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Happy Birthday to ZSL London Zoo
Friday 25 April 2008
ZSL London Zoo celebrates 180 years of being open, showing the animals of the world in the centre of London.
© ZSL
This bank holiday we have an action packed programme of events for visitors to enjoy including, animals in action, penguin feeding time, meet the monkeys and many other exciting events. Come along and experience a number of exciting exhibits, including Gorilla Kingdom, the Clore Rainforest Lookout and our new tropical bird walk-through in the Blackburn Pavilion.
ZSL London Zoo was the world’s first scientific zoo, opening on the April 27th 1828 and attracting 98,605 visitors in the first year.
The First live animals received by ZSL were a griffon vulture, a white headed eagle called Dr. Brooks (after its donor) and a female deer. Though not yet open to the public at this time, by 1827 the zoo housed 200 animals in ‘suitable dens, aviaries and paddocks’ reported the Literary Gazette, ‘including two beautiful llamas, a leopard, kangaroos, a Russian bear, etc, etc, beside a pair of emus, cranes, gulls, gannets, cormorants’ and various birds. Many of the animals were Royal gifts – George IV was Patron of the society and royals visited regularly.
Today ZSL is an international scientific, conservation and educational organisation; our mission is the conservation of animals and their habitats. A registered charity, ZSL relies almost entirely on income from visitors to ZSL London Zoo and ZSL Whipsnade Zoo to fund our wide-ranging conservation work.
ZSL also owns an extensive zoological library and produces internationally renowned scientific publications. Our two zoos contain more than 850 different species, the largest and most varied collection in Britain. ZSL also has the largest collection of reptiles in Britain.
We now have a selection of historical photos available to buy on our print website including many stunning photos of animals from the zoos today.
