The air is stuffy, the vegetation is lush, and the cries of monkeys can be heard in the distance. Normally the next sentence would be: I’m walking through our Masoala rainforest. But this time I’m not in the tropics on Zurichberg, but at the invitation of the Brazilian Association of Zoos at the annual conference in Sao Paulo. Our two zoos have more in common than meets the eye. My predecessor, Professor Heini Hediger, was invited to São Paulo. In 1957, after three years in Zurich, he was asked by his Brazilian colleagues to help them develop their first master plan.
Heini Hediger gladly accepted this invitation and flew to Sao Paulo. Then he drove to a place called Aqua Funda, 20 kilometers from Sao Paulo. Here, he writes later, there is still a tropical forest with jaguars, capybaras and howler monkeys. At that time, about 3 million people already lived in São Paulo. Nearly 70 years later, the population has increased to over 22 million and Brazil’s largest city is firmly established around the zoo. Little remains of the pristine rainforest.
But then Heini Hediger was met by the wild greenery of the coastal tropical forests of the Atlantic. He saw the incredible potential that existed here: a lot of space, a lot of water and plants, as well as hilly terrain. Hediger’s imagination was fired. Many of his suggestions were well received by colleagues. However, not all. Heini Hediger was especially fascinated by the local animal species: for him, the black vulture was an exotic and scientifically very interesting bird. For this, Hediger’s concept envisioned a central location with an airshow.
However, when he presented the idea in São Paulo, the director there looked him in the eye and said, “Your favorite bird is a disgusting animal that feeds on garbage and feces. Under no circumstances does he come to our zoo.” Hediger’s suggestion was as fitting as someone in Zurich suggesting an air show for street pigeons. But apart from this small “clash of cultures”, different things were realized in the following years. Unfortunately, in recent decades, the zoo, now in the hands of the state, has received only limited financial support necessary for modern development.
It was all the more gratifying to see that the zoo, which has recently become part of a public-private collaboration, has come up with a new, very ambitious master plan. Like our master plan, it is 30 years old and will be groundbreaking for a Brazilian zoo. Therefore, the meeting was even more exciting, an exchange of views on two ambitious master plans. This time without black vultures, but still with a tropical vibe.