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Photo Diary: San Diego Zoo [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-03-20
When the Panama Canal opened in 1914, the city of San Diego, California, population 74,000, saw an opportunity. As the nearest major port in the US for ships that passed through the Canal, the city government decided to put on a trade exhibition that would highlight the city’s location and entice new businesses to locate there. As a result, the “Panama-California International Exposition” opened in Balboa Park in March 1915. The Exposition featured a number of exhibits and trade booths from various companies, and also had a display of caged animals from North and South America. It was so successful that it added another year to its schedule, finally closing in January 1917.
Among the people who were involved with setting up the Exposition was San Diego resident Dr Harry Wegeforth, a surgeon originally from Maryland. Inspired by the success of the Exposition, Dr Wegeforth made plans to open a permanent Zoo in the city, and organized the nonprofit Zoological Society of San Diego, modeled on the New York Zoological Society. The Society was chartered in November 1916.
The fledgling Zoo received an unexpected bonus right from the start. When the Exposition closed in 1917, some of the nations that had sent live animals to be displayed now refused to allow them to re-enter their home country without a quarantine, and since San Diego had no quarantine facilities, they were marooned in their cages. The Zoological Society therefore adopted all of these animals, as well as a collection of lions, bears, jackals, and monkeys from the bankrupt Wonderland Zoo in nearby Ocean Beach.
In 1921, the city of San Diego donated 150 acres of land in Balboa Park as a permanent home for a public Zoo, on the agreement that the city would own the Zoo and the Zoological Society would manage it. The San Diego Zoo opened to the public in 1922.
The Zoo’s first director was famed animal collector Frank Buck, but he didn’t get along with Wegeforth and soon left. After a number of other people also came and went, the Zoological Society appointed the Zoo’s bookkeeper, Belle Benchley, as Zoo Director in 1925. She was the first (and for many decades the only) female Zoo director in the world, serving until 1953.
In 1955, the Zoo began what would become a long relationship with television, when the TV show “Zoorama” began filming on location. Hosted by local TV news reporter Bob Dale, the show focused on animals at the Zoo and in the wild. Originally begun as a local show, Zoorama was then broadcast nationally on CBS until 1970, when it went into syndication. After this, the Zoological Society selected Joan Embery, a college student who worked part-time in the Kiddie Zoo, as a “Goodwill Ambassador”. Embery began doing appearances with live animals on local television shows, which led to a booking on Steve Allen’s talk show and then, in November 1971, to an appearance on "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson. The show drew in 12 million viewers, and Embery began doing regular segments on the show, over 100 in all.
With the publicity, the San Diego Zoo was soon receiving three million visitors a year. Since then, the San Diego Zoo is consistently ranked in poll after poll as the Number One Zoo in the country.
Some photos from a visit.
(It was cloudy with off and on rain the day I visited, and that interfered with photography. I did the best I could.)
San Diego Zoo
The iconic Lion statue out front
Double-decker tour buses
The zoo occupies a deep canyon
Very nice landscaping
Gorillas take a nap
The glamorous life of a zookeeper
Feeding the birdies in the aviary
One of the locals begging food from me
There are five Elephant paddocks
Lesser Kudu
Hamadryas Baboons
Dwarf Mongoose
Dromedary Camel
Baird’s Tapir
Chaco Peccaries
Grizzly Bear and bone
Venus Flytraps
Malaysian Bush Cricket
Panda
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