Dean Fredrickson, age 10, of Cleveland, Ohio, for his question:
WHEN DID THE FIRST ZOO OPEN?
Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt established the earliest known zoo back in about 1500 B. C. And then about 500 years later the Chinese emperor Wen Wang founded the Garden of Intelligence, an enormous zoo that covered about 1 500 acres.
Between the years 1000 B.C. and 400 B.C., kings from northern Africa: India and China established many small zoos. These zoos were designed to display the wealth and power of the ruler.
The ancient Greeks established public zoos as places for the study of animal and plant life. Greek students visited the local zoo as part of their education.
The Romans had many private zoos. They kept a large public collection of wild animals however, for use in the bloody fights in the Colosseum.
During the Middle Ages from about A.D. 400 to 1500, zoos became rare in Europe. The world's largest zoo at this time was in China.
In 1519, the Spaniards discovered a large zoo built by the Aztec Indians in what is now Mexico.
During the next 250 years, a number of zoos were established in Europe.
The oldest zoo still in existence in the Schonbrunn Zoo, which
opened in Vienna, Austria in 1752. The Madrid Zoo in Spain was
established in 1775 and the Paris Zoo, the third oldest zoo in continuous
operation. opened in France in 1793. The Berlin Zoo, which became
a leader in research of animal behavior opened in Germany in 1844.
The first zoo in the United States was the Philadelphia Zoological Society that was chartered in 1859. But the Civil War delayed construction of the Philadelphia Zoo which did not open until 1874. The Central Park Zoo in New York opened in 1864, followed by the Buffalo Zoo in New York in 1870 and Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo in 1874.
Congress established the United States National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C., in 1889. This zoo is the only one operated by the federal government.
The first Canadian zoo opened in Toronto in 1887.
In 1907 a German animal dealer named Karl Hagenbeck developed the moat technique of displaying animals.
The first children's zoo in the United States opened at the Philadelphia Zoo in 1938.
By the mid 1940s, zoologists knew that many species of animals faced extinction in the wild. Zoos realized that they could help preserve some of these species and began to develop breeding programs. Previously. most zoos had tried to display at least one member of as many different species as possible. Few zoos owned more than one or two animals of a rare species. Today, as a result of the policy of deveoping breeding herds, many zoos own several animals of the same species.