It opened in July 1947, less than two years after the end of the war. It closed twenty years ago, in August 2003, after years of decline and financial crises.
The zoo’s decision to close down "has concluded years of grumbling controversy about the zoo's finances, including an overdraft of £3.65m”, The Herald reported in July. “That in turn had prompted allegations from anti-zoo protesters about the animals' welfare, claims which the zoo forcefully rejects.
"There is talk of a new, smaller facility being constructed on the same site, but that depends not only on finances but a feasibility study on whether such an attraction would be viable".
The Zoo had had a distinguished history, drawing huge numbers of visitors - more than 140,000 visitors each year in the late Nineties – and winning a large number of awards for its conservation efforts.
It was even praised in the House of Commons in 1991, during a debate about zoo animal welfare. Tory MP Phillip Oppenheim remarked: “Glasgow Zoo is a good example of [a zoo] that is attempting to take account of the animals' natural habits and instincts and to keep them occupied and stimulated”.
The following year it was reported that Jane Goodall, the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees, was bringing her new £1 million sanctuary for abused and exploited chimps to Glasgow Zoo.
There was a period when the zoo frequently found itself in the headlines for the wrong reasons. By 2003, its attendance figures had fallen to 40,000 a year. Some reports suggested that it had fallen victim to changing public tastes and growing disapproval of the idea of caged animals being kept for public entertainment. In 2002, animal welfare campaigners alleged that the zoo was a “disgrace” and, in order to avoid closure, it needed to make urgent improvements to the conditions in which its animals were kept.
A Herald reporter, visiting the zoo premises and talking to staff in July 2003 as the closure decision was announced, wrote: “Thanks to the faithful ministrations of the keepers, the rhythm of daily life for the animals has not changed. For the keepers themselves, however, it has been a stressful period. They feel anger at the rumours of mistreatment which, they say, no SSPCA or council investigation has upheld, and overwhelming sadness at the departure of the animals".
Roger Edwards, the zoo's chief executive, affectionately described the zoo-keepers as being "more in tune with animals than they are with people".
"I would freely admit that what we have here is a 30-year-old to 40-year-old model which is not appropriate for the 21st century," Mr Edwards said, adding that that did not mean that there was no support for zoos in the 21st century. The zoo staff did not believe anti-zoo groups speak for most people.
The opening of Calderpark Zoo, back in 1947, had been an exceptionally proud moment for all concerned, including Mr Sydney Benson, its founder and director-secretary.
He had been instrumental in the formation in December 1936 of the Zoological Society of Glasgow and West of Scotland, with the aim of opening a zoo in the city. A probable site for the attraction, at that initial point, was Bellahouston Park.
Many years later, Mr Benson recalled that he had begun by writing to people – “I remember it cost me 2s 3d in stamps” – to ask if they would support the idea of a zoo. He still had the society’s original bank book, with the first deposit dated December 16, 1936. It was for the sum of £2 15s for 11 members at an entry fee for 5s each.Plans for the zoo were interrupted by the Second World War, though 100 acres had been bought at Calderpark for just under £2,000 in 1938.
“When we opened in 1947 everything was in short supply”, Mr Benson would recall, “and we had no financial resources. The bank gave us an overdraft on our ground as security”. By then, the 11 original members had grown to 1,400.
The zoo’s opening in 1947 was attended by countless youngsters, who wandered, open-mouthed, around the animals were on show.
Council in closure warning to zoo
At the time of the opening, the zoo, which covered 31 acres of parkland, was home to more than 150 animals and birds, including lions, wallabies, monkeys, Soay sheep and parrots. An ostrich, two cheetahs and some baboons were on their way, and there were hopes that the operation would eventually occupy 100 acres of the parkland.
Writing a day before the opening, the Marquis of Bute, president of the society, reflected on the effort to obtain the materials that had been used in the laying-out of the park.
“We have begged and scrounged”, he wrote, “we have searched scrap heaps and shipyard, and everywhere we have found something useful and usually a willing and generous friend as well ... Representatives of other zoos have recently visited the Park and they have been astonished by the way we have been able to build what we have in face of the restrictions and conditions which we all have to suffer these days.”
Glasgow’s Lord Provost, Sir Hector McNeill, spoke of the joy with which news of the zoo’s opening would be received by the great army of 130,000 Glasgow schoolchildren, “who, with the 80,000 in Lanarkshire, would provide a ready-made clientele.”
Dr Edward Hindle, scientific director of the Zoological Society of London, who had taken an active interest in the setting up of Calderpark Zoo, said that London Zoo had, the previous year, attracted more than 2,75 million visitors. The zoo, he added, was the capital’s most popular place of entertainment after the cinema, and he had no doubt that the Glasgow zoo would soon be able to report the same happy experience.
Sydney Benson retired in March, 1967 and was given the MBE in the next New Year’s honours list. He died, aged 81, in October 1981.
There is, however, an interesting postscript to his involvement with the zoo, via his son, Harry - who in later life would become one of the world’s best-known photographers.
When he was 11 his father gave him a box camera for Christmas. Harry started taking pictures with it, and it accompanied him whenever he went to football matches.
His first published picture, taken with a Thornton Pickard camera when he was 17, was of a roe deer in Calderpark Zoo. He gave it to the Herald’s sister paper, the Evening Times.
As Harry recounts in the introduction to his book, Harry Benson’s Glasgow: “I waited and waited for it to appear before finally giving up hope.
“About three months later, I was on the train when I looked over at the man sitting next to me who was reading a newspaper. As he turned to the centre spread, I spotted the picture. I wanted to shout, ‘That’s my photograph!’
“As soon as I got off the train, I bought a copy of the paper and sat and looked at for hours. To this day, I can’t remember if they paid me for it but that wasn’t important – seeing the picture in print was what mattered. That feeling has never left me”.
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