This first sequence shows a hippo being delivered to an unnamed Southern California zoo about 1940. (Is it Los Angeles?) A large crane can be seen in the background, explaining how the hippo’s crate was set down inside the enclosure. Back then, hippos were not all that common on the west coast, so Richard Reynolds probably has information on this particular hippo in his files. |
Sunday, September 16, 2012
The News Parade #2
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I’m pretty sure this is the San Diego Zoo. Further, I think it shows the arrival of a female hippo to go with the male Puddles.
I cannot put a date on the arrival of the female beyond the suggestion that it is in the late 30s or maybe 1940.
I know more about Puddles, the zoo’s very first hippo and the first ever in a zoo on the west Coast. He arrived in August 1936 from the Brookfield zoo where he had been born on July 8, 1935.
Writing about her new hippo in the September ZOONEWS, San Diego zoo Director Belle J Benchley said as follows - -
For the first time in the history of the zoos on the Pacific coast, a hippopotamus is to be exhibited. Of course this does not mean that no one living on the Pacific coast has seen a hippopotamus for they are always exhibited by circuses and the Al G. Barnes Circus has even gone so far as to exhibit a trained one which is actually trained to pull cart around the hippodrome track.
The San Diego Zoo did in fact take delivery of two hippos “Rupe” and “Rupie” in 1940. On October 30, 1943, Rupie gave birth to “Lotus” the first hippo born at the Zoo. (Would this be the same Lotus that later traveled with the Ringling show?)
Post a Comment