Zoos have produced some truly unforgettable stories over the years, from clever animal escapes and unlikely friendships to remarkable acts of compassion and moments that left zookeepers completely baffled. These fascinating zoo facts reveal just how unpredictable life can be when humans and animals share the same space.
White Tigers Suffer Inbreeding
1. Many white tigers in zoos are white due to repeated, forced inbreeding, and they are almost always born with genetic defects.
2. There is a disorder called “Zoochosis” that most animals develop from being confined in zoos, such as repeated pacing, rocking, vomiting and even self mutilation. These behaviors are not seen in the wild and are displayed only because of their captivity.
3. During World War 2, trained elephants at a zoo in Tokyo were starved to death. Throughout the ordeal, they repeatedly performed their tricks in fruitless attempts to get fed.
4. During his 1835 visit to the Galápagos Islands on his round-the-world survey expedition, Charles Darwin collected a Galápagos tortoise known as Harriet; she lived to be 175 years old and died of heart failure at the Australia Zoo in 2006.
5. Maruyama Zoo in Japan spent four years trying to mate a pair of hyenas before realizing that both animals were male.
6. Animal handlers at the Oregon Zoo introduced Chendra, an Asian elephant, to several other animals, and she showed a clear preference for the sea lions.
7. Because the baboons had come from a French zoo and did not respond to English commands, zookeepers in England learned French so they could communicate with them.
8. Sibu, an orangutan at a zoo in Apeldoorn, Netherlands, rejected all attempts to mate with female orangutans and displayed sexual interest only in his female human caretakers, particularly favoring blonde women with tattoos.
9. In 1996, a three-year-old boy fell into the gorilla enclosure at the Brookfield Zoo. A mother gorilla (Binti Jua) rescued him and cradled him until the zookeepers arrived.
10. Zoos around the world are raising cheetah kittens alongside puppy companions to help the cheetahs expend excess energy, learn social cues, and reduce stress.
China’s Panda Leasing Program
11. China owns all pandas. It leases them to zoos for $1 million per year per panda, with agreements that last at least 10 years.
12. The 1889 World’s Fair in Paris, famous for the construction and unveiling of the Eiffel Tower, included a “Negro Zoo” that displayed 400 black people in cages as an attraction.
13. A chimp named Santino at Sweden’s Furuvik Zoo collected circular discs of concrete, stockpiled them, and saved them until he could throw them at visitors. “Nothing like it has as yet been reported from the wild, nor from any captive chimpanzees”.
14. In 2008, a seven-year-old Australian boy broke into a reptile zoo, killed 13 reptiles, and then fed them to a resident 440-pound, 11-foot saltwater crocodile.
15. Edinburgh Zoo runs a voluntary daily penguin parade, which can be canceled if the penguins do not wish to go outside that day.
16. In the 1988 mayoral election in Rio de Janeiro, voters were so displeased with politicians that a famous zoo monkey, Macaco Tião, received over 400,000 votes.
17. Paignton Zoo in Britain banned feeding bananas to monkeys for health reasons.
18. In North American zoos, heart disease is the leading cause of death for male Western lowland gorillas. To address this, Cleveland Metropark Zoo doubled the gorillas’ intake of leafy greens, which led to a 65 pound weight loss in the gorillas.
19. At Marine Park in Japan, the otter enclosure has small holes that allow zoo visitors to shake hands with the otters.
20. In 2015 a group of penguins escaped from their enclosure at a zoo in Denmark, but their footprints revealed their location and led to their recapture.
Orangutan Mastermind Roams Zoo
21. Ken Allen (1971 to 2000) was an orangutan at the San Diego Zoo who escaped three times; other orangutans began imitating him and escaping as well. He even fooled zookeepers when they posed as visitors, and during his escapes Ken would calmly stroll around the zoo looking at other animals.
22. A parrot at the Pyongyang Central Zoo can squawk the English phrase ‘Long live the Great Leader, Comrade Kim Il-sung’.
23. The creator of Rocko’s Modern Life conceived the idea for the show after seeing a wallaby at a zoo that seemed too oblivious to the chaos around it.
24. Elizabeth Derkosh attempted to sue the Pittsburgh Zoo for negligence (and other claims) after she dropped her two-year-old son into a pit containing African wild dogs.
25. Betty White is a huge animal lover who would have become a zookeeper had she not gone into acting. She rejected a role in “As Good As It Gets” because of an animal cruelty scene. She visits local zoos when traveling, and she’s been a long-term board member and generous donor to the Los Angeles Zoo.
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