibit. African Elephants, Southern White Rhinos, Reticulated Giraffes, Grant's Zebras, White-Tailed Wildebeest, Ostriches and Vulturine Guineafowl were all in the same exhibit and with a few changes much of the habitat remains similar today. Looking at the current zoo map, even famously volatile Cape Buffalo are part of the mixed-species Savanna, with the rhinos now sharing an adjacent exhibit with Cheetahs. Sigvard Berggren appeared to be ahead of his time in the 1960's for establishing a zoo with many spacious, natural-looking environments for animals but he was clearly a product of his time when it came to going in with the animals. The first couple of chapters deals with his love for lions as he used to own a lion park before opening the zoo, and to read sentences such as "I could feel the lioness starting to dig her claws into my thighs" paints a grim portrait of a man who took chances with his captive critters. Berggren thought nothing of going into exhibits and handling lions, elephants, rhinos, wildebeest, zebras, etc., or having wolverines and baboons roam freely amongst visitors in his zoo. "The wolverine cubs grew up in very free conditions. It wasn't long before they started making far too many distant foraging expeditions among the visitors." Or this funny start of a sentence: "Anyone who has seen a baboon coming out of the restaurant..." and I can guess that Swedish animal laws were a bit lenient back in the day. There are many spectacular tales of adventures and I really enjoyed the analysis of a brand-new zoo finding its feet, slowly integrating large African animals into an enormous Savanna and I'd highly recommend the book to all zoo enthusiasts. The book is 149 pages in length but as a bonus does have an additional 28 pages of photos. Seeing elephants, lions and zebras trudging through snow in a harsh Swedish winter is a rather exceptional sight. Scott Richardson
Thanks for another great review @snowleopard, sounds like it is well worth a read. I have an earlier book from the same author, Freedom Forest (1962), which I have yet to read, but will review here when I get to it. It seems to deal with the lion park and trips to Africa, so presumably predates the establishment of Boras Zoo.
