This post is by Sabrina Moore, WCS Archives Technician (October 2025-February 2026). Sabrina worked with the WCS Archives as part of our Department of Tropical Research Glass Negatives Digitization project, funded by the Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO). By May 2026, the WCS Archives looks forward to sharing the results of this project and more of the images that Sabrina discusses below.

As an Archives Technician for the WCS’s Library and Archives at the Bronx Zoo, much of my work over the past six months has involved digitizing 1,000 photographic negatives from the Department of Tropical Research’s (DTR) expeditions in British Guiana (now Guyana), Venezuela, Ecuador, and Haiti. In addition to digitizing, this work included cleaning, rehousing, and creating metadata for the collection. Many of the negatives document the team’s research in tropical terrestrial and marine environments, as well as scenes from the crew’s daily lives. 

However, within a collection focused on non-human animals of the Caribbean and South America, I found myself most drawn to photographs of local people. Many appear without names, sometimes identified only by occupation or activity, and at times described using language that today would be recognized as a slur. 

Images of humans other than the DTR crew make up approximately 5% of the currently digitized negatives (50 images). Only 1.4% (14 negatives) depict named individuals, all photographed during the DTR’s time in Guyana. Images of unnamed people are regionally split between Guyana (12 negatives) and Haiti (24 negatives). 

This namelessness struck a chord with me as the child of Guyanese immigrants, whose extended family spans several Caribbean nations. While reviewing the negatives, there were moments when I recognized familiar features—faces that reminded me of my family or of people I had encountered during my travels to Guyana over the years. 

Wanting to understand more about these individuals and their relationship with William Beebe, I turned to his writing, hoping it might restore a measure of their humanity. Beebe was a prolific author, publishing extensively about his expeditions, particularly in Guyana, where he spent considerable time at the Kalacoon and Kartabo Laboratories. Two of his best-known works, Jungle Peace (1918) and Edge of the Jungle (1921), chronicle these experiences, with Jungle Peace notably featuring a foreword by Theodore Roosevelt. 

In Jungle Peace, Beebe’s descriptions of local people range from condescending to overtly racist, at times reflecting white supremacist ideologies common in his era. He repeatedly refers to Indigenous and local people as “savages,” including in an anecdote describing a woman in New Amsterdam: 

“I watched with fascination a coolie woman bearing a great bundle of loosely bound fagots [sticks]… It surpassed anything I had ever seen among savages—the hand-like mobility of that coolie woman’s toes” (Jungle Peace, 111). 

Beebe frequently uses derogatory racialized language, referring to individuals by terms tied to ethnicity or social status. The word “coolie,” for example, was historically used to describe low-wage indentured laborers, often of Indian or Chinese descent; today, it carries deeply derogatory connotations and is considered a racial slur in many countries. His writing also reflects eugenic thought, as when he claims to distinguish “racial types” in British Guiana and suggests that race-mixing occurs “at the expense of the purity of facial lineament of race” (Jungle Peace, 115). 

When describing former Dutch sugar plantations, Beebe’s tone shifts toward nostalgia for the colonial past. He evokes a time “when plantations were like small kingdoms,” populated by enslaved laborers and filled with luxury goods (Jungle Peace, 70–71). He contrasts this with the present, lamenting that “the wattled huts of the negros had outlasted the great manor-houses” (71). 

Despite this, Beebe occasionally records moments of apparent genuine connection. He writes warmly of “Grandmother,” an elderly Akawai woman he calls “a good friend,” with whom he shared long conversations despite her not speaking English (Edge of the Jungle, 116). He refers to the people who assisted him as servants, though he shows favoritism toward Sam Christopher, Degas, and Jeremiah (also called Nupee) during his time in British Guiana. 

Beebe calls Sam “his boy” in his works, suggesting a close—though deeply paternalistic—relationship (Exploratory Works, 68). Through the writer, we learn fragments of Sam’s life: that he had once worked as a warden at a Georgetown jail (Jungle Peace, 140), and a humorous anecdote in which Sam loses his shoes in Kalacoon, only to find them days later at an Akawai wedding, worn by the groom (166–169).  

Degas, Grandmother’s grandson, is portrayed as indulgent and a little ineffectual, described as eating from Beebe’s rations or accepting cigarettes while failing to identify a plant (Edge of the Jungle, 117–119).  

Jeremiah, an Akawai hunter, is described as “an exceptional, faithful servant first and then a friend” (Jungle Peace, 266). He is the only one of the three mentioned in both books; in Edge of the Jungle, Beebe notes his death and reflects that afterward “the jungle to the south seemed to call less strongly” (5). 

While processing the photographs, I also noticed a striking shift in how local people are identified in later expeditions, particularly in Haiti (1927). Here, individuals are no longer given names or honorifics like “Grandmother,” but are simply labeled “Native.” This contrasts sharply with the more specific identifications of Akawai people in Guyana. The photographic compositions and envelope descriptions render these individuals more like specimens—akin to fish or birds—than like people. These observations raise questions about the nature of the relationships between Beebe, the DTR, and local communities in each country. 

One explanation may lie in differing research priorities. In Guyana, the DTR relied heavily on local knowledge and labor to access terrestrial environments, whereas in Haiti, its focus shifted toward marine life. While this may partially account for the change in representation, it does not fully answer the most persistent question I had while reviewing the Haiti slides: why are there so many portraits? 

It would be easy to conclude that the erasure of names reflects a calculated decision in institutional priorities. However, the presence of photographs, documenting drawings, and their apparent reference images suggest a more complicated story. Someone invested time and skill into carefully rendering these individuals’ likenesses yet did not extend the same care to record their names. The artist’s signature remains difficult to decipher and will require further evaluation by a subject-matter expert. 

For now, this is where the story pauses. Still, I am hopeful that by disseminating these images, this project may continue beyond my own work. My greatest desire is that someone might recognize a family member, ancestor, or community member and help restore their name. A name carries identity, relationships, and history. By digitizing these photographs, I hope to have helped make naming—and reclaiming—these lives more possible. 

The WCS Archives will be making all the images that Sabrina digitized from our Department of Tropical Research glass negative collection available online by May 2026. In the meantime, we’ll be sharing another post from Sabrina about the collection in April 2026.

Like other treasures in the WCS Archives, our scientific illustrations come with a very special story.  In 1925, the WCS Department of Tropical Research—a remarkable group of women and men, including scientists and artists—set sail on the Arcturus Expedition.  After months of groundbreaking research in the Galápagos, they spent four days exploring the vast and mysterious Hudson Canyon before returning home to New York City. 

Just 100 miles southeast of the city—“thirty leagues from Broadway,” as DTR leader William Beebe later described it—the Hudson Canyon is one of the world’s largest submarine canyons and an important habitat for hundreds of wildlife species.  In 1925, the expedition team was captivated by its beauty, strangeness, and diversity, documenting their discoveries in field notes and stunning illustrations now held in the WCS Archives. 

One hundred years later, we’re proud to share these illustrations with a new audience. Players of the award-winning cozy puzzle game, The Art of Fauna, will now be able to learn about different species that live in the Hudson Canyon by solving puzzles made from six DTR illustrations in the WCS Archives. Alongside information about animals like the lined seahorse, man of war fish, and others, players can learn about the Hudson Canyon and WCS’ work in nominating and now advocating for its designation as a National Marine Sanctuary.  This collaboration between the WCS Archives and The Art of Fauna app celebrates the history of this wondrous and vital ecosystem that WCS and partners are working to protect today. 

In addition to finding the Hudson Canyon illustrations as puzzles in The Art of Fauna app, you can also find them on a variety of products in the WCS Archives Redbubble Shop!  Check out our t-shirts, mugs, prints, and other goods featuring Hudson Canyon illustrations as well as other designs from the WCS Archives.

“Without documents; no history. Without history; no memory.”  

– Mary Ritter Beard (Historian, archivist, author and member of the Society of Women Geographers, quoted by Jayne Zanglein in The Girl Explorers [2021], 165.) 

As the Project Assistant for the WCS Library and Archives’ Recording at Risk project, funded by the Council of Library and Information Resources (CLIR), one of the most rewarding experiences of digitizing the Department of Tropical Research Film Collection was unearthing films made by carcinologist Jocelyn Crane and ichthyologist Gloria Hollister.  The Department of Tropical Research (DTR) was rare in employing both men and women field scientists in the 1920s through the 1960s. In addition to being excluded from conducting research in laboratories, women scientists were thought by some to be too socially distracting to travel and work alongside men abroad.  

The above reel is the earliest footage WCS has of Gloria Hollister, who joined the DTR in 1929 as a marine biologist specializing in the study of fish. During her time in Bermuda Hollister developed a new technique for preparing fish specimens in which the skin and internal organs of the fish were made transparent, allowing the skeletons of fish to be visible for study without dissection. The first part of the reel shows her communicating through phone wire with DTR Director William Beebe during his deep-sea dives in the Bathysphere. In the 1930s, Hollister made several historic dives in the Bathysphere, reaching a depth of 1,208 feet in 1934. She held this record for the farthest underwater descent made by a woman for thirty years. While no footage of those descents appears to exist, this reel includes clips of Hollister walking underwater with a diving helmet and catching shallow water fish specimens. 

After returning from her expeditions to Bermuda, Hollister would tour the United States on the lecture circuit, presenting her work at colleges, libraries, and women’s professional organizations. Her lectures were advertised as illustrating her deep-sea research work with colored lantern slides and films, shot with William Beebe in Bermuda.  They could be edited in different versions—for a popular audience, a children’s audience, or a scientific one.  Even after the advent of sound, these films were shown silently.   

One of the distinguishing characteristics of the DTR Film Collection is its iterative nature.  Its reels include different lecture versions; unlike Hollywood films, many of the DTR films are essentially variations on a theme, designed to be combined and recombined to suit various contexts. 

Another valuable contribution of this collection is its emphasis on the daily working life of scientists.  The films make a point of capturing how wildlife and natural history were being studied in the wild rather than through the examination of dead specimens. Beyond their potential impact on the scientific community of the day, the films were also posed to increase awareness about the practices of observation, exploration, and stewardship that wildlife research in the field enables.  

According to Jayne Zanglein’s The Girl Explorers (2021), Hollister had met William Beebe when she was a college student and had seen his film “A Naturalist in the Guiana Jungle” as part of his 1923 lecture documenting the DTR’s field studies at “Kartabo” near the Mazaruni River in Guyana (then called British Guiana). Hollister was immediately enraptured by the glimpses these films provided into the life of researchers in tropical ecosystems. The impact that Beebe’s film had on Hollister’s own trajectory provides us with valuable insight into just how important the DTR films were in inspiring the imaginations of new generations of natural scientists.  

Although the WCS Archives collection does not include “A Naturalist in the Guiana Jungle,” the film below contains footage from the DTR’s 1920s expeditions to Guyana. 

In 1936, Gloria Hollister came full circle and made history by leading her own DTR expedition to Trinidad, Barbados, and the interior of Guyana. Taking a cue from her mentor William Beebe, Hollister brought the photographer Arthur Menken and the artist Ruth Walker Brooks to document the expedition. The WCS Archives includes films from this expedition that contain the field observations of the guacharo or oil-bird of Trinidad, the peculiar methods utilized in capturing flying fish, and the early life of the hoatzin. During part of the expedition Hollister and Menken were flown by Arthur Williams, an airplane pilot, and Harry Wendt, co-pilot, over Kaieteur Falls and Plateau. In the reel below is footage that was taken both from the ground and from those flights. During these flights, Hollister and Menken recorded 43 waterfalls that were new to Western records.  

Jocelyn Crane joined the DTR staff in 1930, and for over 40 years she worked as a research zoologist alongside William Beebe. In 1952 she became the DTR’s assistant director, and after Beebe’s death in 1962 became the director.  An expert on fiddler crabs, her fieldwork focused on studying the social behavior and evolution of crabs. For the majority of DTR films shot in the1940s through the 1960s Crane is credited as being behind the camera, filming wildlife in Venezuela, Bermuda, and Trinidad. The film below, “Biologist in the Tropics” (1954), skillfully illustrates the DTR’s approach to studying the behavior of tropical animals in the field.  

In 1955, Jocelyn Crane was awarded a five-year grant from the National Science Foundation to further develop her body of research on crabs all over the world. Below is a travelogue-inspired film Crane made on her trip to Malaysia: “A Preface about William Beebe, and The Curious Crabs of Singapore” (1955). Narrated by Jocelyn Crane, the film documents her studies on 32 species of Ocypodid crabs. Her descriptions of various crabs, with focus on courtship behaviors, feeding, sheltering, and fighting, is interspersed with footage of Singapore waterfront and its bustling culture of canals. 

Read more about the project on the WCS Newsroom.

This post was written by Leopold Krist, Project Archivist for the WCS Archives project Preserving Conservation Science and History: Digitizing the Department of Tropical Research Films.  This project was supported by a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from the Mellon Foundation. 

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Library and Archives is excited to publicly unveil its Department of Tropical Research Film Collection.  Through a program made possible by funding from the Mellon Foundation, WCS was awarded a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) to digitize and make publicly available these films, created between the 1920s and 1960s.  

The films in this collection are rare examples of the early integration between motion pictures and scientific practices. What makes the films of the Department of Tropical Research (DTR) particularly special is rather than just using film as a tool for scientific research or documentation, they started using the medium to generate public interest in their work by a mass audience.  

Led by the naturalist William Beebe, the DTR conducted over four dozen expeditions across tropical terrestrial and marine locales. The staff of the DTR were among the first Western scientists to study the interconnectedness of tropical wildlife and their habitats through close, first-hand observations. In addition to field scientists, the staff of the DTR included writers, artists, and filmmakers who in addition to conducting scientific research were responsible for communicating the details of their fieldwork to a mass audience.  This form of communication was likely also essential to the DTR in raising funds to cover the high costs of their research. 

The film below is among the oldest DTR films we have in the WCS Archives. Created in 1923 and 1925, it contains clips from their two expeditions to the Galápagos Islands.  

Shot by John Tee-Van and Ernest Schoedsack (the future co-director of King Kong [1933]) the material in the above reel was part of the stream of newsreels, books, and articles that the DTR released in both popular magazines and scientific journals. Less than a year after his first expedition to the Galápagos Islands, Beebe published the book Galapagos: World’s End (1924). The book spent a year on the bestsellers list, with its vivid color illustrations and black-and-white photographs of rare wildlife. It was an accessible account of the islands that reactivated interest in this area as the site that inspired Darwin’s natural history studies. Some of the DTR’s accompanying films of flightless cormorants, tortoises, iguanas and albatrosses were released as newsreels and introduced the Galápagos Islands to new audiences across the world.  

In 1925 Beebe harnessed the public’s interest in his work and funded a six-month return expedition to the Galápagos Islands aboard the steam yacht Arcturus. 

Above are two films shot by Ernest Schoedsack from the Arcturus expedition. The first film is an example of a newsreel exhibited alongside silent feature films, and the second film was shown to audiences attending William Beebe’s in-person lectures. In 1926, less than a year after returning from his second expedition to the Galápagos Islands, Beebe published another best-selling account of his oceanographic expedition, The Arcturus Adventure. The combination of Beebe’s books and films, according to Galápagos Conservation Trust Ambassador Henry Nicholls, reactivated public interest and led to a rapid increase in tourism to the Galápagos Islands.  

Read more about the project on the WCS Newsroom.

This post was written by Leopold Krist, Project Archivist for the WCS Archives project Preserving Conservation Science and History: Digitizing the Department of Tropical Research Films.  This project was supported by a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from the Mellon Foundation. 

This post was written by Helen Vivas, who was the WCS Library and Archives’ Photo Collection Management Intern for Fall 2023. Helen is completing her Bachelor’s of Arts, in history and film studies, from CUNY Queens College.

When the Children’s Zoo opened to the public in 1941, the War in Europe was already disrupting people’s lives in the U.S. As the country entered World War II at year’s end everyone had to make sacrifices, including education and recreation outside of schools. An area at the Bronx Zoo specifically for children created a friendly and welcoming environment during a time when many aspects in the lives of kids were changing. For a time, fuel rationing limited school trips. But according to the Annual Report of 1941: “wartime restrictions on classes visiting the Zoo were removed early in the season and classes began to come in considerable numbers — we undertook to give free guided tours to classes from New York City schools. In all, 113 school tours were scheduled — far more than we could take care of.” (29) Children needed public spaces for social and educational activity, a parallel seen during the Bronx Zoo’s 2020 reopening amid the coronavirus pandemic. The environment of the Bronx Zoo has always catered to curious onlookers learning from animal exhibits. These historic moments saw the zoo leaning into its role as a child-friendly educational resource.

Through my work as the intern at the WCS Library and Archives, I have come to understand how the Bronx Zoo recognizes public need and interest over much of the past 125 years. Although children today have information and technology at their fingertips, they still have a strong need for experiences in the real world. In a place like New York City where concrete and skyscrapers overtake our environment, for some the Bronx Zoo is the only place to interact with wildlife and different environments. A zoo is more than a place where animals live, it teaches empathy and appreciation for a world beyond our own. Those attributes can be especially helpful during confusing times.

This post was written by Tayla Evans, who was the WCS Library and Archives’ Photo Collection Management Intern for Summer 2023. Tayla is currently working on her Bachelor’s of Fine Arts, with a specialization in Illustration, from Pratt University.

During the early 20^th century, vanguards of the era were inciting technological revolutions, confronting flu epidemics, and lounging by the Bronx Zoo’s Sea Lion Pool – just like we would today.

One thing I’ve noticed is that when recalling people from previous times, we often skew our perception of them by imagining them as being an entirely different demeanor from us. You might imagine women in the early 1900s leading their bustles across the street as suited businessmen hold austere conversation. People who had lived so long ago that their entire bearing might seem alien to our modern manners. But time doesn’t change the fact that people have always been people. My experience as a Photo Management Intern at the WCS Library and Archives has illuminated me to this phenomenon more than ever. 

My involvement with the Archives granted me the opportunity to digitize photo negatives that offer a history of the Bronx Zoo since its conception, allowing me to witness the visual development of the zoo as it cemented itself as both a cultural institution and a landmark in conservation – and an essential part of the community. As I examined negatives leading up from the early to late 1900s, I think of the events that were happening in the periphery of these snapshots of life – some of which are mirrored in our time, like the Influenza Epidemic of 1918. Furthermore, despite similarly tragic events such as the World Wars, there lies an apparent care and joy that visitors found within the zoo and its non-human inhabitants.

I’ve realized, as I went through the Archives, that photographs offer a breadth of life – an exhibit of how the different experiences of humankind can be united by a shared familiarity with the Bronx Zoo throughout time. Photos are a way of injecting life and humanity into a past we see as wholly distant from ourselves; that’s why photos are so important – we garner what we know from what has been left behind because people cared to preserve them.

Getting the opportunity to view the historical photo negatives in the archives has given me a new lens in viewing a history of the Bronx community that isn’t as well known. As the WCS Archives continue to grow and expand in diversity and voices, I urge everyone to empower themselves through the unknown and eccentric history that exists in their local institutions; they might seem more familiar than you expect!

We are pleased to share the results of a Conservation Treatment Grant we received from the Greater Hudson Heritage Network.  With this funding, we have been able to secure conservation treatment for a painting in our collection that holds historical, aesthetic, and cultural significance: Whooping Cranes on their Breeding Grounds in Saskatchewan, done in 1922 by the New York ornithologist and artist Louis Agassiz Fuertes and purchased from the artist in 1923 by the Wildlife Conservation Society for its artwork collection.  Conservator Nadia Ghannam performed repairs, cleaning, and stabilization that has helped restore this painting’s vibrancy and ensure its longevity.

A lifelong New York resident who was considered the foremost American ornithological painter of his lifetime, Louis Agassiz Fuertes illustrated several of the era’s most important bird books, and he produced dozens of murals and oil paintings featuring birds in glorious detail.  Fuertes’ particular significance, both to art history and ornithological history, was his approach to observing his subjects—an approach he honed alongside early WCS leaders.  Like his associate, the Bronx Zoo’s first Curator of Birds, William Beebe, Fuertes was an early proponent of studying animals in their natural habitats.  In this, they broke with researchers and artists before them, who had studied wildlife only from stuffed museum specimens.  Instead, Fuertes and Beebe each traveled extensively to observe living birds. Among Fuertes’ expeditions, he visited Canada, where he performed intensive studies of the cranes he depicts so vividly in this painting.  His first-hand observations of birds living in their natural habitats have been credited for the accuracy and vitality he brought to his ornithological paintings and showcased in these elegant and vivacious cranes. It is likewise significant that whooping cranes were among the birds central to one of the nascent wildlife conservation movement’s first public campaigns: to discourage the era’s destructive trend of using bird plumage to decorate women’s hats.  Paintings like Fuertes’s illustrated the birds’ beauty in their natural settings and sought to inspire care for these threatened animals.

As described elsewhere on this blog, early WCS leaders saw art as a vital means of stimulating public interest in animals.  Whooping cranes were of particular concern, and the Bronx Zoo’s first director feared that they would be “the next North American species to be totally exterminated.” Thankfully, that prediction has not borne out.  While whooping cranes are still endangered, their numbers have risen since the early twentieth century, in part due to advocacy measures and captive breeding programs aided by many including WCS. 

The NYSCA/GHHN Conservation Grant Treatment Program is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, with support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.  The Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation has provided additional dedicated support for conservation treatment projects on Long Island and New York City.

The generations of zoogoers visiting the World of Birds will either insure the survival of wildlife through interest and concern, or its destruction through negligence and exploitation.”

World of Birds pamphlet, 1972

The World of Birds opened on June 16, 1972.  The gift of Lila Acheson Wallace, for whom the building is named, it was widely considered among the most innovative zoo exhibits upon its opening, and it continues to be a Bronx Zoo icon. 

The first Bronx Zoo Bird House opened in 1905 under the direction of the zoo’s first Curator of Birds, William Beebe. Its design was an attempt to deliver on early WCS leaders’ intentions to create a zoo that would be a “decided advance beyond anything thus far accomplished.” Although many of the Bird House’s features—including live plants and multi-species exhibits—were considered radical at the time of its opening, the evolution in zoo design over the course of the twentieth century led to WCS’s view by the late 1950s that the Bird House was outdated and sparked plans for the modern exhibit that would become the World of Birds. 

William Conway developed the concept for the World of Birds.  At that time NYZS General Director, Bronx Zoo Director, and Ornithology Curator, Conway also oversaw the project’s planning, development, and construction.

Composed of a series of large interconnected cylinders with skylight roofs, and sweeping exterior ramps, the World of Birds was planned for the exhibition of 500 birds representing more than 200 species and subspecies in 25 separate exhibit areas.  The building’s lead architect, Morris Ketchum Jr., said of the design in the New York Times, “We didn’t worry about how the place looks from the outside. Conway’s very much against spending effort and money on exteriors except where it does something for the animals, but don’t think it’s any the worse for that.  What we did was simply build the exhibits, or habitats, as well as we could, then put a protective skin around them. It’s striking just as it is.”

The architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable was among the many who were indeed struck by the building’s Brutalist design. She admiringly described its form in a New York Times review as an “asparagus-like bunch of cut-off cylinders, ellipses and free forms joined by ramps.”  The World of Birds, Huxtable wrote, “is surefire drama and painless education. And fun.”  She welcomed the new building as a sign of an always evolving institution, declaring that “There are no flies on New York’s Bronx Zoo.  It entertains, instructs and proselytizes, and it uses the tool of architecture to do so with singular skill.”

Aside from the building’s exterior, several features contributed to building’s ingenuity. Although the World of Birds was often noted for its barrierless displays, these had been used before, in St. Louis and Philadelphia for instance. They had been used as well in the 1964 Bronx Zoo Aquatic Birds House, also led by Conway, which served as a testing ground for concepts that would make World of Birds so innovative.  What was new about the World of Birds was the development of immersive displays, like the African Jungle and South American Rain Forest exhibits, that placed visitors inside the exhibits.  The displays were enhanced by advanced features and exhibit technologies. Among these were a 120-foot-long, 50-foot-high fiberglass cliff (based on a mold of the New Jersey Palisades); a 40-foot waterfall; natural plants and live trees as well as fiberglass and cork trees; multi-level displays; built-in watering systems; artificial rainstorms including mists, sounds, and strobe lights; backgrounds utilizing new airbrushing techniques; and film displays to supplement graphics.

The World of Birds was designed to “awaken concern for the natural world,” and from the start, the building’s signage included messaging about threats to birds and their habitats.  An introductory pamphlet about the building included an appeal to visitors:  “As you gaze on these beautiful creatures, remember that their wild world is disappearing—that your children’s children may never have the possibility of observing such creatures.  The generations of zoogoers visiting the World of Birds will either insure the survival of wildlife through interest and concern, or its destruction through negligence and exploitation.” 

Indeed, WCS believed strongly in the building’s ability to inspire visitors to take conservation actions, explaining elsewhere that “An enormous effort has been made to carry into the city some suggestion of the beauty of the natural world in which birds dwell outside.  It seems likely that the vast majority of visitors to the World of Birds and their children after them will have little opportunity to see wild animals in nature.  Nevertheless, it will be this growing municipal population whose feeling toward wildlife, reflected in their votes, will ultimately shape the future of national parks and wildlife refuges and the opportunities future generations will have to see and enjoy wildlife.  That is what the World of Birds is all about.” 

This post was written by Shelda Zajmi. A Master of Information candidate at Rutgers University, Shelda worked during Fall 2021-Spring 2022 on the WCS Archives’ Photo Preservation Project funded by a New York State Library Conservation/Preservation of Library Materials Grant.

The Bronx Zoo was founded by the New York Zoological Society with the purpose of serving the public while promoting education and conservation. As laid out in the Society’s founding charter, the City of New York supported this endeavor by providing 250 acres of city park lands as well as annual funds for the Zoological Park’s maintenance, including upkeep of buildings and care for animals. The New York Zoological Society paid for animals, research, exploration, and conservation.

The choice to locate the Bronx Zoo in South Bronx Park was purposeful, and in the Society’s first Annual Report, one reason listed was its proximity to the New York Botanical Garden, which would be beneficial to both institutions. Another reason was the richness of the existing landscape. The southern portion of Bronx Park was described by the Bronx Zoo’s first director William Hornaday as having a “wonderful combination of hill and hollow, with high ridge and deep valley, of stream and pond, rolling meadow, rocky ledge and virgin forest of the finest description, all of which, by a happy combination of circumstances, have been preserved through all these years.” These features made the land adaptable to the needs of animal enclosures. Accessibility, to be reached by many from all classes and places, was another big consideration.

Prior to New York City’s ownership, much of the South Bronx Park land had been held by private landowners, including the ones who signed the 1802 deed above—an image I found during my work preserving WCS’s historical photo negative collection. Before these private landowners, however, the coastal Lenape known as the Unami lived in the Bronx River area. Their sister Lenape village, Quinnahung, was on the other side of the River near Clason Point. Indigenous Peoples were mindful of the River, viewing it as a watershed. The British viewed the River as a boundary between the groups and saw its potential for profit. This made the Bronx River, which was once clean enough to supply New York’s drinking water, highly polluted. To this day, the River still contains pollution.

Today, the Bronx River Alliance leads efforts to protect the Bronx River, and the Wildlife Conservation Society is a Bronx River Alliance partner.  The Bronx Zoo also has a history of Bronx River clean-up days, such as the one that resulted in the photo I found above.  According to the New York Zoological Society 1971 Annual Report, such clean-up days–which originally began as a project under the Community Affairs Officer’s coordination–were attended by Zoo personnel and local service and ecology groups, and set out to lay the groundwork for a more extensive Bronx River project in the future.

For more on the early history of the Bronx River, and what non-Indigenous people can learn from Indigenous connections to the environment and respect for wildlife, I recommend this Indigenous History of the Bronx River, from the Bronx River Alliance.  

This post was written by Matt Perelli, MA, CRA. An emerging professional archivist, Matt worked during Fall 2021-Spring 2022 on the WCS Archives’ Photo Preservation Project funded by a New York State Library Conservation/Preservation of Library Materials Grant.

Forty years ago, the public eagerly crowded into the Bronx Zoo’s Astor Court to mask up for wildlife.  “Thousands [of visitors] arriving as kids left as zebras, tigers, and cheetahs.”[1]  From 1983 until 1988, the Zoo Mask Weekend was one of many Zoo Celebrations “well known around the country and eagerly anticipated by the public and media of metropolitan New York.”[2]  The Zoo Mask Weekend celebrated wildlife and the world’s diversity of cultures, and allowed children to let loose their inner wild animal (not that they ever need an excuse.)