The Animal Magic Zoo


The Animal Magic Zoo

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I was lucky enough to spend some magical moment at Bristol Zoo.

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Incredibly, Brazil is celebrating its 175th birthday this year. -- of

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her zeal. On this programme, we will take you of a whistle-stop

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tour. From Alfred the gorilla, who became a wartime symbol of

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resistance. He had a huge presence. A wonderful presence. To Dotty the

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Lemur, who captured the heart of a film star. I have a species of

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lemur named after me. And we will explore how changing attitudes have

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Apology for the loss of subtitles for 44 seconds

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shifted the focus of the suit from Bristol Zoological Gardens is the

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5th oldest zoo in the world. The original list of shareholders

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reveals the important local shareholders. The most significant

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Bristow the end of all, Isambard Kingdom Brunell. Bristol Zoo really

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aimed itself and providing the Zoological Society for the rich and

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educated middle classes of Bristol. In the early days, they did manage

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to obtain some exotic creatures. But an elephant was really

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something. When Zebi was presented by V Maharajah of Mysore, that must

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have been a massive thing for this -- for the zoo. And yet the zoo was

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suffering financially so it began to rely heavily on added

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attractions. These would involve rolling, ice skating, things that

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may seem as if they fit with in our gardens. This zoo was struggling to

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fit with its original ethos. And they visit a number rose, it still

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failed to pay off its debts so it put on shows until the end of the

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1920s. During that time, 16-year- old Reginald Greed started work

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there as an office boy. My father always used to say it was lovely to

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participate in the fairgrounds and Despite the lovely shows, the

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gardens at that time were still a place for the middle classes to

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visit. This was only a popular show you -- zoo for working-class people

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and there weren't even bank holidays and people worked six days

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a week, so that is part of the reason the zoo struggled. So one of

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the zoo's leading committee members, Richard Clarke, declared it must go

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back to its roots and concentrate on being a zoo. Work began on a new

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aquarium, which opened in 1927. And with the extra admission charge, it

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quickly paid for itself and brought in a much needed funds. The next

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major exhibit that Clarke came up with was at the Monkey Temple.

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Embracing a zoo her theory at the time that animals should see more

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outdoors. One little girl who loved the Monkey Temple was Margaret

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Woodland. We used to sit on the wall and they were running down.

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They could not get out because the walls were very high, but they

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would be carrying their babies and they used to get up to some real

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tricks. But maybe there would be a way over that high wall. Don Packam,

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who eventually became the head keeper, recalls a time when a

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prankster put a ladder in the Monkey Temple and all the

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inhabitants escaped. There had been 36 when I escapes -- when I left

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the previous night. There was nothing there. An elderly lady in

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Clifton, who used to take a bath every Sunday afternoon, was lying

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in the bath enjoying herself and looked up at the cupboard, heard a

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movement and then a monkey looked over the top of the cupboard

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because it had got into the bathroom. I was told that she never

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took a bath on a Sunday afternoon after that! It was a horrifying

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experience for her. In 1930, the zoo's most famous resident, Alfred,

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arrived. He was immediately a staff. The only go relay in Europe at the

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time. In those days, people were just fascinated. Because you were

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only eight feet away, you could smell it. Male gorillas have a

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wonderful smile about them. He had the most beautiful brown eyes. You

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went round to the gates and the first thing you saw was the gorilla

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and it just had a huge presence. A Alfred was, by all accounts, quite

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a character. My mum used to prepare her best hat and when we got to the

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zoo, we had to go and visit Alfred. She decided to get a little bit

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closer and he stood up and did an enormous wee all over her hat. It

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was dripping off her hat! She went absolutely mad. She grabbed me by

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the hands and said, ", on, I have had enough of him". And then we

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walked away. Towards the end of the 1930s, with 250 animal species, the

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zoo was still gaining popularity. When Hitler started to bomb our

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major cities, Bristol and Bristol's restarted to brace themselves. Dark

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times lay ahead. -- of Bristol Zoo started to brace themselves. Alfred

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is our mascot. Mass got? I will give you mascot! Where is my

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At the onset of war, the zoo struggled to find adequate food for

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many of its animals. Fish, for instance, were in very short supply.

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Initially, in desperation, at the zoo cried horsemeat dipped in cod

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liver oil, which, unfortunately he had the effect of killing the seals,

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sea-lions and penguins quite rapidly. As the bombs dropped in

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the centre of Bristol, the zoo was pretty much unscathed. At the

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Bristol Aeroplane Company was not so lucky. Its site in Feltham was

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severely damaged. The drawing office staff work relocated to the

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zoo pavilion. This man remembers some happy hours spent in the

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gardens, especially with Rosie the elephant. People knew about Rosie.

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The cigarette smokers would light up a cigarette and blow it right

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into her trunk. She would take it and then step back and then she

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would trample on her front feet and swing her trunk and blow it up in

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the air. I was actually a pipe smoker. Rosie took her up drunk on

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the rail and I blew into led to an she stood back and started swinging

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her trunk. And then up came her trunk and it went straight from her

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face and she blew it all out. Plus a little bit of saliva! She had her

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revenge! She was so beautiful. She was absolutely lovely and to climb

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up and get into that the seat and then, suddenly, you work rolling

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along. Even now, at my age, I still remember it. Alfred, meanwhile,

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became world famous. A symbol of resistance. But sadly, the after-

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effects of war would haste and Alfred's death. He succumbed to

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tuberculosis in 1948 - it is thought through in -- eating

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infected meat. I learned of his death on the front page of the

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newspaper and I ran all the way down to the zoo and could not

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believe it. A lot of children at wed that night. Rosie kept going,

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but one hot summer's a day, disaster was to strike. She

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collapsed, with 10 children on her back. That was quite an occasion

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and from that time, 1947, they reduced the number of rides because

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they thought it was too many. staff were beginning to rethink

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some of their practices, but Bristol was still very much a

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Victorian zoo. Many of the enclosures were still pitifully

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small and bare. The big cat and closure meant an enclosure for big

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cats. They were appalling. The animal could not run aground. They

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were 20 ft long by 15 feet. All I can think his embarrassment that

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the zoo ever kept animals like that. But after the war, people needed an

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escape from their own tough lives, so visible went into the black for

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the first time and visitors were no longer confined to the money's

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classes. -- the zoo went into the black. What was expensive becomes

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less expensive over the decades. We see the emancipation of the working

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classes through Bristol Zoo. didn't go away on holidays, so a

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visit to the zoo was very special. There was a big build-up for it. It

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was absolutely beautiful. A another youngster who could not wait to get

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to the zoo was one of Jeffrey's classmates, a lively young chap

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named John. I used to love going to the zoo. When I was at Lifton, we

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would walk out of the college, cross the road into the zoo, and

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one of the boys in my house's father ran the zoo. I used to love

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the little lemur. As a result of that, I did a programme about

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lemurs and I now have a lemur named after me, with the name of Avacki

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Cleesei, or Cleese's or woolly lemur. The 60s were a time of

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rebirth for Bristol Zoo. Fame was on the horizon with television

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programmes like The Politics Show, and weird and wonderful animals

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like this okapi were imported into the zoo. You could say it was at

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the height of its popularity. are not paying the enough for this,

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sweetie! Where is my agent? There is nothing like Bristol. It is all

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Bristol fashion. Even before The Politics Show, V zoo and Geoffrey's

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father had already achieved fame with the BBC series of News From

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The Zoos. The cameras were there to capture some very special moment. -

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- even before Animal Magic. Many viewers will be wanting to see how

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Sebastiaan the polar bear has been getting on. A Sebastien was special

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- not just because he was only the second polar bear to be born in

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this country, but also because of the pioneering breeding methods.

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got the idea of having a heated clubbing dens for the polar bear.

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Somebody has measured the temperature within it one of the

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clubbing dens in the wild, and it is quite high. By providing be

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tutor, that was the very first year but we successfully bred polar

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bears. It was post-war baby boom of time - and not just for humans.

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Roger the rhinoceros was the first black rhinoceros to be born in this

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country. And then there were baby giraffes, lion cubs, and not to

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mention new editions literally shipped in from a foreign climes.

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It was a very competitive time. We had bred penguins and rhinos, but

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the okapi was special. Only the very, very big zoos had it. You had

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to be a lead to get it. You had to be highly thought of. -- had to be

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eaten. We had to be installed a camera within the okapi Enclosure.

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We could make sure that everything And everything was well, she was

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fine and we had no problems at all. Despite its small size, Bristol Zoo

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really was leading the field. It opened the world's first nocturnal

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house, where day and night were reversed. In the nocturnal house

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But this was also the end of one era. After Rosie died in 1961 there

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were no more elephant rides. But she was replaced by Wendy and

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Christina - two very big characters! We used to take them

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out every day for a walk. We would take them, usually sticking to more

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less the same route. People got used to them coming round and quite

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often they would pop out with a bit of a titbit for them. As a result

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of that, if the people happened to be away or did not come out the

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elephants were difficult to move from that particular house. Bristol

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Zoo's current senior curator of animals John Partridge was later to

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work with the two elephants. He remembers Christina being just a

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little bit naughty. She was very good at recognising people she did

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not like. There was one particular contractor who would come into the

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zoo from time to time. We never discovered what he did, or maybe he

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never did anything, but she did not like him. She would pick him out

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from the crowd, she would find a stone and she would throw stones at

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him. Invariably she would hit him Christina and Wendy became the

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stars of the brand new children's show Animal Magic. It burst onto TV

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I grew up watching Animal Magic, watching Johnny Morris, utterly my

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era. Simon Garrett, now head of learning, was inspired by Johnny

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Morris. What I like is a grape perhaps. A grape perhaps? Yeah, a

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perhaps grape. I remember walking past one of the lake islands one

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day and there's Dotty the ring- tailed lemur. I stopped dead in my

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tracks and I suddenly thought, I'm working in the place that I saw so

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much of growing up through Animal Magic. Then I'm a little old man of

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the woods, ain't I? Yes, Henry, a little old man of the woods but

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there's no need to behave so much like one all of the time. All right

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then, I'll be a little old keeper of the woods!

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Most people thought that Johnny was actually a keeper in Bristol Zoo.

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And indeed he wore a Bristol Zoo uniform. I thought he was the

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keeper, wasn't he? As a kid you just thought he was the keeper,

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yeah. Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park was a huge fanand maybe

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it showed in his oscar-winning film Creature Comforts. Well looked

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after, very well looked after. I am not worried about anything. The way

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Johnny Morris did those funny voices for the animals, I guess

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that was the start of it, really. I was probably unconsciously very

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inspired by that, really. It really put Bristol Zoo on the map because

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he would often say that he was going to Bristol Zoo. I didn't know

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where Bristol was but I always wanted to go there. I always

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thought it must be a really special zoo. Do you mind if I come and sit

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And it was special. The Animal Magic cameras were there just after

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the birth of the first baby gorilla born in a British zoo. Don't you

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think you'd better support your baby's head, Delilah?

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Look, if you're so blinking clever you look after him, go on.

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alright, but only for a moment, Delilah. I say, he's getting quite

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Boosted by being on the nations TV screens every week, Bristol Zoo was

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more popular than ever before. And then the Severn Bridge opened in

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1967 bringing coach loads of I can remember the day when we had

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over 35,000 people there. That is more than the zoo gets in a month

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Zoos really were going through a bit of a learning curve in the

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1970s. The public were not content with just looking at the animals,

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they wanted to know about conservation, endangered species,

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like these Livingstone fruit bats here. The zoos had to take public

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opinion on board but it was not an easy ride. You can say that again!

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Look, can I get down now? My wings I thought, you know, some of the

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monkeys, they were, they looked miserable because they were in the

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cage. And basically that was it. They were on show and they were fed

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well, they were clean, but it was not really their basic natural

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environments. It was an old Victorian zoo, it was the 5th and

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still is the 5th oldest zoo in the world. Oldest zoo outside a capital

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city. It was beginning to show still those old Victorian bars and

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Big changes were ahead. In 1974 when Reg Greed died his son

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Geoffrey took over as director of the zoo. He had ideas thinking to

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the future that there would no longer be in Clifton, many of the

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larger animals that we had. That was difficult at that time to

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comprehend that. Because the large animals were the zoo, they were so

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much part of the zoo. And Geoffrey Greed embarked on a huge revamp of

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the zoo with a building programme which would continue over 30 years.

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He actually said, a chunk of the zoo is going to be a building site

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but when it is finished it is going to be good, it is going to be very

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good. He had the courage and the vision to do that.

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But the changes weren't fast enough for some and in the mid-eighties an

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anti-zoo movement started grabbing headlines. Bristol Zoo came under

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fire when it rescued a polar bear with mental health problems from a

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Unfortunately, when people saw the bear continually pacing, Bristol

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zoo got the blame for his condition. It was so disheartening to...mainly

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to the keepers who looked after the animal, to all the staff there,

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because we had worked so hard on giving options to the bear, giving

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something to take his mind off the pacing and over a long period of

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time, the bear was getting better and better. While the zoo hadn't

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caused the bear's mental condition, the controversy did raise questions

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about their enclosure. I did directly reference that polar bear

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pit at the time, that compound. It was a horrible bar there of dirty

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water. And a painted concrete environment that in a token way

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represented the snow, I guess. It probably wasn't that convincing to

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the polar bears. My favourite food, I am afraid to say, is steak.

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you like lions as well, then? Do you like steaks and chips with

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lions with it? Not with lions, Andrew, I do not like lion steak, I

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prefer the ordinary steak. I got quite a passionate response from

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animal rights people. People coming up to me and shaking

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my hand in America, saying thank you, thank you for what you're

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doing for animals everywhere. You're stuck in for some reason,

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like I am stuck in today. Then yes, you get bored and fed up looking at

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the same four walls. It wasn't trying to change anything,

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really. I was purely trying to entertain.

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When the polar bears eventually died, there would be no more bears

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in Clifton. We were not really afraid to

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recognise the problem, acknowledge it and do something positive to

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make a change. As the new millennium dawned,

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Bristol Zoo had to ensure its survival into the new century. It

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started building new natural enclosures for its animals. Like

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this seal and penguin enclosure here. Not only that, they moved

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into ground-breaking projects, veterinary surgery, breeding and

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conservation work out there in the wild.

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Yes, Terry, it's lovely here. Give With this kind of enclosure the

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public can get up close and personal with the animals.

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Bristol's current director, Bryan Carroll, it's definitely the way

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forward. Rather than having the visitors in

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a way outside of the enclosure looking in, we are trying more and

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more to immerse the visitor in the environment of the animal.

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And more importantly, it's better for the animals. Something the

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zoo's very first on-site vet, Sharon Redrobe, heartily approved

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You cannot say you are about conservation and then keep animals

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in matchboxes. That is not what Bristol does. That is what they

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have been doing for the last few years, keeping species that can be

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kept on a smaller site very well. Sticking to those ideals, when

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Wendy the elephant had to be put down it heralded the end of keeping

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most big species here. The decision had been made for some time that

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Wendy would be the last elephant to be held in Clifton Gardens. And the

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right decision I am sure but never the less quite a difficult one and

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the end of another iconic species that no more will be seen in

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Clifton. I was determind to be with her right at the end and I was. I

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am a very quiet and private person, so I did what I felt I had to do

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The few larger species Bristol now holds are there because they're

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Like these recently born Asian lions, only around 400 left in the

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And then, of course, there's the gorillas. From Alfred's day onwards,

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the zoo's been great at keeping and breeding them. When one of the

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females, Romina, was refusing to mate, the team felt that cateracts

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in her eyes could be to blame. had a sneaky suspicion that maybe

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the not mating was partly because she could not see who was there.

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And so Bristol scored another world first as Romina underwent surgery

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to repair her eyesight. The results were outstanding. Romina had been

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bullied by another gorilla - but not now. Salome had had a habit of

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throwing fruit at her head. From a distance. And of course Romina did

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not know where the fruit was coming from. The minute we opened the gate

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and Romina walked through because she could see quite clearly for the

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first time in 21 years, Salome ran up to her with an apple, paused,

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they looked at each other and Salome slunk off and never did it

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again. Within three months she was From the biggest to the tiniest.

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Bristol Zoo is helping conserve animals and even bring back extinct

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species. We are trying to raise the funds for reintroduction, which

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sounds ridiculous, but actually it is a very difficult thing to do and

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it is an incredibly important thing to do. It is alarming as you know

0:26:070:26:11

how the species are getting wiped out and in many cases now it is

0:26:110:26:14

because their habitat is being destroyed. If we do not bring them

0:26:140:26:17

somewhere safe and have them bred there, these species could get

0:26:170:26:24

wiped out. The zoo is planning a new

0:26:240:26:28

conservation park near to Bristol. Here in Clifton, much of the focus

0:26:280:26:36

is on education. If we can get a 300 to 500 people on the lawn

0:26:360:26:38

watching macaws flying around over their heads, you can see the

0:26:380:26:42

excitement in people, you can hear the intake of breath as the macaw

0:26:420:26:48

flies just over their heads. At the same time, the commentary

0:26:480:26:51

that goes with that is about the destruction of the forest when the

0:26:520:26:58

calls come from. He was dropping in those key messages about what

0:26:580:27:06

Bristol zoo has changed dramatically throughout its history

0:27:060:27:09

but for many it's as magical today as it was for those very first

0:27:090:27:19

visitors 175 years ago. You cannot wait to get to the next

0:27:190:27:22

thing and when you are told, that is it, you have seen everything,

0:27:220:27:26

you want to go round again and see it all again.

0:27:260:27:30

It is the only time that human beings put themselves out for the

0:27:300:27:32

sake of animals and there is something glorious about it because

0:27:320:27:42
0:27:420:27:43

it is kind of pointless and yet it There is a huge love and affection

0:27:430:27:51

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