Edinburgh's first Royal Zoological Gardens opened to the public in August, 1840. They occupied six acres in East Claremont Street and were 'designed for securing safety as well as the favourable display of animals for the satisfaction of the spectators'.
The 1842 Guide to the Royal Zoological Gardens describes them as a 'valuable institution of national importance forming an extensive and varied collection'. One report noted that the elephant exemplified the 'great utility of the Zoological Gardens in which the animal could be seen in living grandeur, it being so difficult to convey an adequate idea of this stupendous beast in words or even by drawings'. The specimen in the collection was an imposing eight year old male and visitors were particularly encouraged to admire 'that exquisite piece of mechanism, its lithe proboscis'.
The Bear Enclosure was a deep stone-lined pit with a pole in the centre by which 'Bruin would ascent to collect titbits offered by visitors'. The most 'striking and magnificent' exhibit was the 'wonderful and unique' skeleton of a whale which was 'astonishing in its ponderous proportions'. It measured 84 feet long and was the only perfect whale skeleton of its kind in existence. This 'stupendous production of nature' had been found floating in the sea, off Dunbar, by fishermen, dragged ashore and dissected on the beach by Dr Robert Knox and several assistants.
The guide describes the Zoological Gardens as being 'adapted to the healthful maintenance of the animals', but an independent account of the zoo refers to 'the wretched bear in a deep stone pit and the indescribable smell of the Monkey House, in which consumption carried off many of the inmates every season'. The only animals which are described as thriving are the polar bears which 'took abundance of playful exercise in a great bath and were unaffected by the inhospitable Edinburgh winters', and the elephant which 'gained liberty and exercise from its ability to perambulate the grounds with dozens of juvenile visitors in its back'.
The animals were eventually so depleted from disease that the zoo closed in 1867.
|
