Memorials to individual animals in zoos

Thank you for sharing @Jude T, it is quite a nice memorial for "Numar" IMO.

 

The statue shows a fully adult male though- at 8 years old Kartiko would not have looked like this.

 

... from Meerkat manor, the documentary. She was leader of the whiskers clan and the “main character” hence the queen title.

 

Suggest you reread down the thread. The plaque is for Kartiko, the statue not.

 

So she was originally wild caught ?

 

I thought this was quite funny, a bit tongue in cheek and some might find it a bit in bad taste but worth sharing.

 

I too remember that plaster cast, and feel the same way about. For many years there was a dent (covered with glass) in the Giraffe House wall, where a Giraffe had taken a swing at a keeper. That too seems to have disappeared.

 

Ok, well that is interesting, I have no idea why there would be a plaque to her in a US zoo then.

Of course some people might find it moving but I myself personally do not find it so and actually it is more than a little bizarre to me.

If they are willing to create plaques for meerkats which are not endangered in the wild then why not for wild individuals of critically endangered species that are the subject of long term field research ?

 

I also remember the glass-covered dent in the Giraffe House wall; the late Clin Keeling told me it was preserved when the building was renovated but I don't know what became of it.

I can confirm, though, the plaster cast of the hippo calf is definitely still safely stored at the zoo; I have seen it.

 

The bull Asiatic elephant "Jubilee" was born at Chester Zoo in 1977; the first successful elephant birth in the UK. He died in Belfast Zoo in 2003.

 

I don't know if he is in the gallery, probably not as he was off display for at least the last decade of life I believe. But this is off their site.

 

Mr Wrinkley's original post says 'his statue and plaque' so I presumed it was supposed to be of Kartiko as well. The fact it was put up some years later doesn't alter that, but I suspect in reality its just a generic Orangutan sculpture.

 

It could also represent what could’ve been and that he’d have looked like that if he’d grown up.

 

The Izmir Zoo has a memorial for PakBahadir, a very famous elephant bull. I died before he was going to be transferred to the newer park.

Pic ture belongs to the Izmir Municipality

 

He looks overjoyed with his birthday cake

 

Izmir zoo is in Turkey I assume ?

 

yes

 

Its great that they gave PakBahadir a memorial isn't it ?

I think it shows that they must have cared greatly for this elephant.