The Prospect Park Zoo is a zoo located off Flatbush Avenue on the eastern side of Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York City. , the zoo houses 864 animals representing about 176 species, and , it averaged 300,000 visitors annually. The Prospect Park Zoo is operated by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). In conjunction with the Prospect Park Zoo's operations, the WCS offers children's educational programs, is engaged in restoration of endangered species populations, runs a wildlife theater, and reaches out to the local community through volunteer programs.
Its precursor, the Menagerie, opened in 1890. The present facility first opened as a city zoo on July 3, 1935, and was part of a larger revitalization program of city parks, playgrounds and zoos initiated in 1934 by Parks Commissioner Robert Moses. It was built, in large part, through Civil Works Administration and Works Progress Administration (WPA) labor and funding.
After 53 years of operation as a city zoo run by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, Prospect Park Zoo, also colloquially known as "Brooklyn Zoo", closed in June 1988 for reconstruction. The closure signaled the start of a five-year, $37 million renovation program that, save for the exteriors of the 1930s-era buildings, completely replaced the zoo. It was rededicated on October 5, 1993, as the Prospect Park Wildlife Conservation Center, as part of a system of four zoos and one aquarium managed by the WCS, all of which are accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA).
Features
The Prospect Park Zoo is part of the Wildlife Conservation Society, an integrated network of four zoos and an aquarium spread throughout New York City. Located at 450 Flatbush Avenue, across from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the zoo is situated on a plot somewhat lower than street level in Prospect Park. Visitors may enter through the Flatbush Avenue entrance or from within Prospect Park, near Leffert's Homestead and the Carousel.
In 2007, 234,000 people visited the Prospect Park Zoo, about the same as the 2006 level of 235,000. , Prospect Park Zoo had 864 animals representing 176 species.
Exhibits
The zoo presents three themed exhibition venues, each housed in a dedicated building.
World of Animals The World of Animals in the southern quadrant of the zoo, features the Discovery Trail. The trail begins in the World of Animals building, but visitors quickly pass to an outdoor path that winds through the southern third of the zoo. Animals from diverse corners of the globe are shown in settings not unlike their natural habitats. Visitors may find along the trail black-tailed prairie dogs, porcupines, red pandas, emus, dingos, North American river otters, and other animals. Signs often ask challenging questions, reinforcing presentations made in the zoo's Discovery Center, or alert viewers to look for signs of animal habitation. Along one part of the Discovery Trail, young visitors may crawl through "underground burrows" to observation posts roofed with clear, hemispherical observation ports. They may observe prairie dogs in the ground, right in the midst of the animals themselves.
Animal Lifestyles Animal Lifestyles, in the western quadrant of the zoo, features indoor habitat exhibits. Visitors in the foyer of the building are shown Life in the Water, Life in Air, and Life on Land dioramas. Each diorama holds a carefully controlled environment that features select animals. These central displays broadly relate animals to their surrounds. Exhibits featuring more specific biota branch off from the central foyer. Side exhibits center on black-footed cats, pallas cats, sand cats, cotton-top tamarins, meerkats, emerald tree boas, dwarf mongooses, desert monitors, among others. Some of these exhibits feature critically endangered animals.Exhibit signage, Prospect Park Zoo The Prospect Park Zoo is engaged in breeding species in captivity, a part of the larger wild life recovery program of the Wildlife Conservation Society.
The main Animal Lifestyles exhibit consists of a troop of hamadryas baboons. Zoo visitors may observe the troop in a large glassed-in gallery which looks out into a rocky outcrop. Small caves in the outcrop lead to interior burrows where the animals may avoid inclement weather. The rear wall of the gallery illustrates common forms of baboon signalling and behavior, along with other social aspects of the animals. Ample seating allows visitors to observe the troop.
Animals in Our Lives Animals in Our Lives in the northern quadrant of the zoo has both indoor and outdoor exhibits illustrating relationships between animals and people and animal adaptations. The Animals in Art themed area occupies one side of the Animals in Our Lives building. The other side of the building showcases animals and their adaptations for a variety of survival needs.
A small working barn further north of the building contains the Animals in Our Lives exhibit. It is organized around a working barn with sheep, cows, goats, ducks, geese and other animals.
Educational programs
The zoo hosts educational venues as well as exhibits. These revolve around the Discovery Center, a building with classrooms and laboratories designed to introduce school-age children to investigative practices of environmental and wildlife scientists. The Discovery Center introduces children to laboratory practices; they learn about and use professional laboratory equipment and learn how to integrate what they observe into zoological theory. These programs are based on educational concepts developed through WIZE (Wildlife Inquiry through Zoo Education), a program developed by Bronx Zoo educators.
The volunteer program at the Prospect Park Zoo engages members of the community; it is a combination outreach and educational program for adults. Volunteer guides conduct tours for visitors, while volunteer docents augment the educational program. Docents enroll in a four-month training program.
Facilities
The zoo grounds and building exteriors were designed by Aymar Embury II. The facility consists of six red brick and lime-stoned trimmed buildings grouped in a semi-circular arrangement around a central courtyard with the sea lion pool occupying the center of the court. The building exteriors date to the 1930s while the interiors were built during the 1989–1993 reconstruction. There is a freestanding wooden barn just north of the circular group of buildings. A set of stairs from the main entrance leads visitors down to zoo level. A small restaurant and the administrative center is immediately to the left, occupying the southeastern quadrant of the zoo. The Discovery Center is immediately to the right, occupying the northeastern quadrant of the zoo. Arrayed in front of the visitor are the three exhibit buildings, The World of Animals to the south, the Animal Lifestyles building, behind the sea lion pool directly in front of the visitor, Animals in our Lives is to the right.
History
First menagerie The original 1866 proposal of Prospect Park featured a "Zoological Garden" on the western flank of the park, near the present Litchfield Villa, but the garden had not been started by the time Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux separated from the park in 1874. This notwithstanding, a few features of the original park design did serve zoological purposes. A Wild Fowl Pond, once occupying the northern quadrant of the zoo grounds, served as a haven for water birds. A Deer Paddock, once occupying the southern quadrants of the zoo grounds, was a penned-in area for deer. In addition, a flock of sheep regularly maintained the grass in the park meadows and were kept in a paddock on the eastern flank of Sullivan Hill, near the now-demolished Dairy Farmhouse.
Interest in zoological gardens flowered in the last decade of the 19th century. An informal Menagerie began to take shape within Prospect Park in May 1890 when the newly appointed president of the City of Brooklyn Parks Commission, George V. Brower, donated "three young cinnamon bears."References to acquisitions of three cinnamon bears, kept in pens near the Dairy, before dinner at (a then expanded, now demolished) Shelter (Concert Grove) House. State Treasurer Harry Adams followed with a donation of three white deer, establishing a pattern. It was mainly through donations of animals by rich or prominent individuals that the Menagerie grew. By 1893, one observer noted that “seven seals arrived, one buffalo, from the estate of Samuel B. Duryea, three red foxes, three bears, one sacred cow, two white deer, five red deer, seven seals, and twelve to fifteen peacocks."
The animals were kept in pens on Sullivan Hill, situated across the East Drive from the zoo's present location, near the sheep paddock and northeast of the Dairy Farmhouse.Among other changes under way in the last decade of the 19th century, the Deer Paddock from the original park design merged with the Menagerie. The original Deer Paddock became a small meadow. This small meadow was later incorporated into Leffert's Homestead (1918) and the southern part of the present Zoo (1935)In June 1891, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle ran a front page interview with George V. Brower, President of the Parks Commission, referring to the Prospect Park Menagerie still as a contemplated future project. Mr. Brower did say a "nucleus" had been established, and goes on to inventory the holdings in this nucleus (see reference for details). Of the original zoological facilities in the park, the Deer Paddock, located near the present Carousel, was converted into a meadow and the deer were moved to the new Menagerie, The Wild Fowl Pond remained, located on the east side of the park in a low area now forming the northern part of the zoo. The Menagerie continued to accrue animals in the first decades of the 20th century. These were generally donated by prominent individuals and institutions and formed a varied collection of specimens both native to North America and other regions of the world. A two-story brick building was opened in the Menagerie in 1916, housing monkeys, some small mammals, and several birds. An elephant house in the zoo was announced in 1930, and a heating system was proposed for the elephant house in 1932.
Modern zoo creation
After assuming office in January 1934, New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia hired Robert Moses to head a newly unified Parks Department. Moses soon prepared extensive plans to reconstruct the city's parks, renovate existing facilities and create new swimming pools, zoos, playgrounds and parks. Moses acquired substantial Civil Works Administration, and later, Works Progress Administration funding and soon embarked upon an eight-year citywide construction program, relieving some of the high unemployment in New York City in this Depression year. Aymar Embury II prepared plans for the new zoo, which were announced in March 1934. The new zoo was to be located between the Wild Fowl Pond and former Deer Paddock on the east side of the park, across the East Drive from the Menagerie and slightly north of Willink Plaza and the Lefferts Historic House. Work on preliminary excavations had already started when Embury's plans were officially announced.