IT’S 9 am on a Friday morning and I am being stared at by a gorilla. He blinks, I blink back, and then hastily look away, not fancying my chances against a great ape. This is a normal encounter at ZSL London Zoo, which re-opened in April after restrictions were lifted. Once upon a time, it had a bear pit, but the raucous crowds of the 18th century are long gone. Instead, a Covidcompliant one-way system is in action, guiding visitors decorously from penguin to post.
‘In 1828, the zoo had an orangutan, an Arabian oryx and a now-extinct thylacine on display’
The zoo was established in Regent’s Park, NW1, in 1826, by Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of modern Singapore, and the chemist Sir Humphry Davy. In April 1828, it opened for the first time to fellows of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), with an orangutan, an Arabian oryx, and the now-extinct thylacine, a carnivorous marsupial, among other creatures, on display. Given a Royal Charter by George IV the following year, the zoo opened to the public in 1847. A list published in 1883 of ‘the vertebrate animals now or lately living in the gardens of the Zoological Society of London’ runs to more than 700 pages, listing an extraordinary array of creatures, from the yellow-legged herring gull to the crab-eating opossum. An official guide, published in 1911 and sold for sixpence, listed a ‘polar bears’ pond’, a ‘mouse-house’ and a ‘deer and cattle house.
Denne historien er fra June 02, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra June 02, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds