The Unlikely History of Zoos | European History

0:00 London, England.

0:01 March 1st, 1826.

0:04 Monkeys shriek.

0:05 Zebras bray.

0:06 Iron work clangs with the impact of massive bodies.

0:10 Hooves thump on old timbers, sluggish at first,

0:13 but then building into a manic clatter as the dismal thundering

0:17 cough of a lion cuts through the rest of the cacophony.

0:20 Horses falter below on the street,

0:22 spooked by the noise, but they're quickly pacified.

0:25 And mourning continues amid the coffee shops, book sellers,

0:28 and tailor of the Strand because this is business as usual after all.

0:34 There's been a managerie of wild animals on the upper

0:36 floor of the exit change building for half a century.

0:39 And to the citizens of London,

0:41 these noises are no more exotic than tavern chatter or cartwheels on cobble.

0:46 Even when these splintering sounds begin,

0:49 interspersed with repeated ever louder bellows of rage,

0:52 it only draws a few frowns.

0:54 Probably just a spirited child teasing a camel with a knife, they figure.

0:59 Boys will be boys, they touch with less conviction as a unit

1:02 of soldiers now comes barreling down the street from Somerset House.

1:07 But when guns start firing and don't stop,

1:11 the people of London begin to form a crowd outside the building.

1:14 In the end, it takes 90 minutes for the musketss to fall silent.

1:19 When the smoke clears, the scene awaiting the public will perhaps be

1:23 the most damning in the history of animal husbandry.

1:27 This is the beginning of the end of the medieval style managerie,

1:31 but the history of the zoo is about to begin.

1:37 [music] Thanks so much to FarmKind for working towards

1:43 transforming our food system to be kinder to animals, people, and the planet.

1:48 The longer you spend studying the history of zoos and their precursors,

1:52 the more it starts to feel like you're actually

1:55 studying the history of people being cruel to elephants.

1:59 And as the largest land animals on Earth,

2:01 it's not hard to understand why elephants were an obvious

2:05 centerpiece aspiration for any animal collecting culture familiar with them.

2:09 And given how far their historical ranges once extended across Africa,

2:14 Europe, and Asia, that ends up being a lot of cultures.

2:18 For example, we know that there were elephants alongside hippos, baboons,

2:22 and wildcats kept at higher compilastic

2:26 Egyptian settlement that existed around 3100 B.CE.

2:30 That is particularly impressive since this would have been a wild elephant

2:35 captured a,000 years before humans first

2:38 domesticated Asian elephants in the Indis Valley.

2:41 And they've been a regular feature of animal collections ever since.

2:45 Now, you may have noticed that I keep avoiding

2:47 calling things zoos in a video about, you know, zoos.

2:51 But there is a good reason for that.

2:52 The word zoo, you see, is short for zoological garden.

2:56 And look, while I'll allow the garden part since I'm sure the good

3:00 people of Higher Compulolis and their successors

3:02 had a great eye for decorative shrubs,

3:04 there sure as heck was not a lot of zoology going on back then.

3:08 On the contrary, for a shockingly large chunk of their history,

3:12 wild animal collections had one overriding purpose,

3:15 conspicuous consumption as a visual symbol of a ruler's power.

3:20 In ancient agrarian cultures,

3:21 where command of a food surplus translated to raw economic power,

3:25 there were few more effective ways of flashing one's figurative cash

3:29 than to keep a large number of hungry animals around the place.

3:33 Furthermore, the larger the animals, the more powerful the statement became.

3:37 And whoever keeps elephants, well, they must be in possession of elephant money.

3:42 Now, perhaps you've also heard the expression white elephant,

3:45 meaning a supposed gift that ends up becoming a massive burden.

3:49 Well, this phrase has its roots in Southeast Asian

3:52 folklore where white elephants were considered to confer the greatest

3:56 status of all to a ruler in large part because

3:59 they were even more costly to keep than regular elephants.

4:02 As the story goes, a courtier who received a white elephant

4:06 from the king in theory would be receiving a great honor,

4:10 but in practice they would be ruined

4:12 by a peanut bill that only a king could afford.

4:15 This theory of elephanomics, if you will,

4:18 was central to the proliferation of menageries in the medieval period.

4:22 As a combination of advances in merchant shipping and the advent

4:26 of the crusading movement gave European

4:29 royal courts greater and greater geographical reach,

4:32 more and more exotic animals from Africa

4:35 and Asia started making their way to European menageries.

4:39 Okay, so far so prestigious.

4:41 However, unlike the keepers in the ancient world,

4:44 whose stock was generally comprised of local, well understood animals,

4:48 the belleaguered beast masters of Europe were now finding themselves

4:52 in possession of animals they had no idea how to maintain properly,

4:56 and as a bonus, were also ruinously expensive.

5:00 Their solution, white elephant style,

5:03 seemed to be to force their unwanted animals off

5:06 on each other in the guise of cripplingly impractical diplomatic gifts.

5:11 Even for the many rulers in Europe with uncertain

5:14 interests in acquiring strange beasts as markers of prestige,

5:18 it now actually became necessary to keep a managerie anyway,

5:22 just as somewhere to store the unwanted fauna given to you by distant relatives.

5:27 Although earlier kings of England had kept animals

5:30 in the Tower of London on a casual basis,

5:33 turns out it was actually Henry III's hand that was

5:36 finally forced to make something a little more permanent.

5:39 After receiving a trio of poorly defined

5:42 big cats from Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II,

5:45 a polar bear from Horcon IV of Norway,

5:48 and then finally an elephant from Egypt after

5:51 a dizzyingly complex bout of diplomacy in France,

5:54 he ordered a permanent managerie be built within the tower in 1235,

5:59 which would remain open until 1834.

6:02 Henry's court, believing that elephants were carnivores, fed the creature beef,

6:06 as well as several gallons of wine each day.

6:09 Suffice to say, it did not last long.

6:12 But now, let's jump forward to 1810 and to the story

6:16 whose grim end we discussed at the beginning of this episode.

6:19 It concerns Chuni, a young male Asian

6:22 elephant from Bengal who arrived in England

6:24 alongside two other elephants by agents of who else but the East India Company.

6:30 Chuni and friends represented a new twist

6:32 on the concept of elephant money, if you will.

6:35 They were spoils of empire,

6:36 but had been brought back to the heartland not to shore

6:39 up the prestige of the ruler in the eyes of outsiders,

6:43 but for the entertainment of the general public.

6:46 In this case, they were to be actors

6:48 performing on a stage in London's convent garden.

6:52 Now, the use of elephants as entertainment is

6:54 a little outside the scope of this story,

6:57 mostly because it would involve opening the Pandora's box

7:00 of the Roman games and we'd be here all week.

7:02 But, as it would happen, Juni wasn't cut out for the theater.

7:06 After a short career,

7:07 he was dismissed in a moment of chilling foreshadowing as having a uncertain

7:12 temper and stage fright and sent to retirement in the exit change.

7:16 The idea was he would live out his life

7:18 in that managerie doing coin tricks for paying visitors.

7:22 And it was there in 1813 that he would encounter Lord Byron,

7:26 who was thoroughly charmed, saying, quote,

7:28 "The elephant took and gave me my money again,

7:31 took off my hat, opened a door, trunked a whip,

7:34 and behaved so well that I wish he was my butler." Very cute.

7:38 Everyone laughs.

7:40 But alas, I will warn you now.

7:42 That is where the whimsy runs out of Chun's story.

7:45 for the next 13 years would not be kind to the maturing elephant.

7:49 And extra historians, I just need to warn you right now.

7:52 If you are particularly sensitive to discussions of animal cruelty,

7:56 you might want to skip ahead to this time code right up here because

7:59 things in this section get very dark and viewer discretion is very much advised.

8:04 Given that the menagerie in the exit change was

8:07 the seedy low-end competition to the tower menagery, you know,

8:11 the same tower menagerie which had been going downhill for 600

8:15 years since its high point of feeding an elephant beef.

8:18 The conditions the animals lived in were appalling,

8:21 even by contemporary standards.

8:23 Worse, by 1820, Chuni had doubled in size since he arrived in England,

8:28 and his growth had made him cramped

8:30 in the confines of the exchanges upper story.

8:33 On top of that, it was common for visitors of the change to feed, tease,

8:38 shout at, or even prick or cut the animals,

8:41 trying to elicit some kind of reaction or gain their attention.

8:44 Shuni bore all of this with grace and continued

8:48 to bring in business as the managerie star attraction.

8:51 But then, like any newly matured bull elephant,

8:54 he began to experience the annual testosterone surge known as must.

8:59 This caused Chuni to become aggressive with his keepers,

9:03 and he sustained a series of injuries thrashing around his cage,

9:06 including a chronic infection in the pulp of his tusk.

9:10 The pain only made him more aggressive,

9:12 which caused further attacks, which caused yet more injury and infection.

9:17 Before long, he was caught in a downward

9:20 spiral from which there would be no happy ending.

9:22 Despite this being clear to all concerned,

9:26 Chuni remained a big financial draw as the Menagerie Star attraction and so

9:30 remained there even after killing one of his keepers in November 1825.

9:35 It was only at the end of February

9:37 1826 with Chun's violent rages threatening to bring down

9:42 the entire second story of the exchange and with carpenters

9:46 too afraid to enter his cage to make repairs.

9:49 Did Managerie owner Edward Cross finally agree to action?

9:54 But the thing was, no one really knew how to kill an elephant,

9:58 especially indoors in the middle of a major metropolis.

10:02 So, Cross's grand plan, he tried to poison the already berserk elephant,

10:07 and failed three times, seemingly increasing Chun's rages.

10:12 And then finally on Wednesday, March 1st,

10:14 out of ideas and fearing for the building's integrity,

10:18 Cross called in the musket men,

10:20 who pounded the poor creature with musket fire for an hour and a half.

10:25 When evening fell, since the day's takings had been so disrupted,

10:29 Cross decided the public should be admitted

10:32 to the menagerie for a special late night opening.

10:35 £35 were taken at the door that night.

10:38 By the light of gas lamps, Londoners peered across a cramped iron cell where

10:43 a dark shape lay slumped in a marsh of blood.

10:46 The keepers raised their lanterns to point out the wounds left

10:50 by 152 muskball impacts and recognition dawned on the faces of the crowd.

10:57 This was what remained of Chuni.

11:00 There was, in fairness, significant public outcry, especially for the era.

11:05 Letters were printed into the times.

11:08 A poem Farewell Poor Chuni was published.

11:10 Heck, a play entitled Chunila or The Death

11:14 of the Elephant at Extor's Change had a successful six-month run.

11:18 Meanwhile, Chun's corpse was dismantled by butchers,

11:22 his skin and skeleton sold, and his intestines thrown into the temps.

11:27 The strand menagerie had a similar, if not slower,

11:30 fate, dwindling in attendance, and then was demolished in 1829.

11:35 So, what if anything happened as a result of Chun's death?

11:39 And what can we learn from it?

11:41 Well, back in 1795, a man named Jacqu Henry Bernardan founded a zoo inside

11:47 Paris's main botanical garden to house animals

11:50 previously kept in the Royal Managerie at Versailles.

11:53 Crucially, these were both for public display and scientific study.

11:58 For the first time, meaningful research was being done at a menagerie,

12:03 giving a purpose to the accumulation

12:05 of animals from overseas beyond bragging rights,

12:08 disingenuous royal wedding gifts, or mass entertainment.

12:12 Britain as ever couldn't bear to be beaten to any punch.

12:16 So, enter Stampford Raffles,

12:18 the man who founded the British Colony in Singapore,

12:21 who now founded the Zoological Society of London,

12:24 or ZSL, even as Chuny's body was barely cool.

12:28 2 years later, the ZSL opened its site in Regent's Park.

12:32 Actually, the Raven's Cage is still there to this day,

12:35 and this would be the home for all future elephants to arrive in Britain,

12:39 including the famous Jumbo.

12:41 Though, actually, there was one enormous exception,

12:43 which we do sort of have to talk about.

12:45 In 1972, an elephant arrived as a, you guessed it, diplomatic gift.

12:50 However, in a throwback to the days of Richard III,

12:53 the sender became confused and instead of addressing it to Buckingham Palace,

12:58 sent it to a small children's zoo in the Crystal Palace area of South London.

13:03 It ended up with the ZSL after nearly

13:06 bankrupting the children's zoo with winter heating bills,

13:09 trying to keep the animal comfortable.

13:11 Despite ZSL bleeding money, it somehow took them 20 years until the idea

13:16 of charging for entrance to the region's park facility gained traction.

13:20 And in 1847, the gates opened to what is considered to be the first modern zoo.

13:27 The fish house came soon after, and the Regent's Park Zoo became

13:30 the blueprint for similar institutions across Europe.

13:34 Zoos had finally evolved from personal bragging

13:37 rights and trophy cabinets and storage facilities

13:40 for inconvenient creatures and manifestations of empire

13:44 to finally centers of learning and public edification.

13:48 And while the conditions might not have been perfect by any means,

13:52 they were at least better.

13:54 And a zoo dedicated to education meant that in the long run,

13:58 people learned more and began to care before the animals died.

14:03 In the 1970s, conservation became a cause among the public for the first time,

14:07 and expectations of zoos began to change,

14:10 as did the public reckoning of their value.

14:13 Large zoos finally shifted from the urge of having one of everything to a place

14:18 where plans for stalking were based on a reckoning

14:20 of what would benefit from being there.

14:23 Similarly, shows featuring large performing animals have largely been wound down

14:28 partially after a series of deadly

14:30 incidents involving circus elephants and orcas.

14:33 And after 202 years in the capital,

14:37 it was finally decided that elephants did not need to be in London anymore.

14:42 And those elephants were moved out to Whips Snade in 2012.

14:46 Today, the debate continues around the ethics of zoos.

14:49 On one hand, it is undeniable that many large animals in zoos are not living

14:54 their natural lives and that their free roaming

14:57 ranges cannot be replicated in a captive environment.

15:00 This is especially a large concern for intelligent animals like

15:04 elephants and primates whose mental health can be impacted by confinement.

15:09 However, zoos are also often the center

15:11 of research and successful breeding programs for endangered animals.

15:16 And there are conservationists who argue that there is utility

15:19 in keeping some animals on display to the public so

15:23 that they can then feel connected to these creatures and be

15:27 aware that there is a need for conservation to protect them.

15:31 But it is undeniable that we have come a long

15:34 way from 1826 on the second floor of the exit change

15:39 where a looming elephant had finally had enough and in turning

15:43 on his captors did nothing short of change the world.

15:48 You know, a fight that continues to this day.

15:51 In fact, we here at Extra History have been trying

15:53 to do our part through the years with charity streams for animals,

15:56 Zoey plushies raising money for the ASPCA, and now with FarmKind,

16:01 an organization we've partnered with whose goal is

16:03 to transform the treatment of animals in farms,

16:06 much in the way Chuni's story helped reshape manageries into modern zoos.

16:11 Because in both cases, truly awareness is key.

16:14 Like, did you know that nearly 99% of farmed

16:18 animals in the US are raised on factory farms?

16:20 But the vast majority of people, like myself,

16:23 are opposed to the conditions on these farms.

16:26 Of course, it's hard to make a difference as an individual.

16:29 So maybe, again, like me, you weren't really sure what you could do about it.

16:33 Well, that is where Farm comes in.

16:35 They've identified six of the most evidence-based

16:38 and effective charities working to end factory farming,

16:41 allowing you to give small monthly donations to any

16:44 or all of them based on a variety of personal

16:46 factors and don't take a cut of any donation

16:49 made through the platform because they are philanthropically funded,

16:53 meaning your donation goes directly towards bankrolling real change for animals.

16:58 For example, their funding of the Humane

17:00 League helped to successfully pressure more than

17:03 300 major companies like Walmart and McDonald's

17:07 to commit to cage-free eggs, or DVF,

17:10 who for every $1 they spent on government investment campaigns

17:14 in 2023 secured $68 in public funding for plant-based foods, or Synergia,

17:20 who has so far convinced 25 major South American food companies to eliminate

17:25 some of the crulest practices in the farming of 21 million pigs.

17:29 Farm Kind even has a tool that can suggest a donation amount based on your diet.

17:33 It's kind of like calculating your carbon footprint for flights,

17:36 but for the food you eat.

17:37 Just input what you eat weekly

17:39 to help figure out your personalized monthly donation.

17:42 But here is the really neat part that got me excited to partner with FarmKind.

17:45 When you use our code extra history for a limited time,

17:48 they will match 50% of your monthly donation,

17:51 which means even more animals lives get better.

17:55 [music] So to join me in the fight to help fix factory farming,

17:58 please consider donating to farm kind here.

18:01 Then once you've helped the farm animals that you know help sustain us,

18:05 check out our next video here.

18:07 A gigantic thank you to Angelo Valenciana, Dominic Valenciana, Hunter Z,

18:11 Joseph Bla, LotusWolf,

18:12 and Zilads Architectures for being phenomenal legendary patrons.