I am trying to find out more about an animal-collecting expedition organised to British Guiana (Guyana) in 1962 by a member of Jersey Zoo's staff and Bob Veerasawmy. The main objective was to capture animals to be divided between the two zoos. I read somewhere that the expedition obtained a manatee or manatees for London Zoo, but a search in the International Zoo Year Books for 1962 and 1963 show no mention of a manatee or manatees at London Zoo at that time. Can anyone throw light on this matter?
I have vague memory of Manatee(two?) at London Zoo in a large corner exhibit in the Reptile House. Not sure of date but that era would be about right.
London Zoo did acquire a West Indian manatee in 1962; it is recorded in the ZSL Annual Report for that year. London Zoo manatees in that era were housed in the large tank in the corner of the Aquarium. (Early London Zoo manatees were kept in what was then the Reptile House (now the Bird House) but that was long before our time.)
Since my earlier post, after consulting the London Zoo Daily Occurrences Books for 1962 and 1963, I can now supply a little more information about this animal. The manatee was purchased from Robert Veerasawmy on 10th July 1962. Sadly this animal didn't live long; it died on 7th March 1963 after about eight months in the zoo. (I saw this manatee in the London Zoo Aquarium when I was a very young child.)
In 1955, one was brought back from British Guiana by David Attenborough and John Yealland, along with 130 birds of 54 taxa - The results of the second BBC ZooQuest expedition. The manatee is discussed in Sir David in the first of his Zooquest books, and in a National Geographic article written around that time.
Actually, according to the ZSL Annual Report for 1955, the Zoo Quest Expedition to Guiana brought back two West Indian manatees for the zoo. The ZSL Annual Report for 1955 has a section on the Zoo Quest Expedition to British Guiana. According to this, the expedition collected twenty-three mammals, one hundred and twenty-six birds, twenty-two reptiles, eight amphibians, two fish and over two hundred invertebrates. In addition to the manatees, a few animals are specifically mentioned including three giant anteaters, a tamandua, a capybara, a young Brazilian tapir, some capuchin monkeys, a spotted cavy, a rat-tailed opossum, a cock-of-the-rock, two hoatzins, some humming birds, an anaconda, a matamata terrapin and two electric eels. The Annual Report's appendix lists all the mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians (but not the fish and invertebrates) that the zoo obtained during the year. Unfortunately, though, it doesn’t identify what specimens were acquired as a result of the Zoo Quest Expedition so it's difficult to get an accurate list of the species received from that expedition.
There is a list of all the 130 birds of 54 taxa from this Zoo Quest expedition, on pages 260-261 of the 1955 Avicultural Magazine (Sept/Oct, Vol.61, No.5)
