Imagine, it is 1916 and you are a child going to visit the zoo. It has only opened on the new site recently, moving from Moore Park, and it took them such a long time to build all the enclosures, but you are sure it will be the best zoo ever - so grand and new. Daddy tells you that, if you are good, you can even see the elephants in their Temple, and you might even get to ride one!
When I took these old postcards of Taronga Zoo and its predecessor at Moore Park the children were quite shocked. They see the zoo as somewhere 'for animals', a place where people try their hardest to give animals a good life and to learn about and help them in the wild. They thought the idea of riding elephants was 'cool, but not what zoos should do', and the pictures of big cats in concrete cages were 'very sad'. They were particularly upset by the monkey, which to them 'looked so sad'. Although many of the heritage features of the zoo are still there (and Roy will visit these another time), the children don't really seem to notice them and so don't realise that the zoo they see today is very different to the zoo which was first established at Taronga.
Zoos had been around in one form or another for thousands of years, being used to keep and display exotic animals. The oldest zoo we know of was found during excavations in Hierakonpolis in Egypt in 2009 and is thought to date from over 5000 years ago! At first though, zoos were just for Royalty and the rich and were often known as private menageries. In fact the oldest zoo to still be operating today is the Vienna Zoo in Austria. In 1752 the Emperor and Empress established a private menagerie with exotic animals and in the 1770s, the public started to be allowed to visit. Although this was not the first time the public were able to see exotic animals, the fact that this zoo still exists today makes it unique.
When Taronga Zoo was first built, the role of zoos was still very much to display animals for the pleasure of visitors and little thought was given to ensuring that the animals were happy. At first, zoos were a little like jails for animals, keeping the animals locked up. The cages, often described as 'Temples' or 'Houses' were very beautiful and ornate from the visitors point of view, but were often too small for the animals and had little to keep them occupied. Then, zoos started think more along the lines of art exhibitions with live exhibits. They didn't want bars in the way and they wanted to display the animals in the best way to make them look good. Minimalism and modernist art was popular and many enclosures dating from this time reflect these artistic movements. Zoos also wanted to keep up with modern ideas about health and dealing with germs so lots of concrete was used to ensure the enclosures could be easily cleaned. It wasn't until later in the 20th century that people started to think about making zoos comfortable places for animals. Conservation and education started to be important parts of what zoos did, and instead of giving the animals a backdrop, zoos started to give them a habitat which was similar to where they came from.
