Reviews

The American zoo book, which was published in November 2019, contains 80 zoos and 20 aquariums, and it looks magnificent. I am the coauthor and naturally biased, but I think that the book is outstanding. However, in all honesty, my good friend John Tuson has produced an even better book just over two years later. I think that the key to the success of Tuson’s brilliant book is that less is more. By focusing on 51 zoos instead of the 100 institutions in the American book, there is greater depth to the analysis. The American zoo book is a hefty, thick tome, with many zoos getting two-or-three-page writeups. The longest essay is 7 pages (San Diego), with Woodland Park (6 pages), Bronx (5 pages) and others close behind. In Tuson’s book, there are still two-or-three-page writeups for the smaller establishments, but for the British behemoths there are lengthy, mini novellas! As an example, and progressing alphabetically, Bristol Zoo gets 9 pages, Chester Zoo 15 pages, Colchester Zoo 7 pages, Dublin Zoo 8 pages, Dudley Zoo 9 pages, Edinburgh Zoo 9 pages, London Zoo 24 pages (including the Clore species section) and Whipsnade 11 pages.

John Tuson is able to include a great deal of history for each of the 51 zoos, packed with an incredible amount of detailed information. This is a book that takes a number of evenings to get through, as there are a mountain of facts to digest. In some cases, the history part of the essay is longer than the overview, and in the case of South Lakes Safari Zoo it reads like a daytime soap opera! There are many historical reports of bizarre and at times unhinged zoo owners, from David Gill at South Lakes to John Aspinall (Howletts and Port Lympne) to the legendary duo of Molly Badham and Nathalie Evans at Twycross. Those two ladies gave copious amounts of cigarettes to chimpanzees, there’s an account of Aspinall doing a ”ball swing” while nude in a hospital (use your imagination!), and Gill had multiple seedy affairs while running his zoo. Tuson’s book is a serious look at zoos, but there are many little asides that are amusing and a strain of witty British humour shines throughout. He devotes most of a full page to complaining about Chester Zoo’s absolutely dire ‘font’ that is utilized on their maps and website, and I found myself nodding in agreement.

I truly enjoyed the honesty of the publication. “There can be little doubt that Edinburgh Zoo has lost a little of its confidence” is a prime example, or “Paignton is a good zoo…but, at the moment, it does feel as if it needs another boost, as if, presently, it is drifting, a little.” Or in regard to safari parks, Tuson states that “it is also probably true that Knowsley lacks the beauty of Woburn, the innovation of West Midland, and the overall quality of Longleat”. He goes on to say positive things about all the zoos that I’ve pulled quotes out of, but he’s brutally honest on every page. If a zoo exhibit is looking a little tired, a little old-fashioned and past its prime, then he comments on that fact without glossing over the ugly aspects of an establishment. However, in so many examples Tuson finds the good in zoos, praises the great sections of a zoological park, and one gets the sense that he would rather be puttering around in a zoo on a sunny day than do just about anything else in life.

The Zoos of Great Britain and Ireland reminds me of the ebb and flow of zoos. There are the trio of venerable institutions (London, Dublin, Bristol), the next tier of ‘oldies’ (Edinburgh, Drusillas, Paignton), and then 1931 saw the opening of a further trio (Chessington, Chester, Whipsnade), but the most remarkable fact is how many zoos either opened or blossomed during the golden age of the 1960s and early 1970s. In fact, 24 of the zoos in the book (essentially 50% of them) all opened between 1963 and 1976. There were loads more that made their debut then and what a remarkable 13 years it must have been in Britain. Zoos opened and closed, succeeded and failed, with animals jam-packed into exhibits and zoo nerds having a wide array of captive wildlife to admire. Someone could write a whole book on British zoos that don’t exist any longer. Or a book on the grim 1980s, when just about every single zoo in the UK suffered greatly…and several big ones (Dublin, Dudley, London, etc.) all came within a whisker of permanently closing.

There are other themes nestled amongst the pages. British zoos are, by and large, privately owned and therefore Tuson mentions a lot of “utilitarian exhibits”, enclosures that “look like a garden shed” and “functional aesthetics” are the norm. Money is tight and finances have to be spread around accordingly. “Since 2004 more than 150 exhibits costing more than $10 million have been opened in the USA; during a similar period, the UK and Ireland saw a mere handful of developments costing anything like that amount”. But what the zoos in Tuson’s book lack in terms of expensive, flashy new exhibits, they make up for in terms of their animal collections. Hamerton’s Australian selection of animals is one of the greatest in the world outside of Oz. Exmoor Zoo (12 acres and only 50,000 annual visitors) has more than a dozen species that I’ve hardly seen in my lifetime. Crocodiles of the World has approximately 20 different crocodilian species. Highland Wildlife Park (6) and Yorkshire Wildlife Park (10) have a combined 16 acres just for Polar Bear exhibits…extraordinary!

The book is inspiring in terms of wishing to plot a British road trip. But, unfortunately, due to current world affairs that doesn’t look likely any time soon. The Carabao Cup Final, with Liverpool playing Chelsea in front of 85,512 fans at Wembley Stadium on February 27th, bodes well for the future. When the pandemic subsides, will I jet off to Great Britain? I’m in two minds. On one hand, there are a LOT of ZooChatters that I’d love to meet in the British Isles, and I’m the type of person who likes nothing more than ticking off items on a bucket list. Watching every single movie ever made starring Humphrey Bogart, Burt Lancaster, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Jeff Bridges? I’ve seen every movie those 5 have made, circa 450 or so, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I couldn’t imagine going through life without seeing the work of my cinematic heroes (the Martin Scorseses and Spike Lees of the world), watching every game of Everton Football Club (dreadful this season), or being stuck on 520 different zoos and aquariums since the summer of 2019.

So, with road trip in mind, the selection of the zoos in Tuson’s book are both its strength and weakness. About 50% of the zoos aren’t that exciting to me. Would I really want to visit all those bird parks? Arundel, Birdworld, Hawk Conservancy, International Center for Birds of Prey (now suddenly closed down directly after the book was published!), Paradise Park and Slimbridge gives the book SIX zoos that are almost solely about our feathered friends. Whether that is due to Tuson’s love for avian wildlife or simply the best that Britain can conjure up, then so be it. There are also two major zoos as part of theme parks (Chessington and Flamingo Land) with a kind of Busch Gardens vibe. There are two more zoos that are like mini theme parks and aimed at young preteens (Drusillas and Folly Farm) and even two parks that are basically anti-zoo these days (Howletts and Port Lympne). Then there are some homemade, duct-tape and wire backyard zoos (Linton, Shaldon, Thrigby) that are probably a step up from the dreck I’ve toured in Wisconsin, but still aren’t enough to make me buy a plane ticket from Canada. There are even a couple of zoos that I’m amazed made the cut (Noah’s Ark, South Lakes) due to the controversy surrounding their infamous owners. The first is anti-Charles Darwin and the second had more than 500 animal deaths at his menagerie. All of that adds up to 17 zoos that aren’t entirely appealing, and that’s not even counting the zoos that are clearly shadows of what they once were (Edinburgh, Jersey, London, Marwell) or the 4 or 5 safari parks in the book. I’ve always disliked cruising into a drive-through park when my natural instinct is to walk around a zoo with zero modes of transportation anywhere to be seen.

The preceding paragraph sounds harsh, but the book is The Zoos of Great Britain and Ireland, and can you imagine a future publication such as The Zoos of Germany? Now there would be 51 zoos of tremendous acclaim. But there is a twist in the tale. There is an idiosyncratic part of me that would like to drive through Knowsley, Longleat (especially!), West Midland and Woburn, just so I could compare those safari parks and rank them from best to worst. I feel an urge to visit Newquay, as I own a history book on the place, as well as Exmoor and its astonishing number of small carnivores. The heavy hitters (Chester, Dublin, London, Whipsnade) are all iconic zoos and the history in some of those grounds is fascinating. Monkey World is immensely appealing because I, like most zoo goers, love to see primates and I used to watch the zoo’s immensely popular television series when I was a teenager. Crocodiles of the World would be a guaranteed stop, as would Jersey Zoo because Gerald Durrell is my all-time idol. I’d even like to tour Flamingo Land and Chessington, but I’d skip the rollercoasters and likely roll my eyes at some of the razzmatazz of the fairgrounds. Colchester’s mock-rock looks better in real life than photos, right? I mentioned several zoos that Tuson admits are not what they once were, but there are others that are up-and-comers such as Wild Place (future Bristol Zoo), Fota Wildlife Park, Hamerton Zoo Park and Yorkshire Wildlife Park.

It’s a masterpiece of a book because it gets people talking about zoos. I personally would have included at least a handful of aquariums and booted a few of the smaller places out of the book, but that is the joy of such a publication. It gets zoo nerds discussing zoos, the pros and cons and everything in between. John Tuson is an accomplished writer, as he is a teacher by profession, and he’s also published a large number of articles in Zoo Grapevine & International Zoo News over the years. The Zoos of Great Britain and Ireland is a wonderful book, and it is honestly, hand on heart, already one of my all-time favourites. The prose is exemplary, the passion shines through on every page, and it is the type of book that I will return to on numerous occasions as it is a reference book as well as a celebration of the modern British (and Irish) zoo. It has already proven to be an enormously popular publication and within the next month or so every single copy will have likely been sold.