During the Great Depression, New York City Parks Commissioner Robert Moses embarked upon a wide-ranging overhaul of the NYC parks system that included the reconstruction of the Central Park Zoo  and the construction of the Prospect Park Zoo.   (Links lead to New York City Parks Department history pages.)  Robert Moses first hired Captain Ronald Cheyne-Stout as an animal consultant for the two zoos, and later took him on as the zoos’ Menagerie Director.  Continue reading →

With the New York Aquarium preparing for a major transformation of its facilities at Coney Island—centering around a new 50,000 square foot Ocean Wonders: Sharks! exhibit—I took special note while flipping through a 1915 issue of the New York Zoological Society Bulletin recently of an article entitled “The Aquarium of Our Dreams.”

Continue reading →

Today, if you want information on an animal, you might turn to the internet, and look it up on Google or Wikipedia. If you want information on the Wildlife Conservation Society, the Bronx Zoo, or one of the other wildlife parks, you might go to their website, read their FAQs, or go to the “contact us” page for email information. In 1965, however, such information was not a just a click away. If you had a school project, or needed animal information for another reason, you might write to the zoo. And if you were Assistant Curator of Birds and Mammals Grace Davall, part of your job would be responding to these inquiries.  Continue reading →

Betty and Veronica, the two grizzly bears who have recently moved from the Bronx Zoo to take up residence at the Central Park Zoo, have been local media stars lately, appearing in the New York Times, the Post, and on several news stations.

But these two are no strangers to fame: in fact, in 2004, they were the cover stars of Archie Comic No. 550.  Continue reading →

 Since September I have worked with the WCS Library and Archives in their ongoing effort to digitize historical photographic holdings. My focus has been on a collection documenting one of the expeditions made by the Society’s Department of Tropical Research. William Beebe led this 1925 expedition from New York to the Galapagos on a ship named Arcturus.   Continue reading →

 Processing the records of the New York Zoological Society’s (now the Wildlife Conservation Society) Center for Field Biology and Conservation (CFBC) was like a crash course in the Society’s field research and wildlife conservation efforts of the 1970s. In this post, I’ll give you a glimpse of both the CFBC’s history, as seen through its records, and the processing process itself. (Archival terms are linked to the Society of American Archivists glossary.)  Continue reading →

From its inception, the Bronx Zoo has been home to a library as well as to its many wonderful animals.  In fact, in the first annual report, 1896 of the New York Zoological Society (today the Wildlife Conservation Society), gifts of books were solicited, “especially those on mammals, birds and reptiles, books of travel and exploration, and files of scientific journals in which zoological subjects have a place.”  Continue reading →

 One way to trace the history of an organization is through the people who worked for it.

Recently, I’ve been working on a project to write biographies of some key figures in the history of WCS and upload these to Wikipedia. This has the advantage of not only providing a historical resource about the person but also broadening awareness of WCS’s history.   Continue reading →

Over the past several months the WCS Archives has processed six collections, five of which are wholly or partially open for research.   The finding aids for these collections have joined the descriptions of previously processed archival collections available through the WCS Library’s public website, www.wcs.org/library.  (The direct link to the Archives’ finding aids is: http://ielc.libguides.com/wcs/archives_fas.)  Included below are the abstracts for and links to the collections’ finding aids, plus an image or document from each. Continue reading →

Charles Gandal–or “Chick”, as he was affectionately called–served as the Chief Veterinarian of the New York Zoological Society from 1958 until 1969. With specializations in anesthesia and nutrition, along with an extensive knowledge of avian and reptilian diseases, Gandal was a dedicated veterinarian who was always busy caring for the animals at the zoo and researching how to more effectively treat them.

Continue reading →