page_title: Zoo
section_title: The modern zoo
hierarchical_section_title: Zoo / History / The modern zoo
caption_attribution_description: Polski: Afrykarium we Wrocławiu
context_page_description: A zoo is a facility in which animals are housed within enclosures, cared for, displayed to the public, and in some cases bred.
  The term "zoological garden" refers to zoology, the study of animals. The term is derived from the Greek ζώον, 'zoon', "animal," and the suffix -λογία, '-logia', "study of". The abbreviation "zoo" was first used of the London Zoological Gardens, which was opened for scientific study in 1828 and to the public in 1847. In the United States alone, zoos are visited by over 181 million people annually.
context_section_description: Until the early 19th century, the function of the zoo was often to symbolize royal power, like King Louis XIV's menagerie at Versailles. The modern zoo that emerged in the 19th century in the United Kingdom, was focused on providing scientific study and later educational exhibits to the public for entertainment and inspiration.
  A growing fascination for natural history and zoology, coupled with the tremendous expansion in the urbanization of London, led to a heightened demand for a greater variety of public forms of entertainment to be made available. The need for public entertainment, as well as the requirements of scholarly research, came together in the founding of the first modern zoos.
  The Zoological Society of London was founded in 1826 by Stamford Raffles and established the London Zoo in Regent's Park two years later in 1828. At its founding, it was the world's first scientific zoo. Originally intended to be used as a collection for scientific study, it was opened to the public in 1847. The Zoo was located in Regent's Park - then undergoing development at the hands of the architect John Nash. What set the London zoo apart from its predecessors was its focus on society at large. The zoo was established in the middle of a city for the public, and its layout was designed to cater for the large London population. The London zoo was widely copied as the archetype of the public city zoo. In 1853, the Zoo opened the world's first public aquarium.
  Dublin Zoo was opened in 1831 by members of the medical profession interested in studying animals while they were alive and more particularly getting hold of them when they were dead. 
  Downs' Zoological Gardens created by Andrew Downs and opened to the Nova Scotia public in 1847. It was originally intended to be used as a collection for scientific study. By the early 1860s, the zoo grounds covered 40 hectares with many fine flowers and ornamental trees, picnic areas, statues, walking paths, The Glass House (which contained a greenhouse with an aviary, aquarium, and museum of stuffed animals and birds), a pond, a bridge over a waterfall, an artificial lake with a fountain, a wood-ornamented greenhouse, a forest area, and enclosures and buildings.
  The first zoological garden in Australia was Melbourne Zoo in 1860. In the same year, Central Park Zoo, the first public zoo in the United States, opened in New York, although in 1859, the Philadelphia Zoological Society had made an effort to establish a zoo, but delayed opening it until 1874 because of the American Civil War.
  In 1907, the German entrepreneur Carl Hagenbeck founded the Tierpark Hagenbeck in Stellingen, now a quarter of Hamburg. His zoo was a radical departure from the layout of the zoo that had been established in 1828. It was the first zoo to use open enclosures surrounded by moats, rather than barred cages, to better approximate animals' natural environments. He also set up mixed-species exhibits and based the layout on the different organizing principle of geography, as opposed to taxonomy.
  Whipsnade Park Zoo in Bedfordshire, England, opened in 1931. It allowed visitors to drive through the enclosures and come into close proximity with the animals.
  
  When ecology emerged as a matter of public interest in the 1970s, a few zoos began to consider making conservation their central role, with Gerald Durrell of the Jersey Zoo, George Rabb of Brookfield Zoo, and William Conway of the Bronx Zoo (Wildlife Conservation Society) leading the discussion. From then on, zoo professionals became increasingly aware of the need to engage themselves in conservation programs, and the American Zoo Association soon said that conservation was its highest priority. In order to stress conservation issues, many large zoos stopped the practice of having animals perform tricks for visitors. The Detroit Zoo, for example, stopped its elephant show in 1969, and its chimpanzee show in 1983, acknowledging that the trainers had probably abused the animals to get them to perform.
  The Wrocław Zoo (Polish: Ogród Zoologiczny we Wrocławiu), the oldest zoo 
caption: The largest tank of the Afrykarium in the Wrocław Zoo shows the depths of the Mozambique Channel, where sharks, rays, and other large pelagic fish can be viewed from this 18 meter long underwater acrylic tunnel
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