Zoo Books

Well, well, well, my 'zoo map trading buddy' @Arek is the king of zoo literature and he has a ton of zoo books in his collection. One day I'm going to have to embark on a big zoo trip through Poland and I'll set aside a day so that I can ransack his home...haha! @Arek , how many books do you have in total, including annual zoo guidebooks? I'm guessing thousands.

Those two American zoo guides (Texas and Michigan) are ones that I'd never heard of before and I'm tempted to buy them both. A number of the European books also interest me, but most are not in English and that is unfortunate as I cannot read any other language.

 

You are cordially welcome!
I have 330 zoo books including photo books, 2200 zoo guides and 750 annual reports. Yes, language is a problem so several books in "exotic" languages I have for pictures or just for collection .
But my two friends in Poland have much, much bigger collections.

 

The grandfather of them all,probably great grandfather or more now, is CVA Peel and "The Zoological Gardens of Europe"(1903) and of course the legendary"Histoire des Menageries" from Gustaf Loisel (1912) deals with all the current collections of the world(including quite a number of photographs) in the third volume. As for North America,i can add the 1995 book "Aquariums of North America. by James M Hillard_hardback,no illustrations, rather dull overall. From Britain "Wildlife 74-6",a rather basic guide to zoos and aquariums with black and white pictures. And from Spain " Guia de los Zoos ,Safaris y Aquarios de Espana". A late eighties publication with low quality photographs of low quality enclosures. Somewhere(as only half of my book collection is thus far sorted and i have thousands) I also have a book "Zoos all over China"..Ive a feeling there are others.

 

And to Arek...yes there is a book about the zoos of Wisconsin! Its called "Museums, Zoos and Botanical Gardens of Wisconsin"from 2006. I have it somewhere (see above problem)and dont remember it being anything more than perfunctory.

 

When was this published?

 

June 1995

 

Tainted Blood by A. P, Wolf. FeedARead Publishing 2020

This is a book that stirred up a lot of strong opinion among zoochatters just from the advertising blurb, and I was encouraged to read this book from the lively responses it stimulated. I have now read the book, which aroused many mixed emotions. Tinted Blood is primarily about the history of some ungulates in zoos and the people who trapped them and dealt in them. The book is mainly about Grevy’s Zebra, Scimitar-Horned Oryx and Bongo, with some discussion about Roan Antelope and Przewalski’s Horse, and other ungulates have walk on parts. The book discusses the role and functioning of zoos and especially Marwell Zoo, in UK. It is written by A. P. Wolf, a pseudonym (?) for an ex-keeper from Marwell Zoo. It is an interesting and informative car-crash of a book. The author comes across as having an axe to grind, even though chapter twelve starts with “It is important to stress that this is not intended as a diatribe specifically against Marwell Zoo, but rather as a robust critique of the past and present management techniques employed by the majority of zoos……”. A robust critique it may be, but not in any scientific sense. However the author raises many of the issues that plague modern zoos, lack of room, inability to keep large numbers of many species, turnover of species, and a lack of a long-term vision for the species’ conservation. These are the realities of the industry that we need to work to improve; it is not helpful to do a hatchet job.

Open and objective debates about zoos are needed and we must not hide from failures but understand and learn not to repeat them. Most would agree that zoos are not perfect and must always strive for improvement. The book is full of fascinating facts and figures, explosive claims, accusations and speculation. The author is clearly knowledgeable and done a lot of research. While the book provides a great deal of information it is difficult to know how reliable it is. There is no preface, no background to the author and her/his experiences, no footnotes to explain the source of the claims, no index, no appendices and no page numbers. The author does refer to studbooks, books, talks and correspondence although these are infrequently and inadequately quoted for a critical work of this sort. This makes it of limited value; how are we to judge what the claims are based upon?

In the opening chapter we are told that Lord Morton’s efforts to hybridise a Quagga stallion and a horse was the first ever captive breeding programme; the story is garbled and it is implied Quagga’s came from East Africa. How many more stories are misleading?

The book is mostly clearly written, passionate and sometimes lyrical, although it also contains cringe-worthy, emotive language that undermines objective credibility.

Much of the text is about the trapping and trade of ungulates from Africa. The zoo world has always been associated with the animal trade, although with the development of cooperative breeding programmes the reliance of many zoos upon dealers of wild animals is now much diminished. The apparent collapse of many ungulate populations in East Africa in the 1970’s is attributed, by the author, to the excessive harvesting of animals for zoos. High mortality during capture, quarantine and transport are recorded for several species and these figures, some from a century ago, are extrapolated unrealistically to more recent times. It is suggested that the high take for zoos may have affected both the genetic diversity and population biology of the source populations of Grevy’s Zebra and Bongo and driven the wild Scimitar-horned Oryx to extinction. However these claims cannot reliably be made with the quality of the data given. There is the suggestion that Western Bongo may have been traded as the very much rarer Eastern Bongo resulting in the current captive population that is possibly a mix of races and that Bongos have also been hybridized with Sitatunga.

The open hostility to zoos, and Marwell in particular, made me feel uncomfortable. The author is not describing the people and zoos I know. Zoos are described as “Misplaced follies of madness, insanity and confusion with no real intent, meaning or purpose.” The complex politics of zoo driven conservation initiatives appall the author, although in my experience these complexities are common to many of our efforts to look after biodiversity world-wide. Of course this does not mean that we cannot improve how we save species and habitats. The conservation initiatives for the managed Scimitar-horned Oryx populations in Tunisia, and Przewalski’s Horse in Mongolia and elsewhere, are criticized although in a rapidly changing world we are increasingly going to have to learn how to manage populations if we want to keep them, and there will be mistakes made along the way.

This is a cynical, angry book which could have done with a good editor going through it and taking out the vitriol, repetition and bias, and ensuring that the claims were substantiated. The author promises a sequel and I hope we can have more transparent scholarship and optimism. This could have been an important text, since there are lessons to be learnt, giving the history of trade out of East Africa, of some species in captivity and of conservation initiatives. Instead we have a rant that will irritate, or is more likely to be ignored.

 

As far as I know, there have been Bongo x Sitatunga hybrids (Planckendael...), but these never fed back into the Bongo breeding program...

 

Bongo x sitatunga hybrids were born at Antwerp Zoo; I think that the Planckendael animal was probably one of the Antwerp born hybrids. It is interesting to note that these hybrids were fertile; a female hybrid gave birth after mating with a sitatunga.

 

Hat tip to you for being the one to read this, and write such a thorough review. The part I quoted is my biggest issue, something I'd questioned the author about during their brief time here. Any book that even attempts to seem credible will have some sort of index or notes with sources. Given the two major lies they posted on this forum - first that they were the first studbook keeper for grevy's zebra, and then that they weren't the author of the book, which included saying they hadn't finished reading it, ordered it online, etc - I have no trust in their claims. I see no reason to not include sources if you're putting in all of that effort to find them in the first place.

 

I’m so glad Carl has reviewed this book. I now don’t have to, and suspect it would have made my blood boil.

 

It might have tainted your blood *pun intended*

 

Is anyone interested in buying 2 copies of Fowler and Cubas. 2001. Biology, Medicine and Surgery of South American Wild Animals. both in excellent condition at reasonable pricesl

 

The author has already largely revealed herself, and from her deep knowledge clearly was a hand's on animal person in a responsible position in Marwell and I believe was the studbook compiler and keeper for the Grevy's Zebra in the early 1980s.

 

What makes you think this person was the actual studbook keeper?

 

I wouldn't put it past the author to have picked the username with those initials on purpose, knowing someone might think that. It's very disappointing if true.

 

@snowleopard Is: America's Top 100 Zoos & Aquariums: The essential guide to America's most important zoological establishments, available to buy in the U.S.A? It definitely looks like a good book looking it up. I cant seem to buy it anywhere in the U.S. however.

 

For some reason I think @snowleopard knows what the book is.