Ear on Chicago; A Day at the Zoo: Brookfield Zoo; Part 1

One of the thrills that takes place during a person's lifetime comes when he visits the zoo and animals from all over the world are exhibited before his eyes. Come with us now as we visit the internationally famous Brookfield Zoo. We open our show at the South Gate where we will meet zoo director Robert Bean. Mr. Bean, suppose you come over here and talk to me for just a minute. Now first of all let me describe the scene as we walk through the gates of the zoo. This is the south end. What street does that face out there Mr. Bean? That face is Rockefeller Avenue and the portion of Brookfield and then the far end there's another gate down there. What's that? That's the North Gate. It's 3 ,100 South in the way of Chicago numbering. It's 8 ,300 West in the way of Chicago numbering. Now we have come in the South Gate and far up to the north we can see the North Gate and people are coming in up there just as fast as they're coming in down here. About halfway between the South Gate and the North Gate there's a huge fountain. Do you have a name for that fountain? It's the Seattle Roosevelt Memorial fountain. It was

contributions for it where where made years and years ago and entrusted the Art Institute and the Art Institute was kind enough to give it to the Zoological Society and Mrs. Clay Judson, why for the president's society was kind enough to do its design and its sculpture and its plinths but I'm ashamed I haven't said welcome to you before I start to talk. Well that's all right. Well now Mr. Bean that's really a magnificent fountain and that's all part of the scenery as you see as you come in the gate either from the south or the north to the left and to the right of the fountains is a large pathway of trees and right down the center of course of plots of grass and it's really a beautiful scene. Now the most important thing is not the scenery out here but the animals. Mr. Bean where do you suggest we start? I'm afraid we shouldn't go to what most visitors consider the most interesting animals in the zoo the reptiles. They really do for years and years we poll them at the gates. We find people that are reluctant to go in the reptile house but once they come in they stay there longer and they do anywhere else. So we'll do a little out of order to save some steps. We'll call on the monkeys my congenital relatives.

Their second is an attraction. They're here relatives. Mr. Bean as we're walking over to the monkey house I've been handed a map of the zoo here. This is certainly a very complete and picturesque layout of this Brookfield zoo and I can't make out right now exactly. Well here we are right here at the south gate. We're moving away from south gate towards the monkey house and you mentioned the handsome map of the handsome place. She'll I'd like to introduce Mr. Ralph Graham assistant director of the zoo among the many things he does for the park or many of these artistic things this map is his work. Well Mr. Graham you certainly have done a magnificent job on the map. One of these maps has handed out to each person who visits the zoo is that right? No they're made available to them. We sell them for 10 cents each. We think that everybody can afford them. Yes and certainly could 10 cents for a map like this. We also have a map on the back

of the guidebook. A very simple map. It's not as detailed as this. Mr. Graham we've reached the monkey cage over here and suppose you explain to us now we walked around is rather a large place and we walked around while we were talking. Several of the cages over there on the south side. What kind of monkeys are over there? Well first I'd like to say that we have everything here from the smallest monkey to the largest eight. The little merma's that will weigh probably less than a pound. Where over here on your left you see what will be the biggest. He's a young fellow yet but when he grows up he'll probably reach about 500 pounds. That's a baby the gorilla and his mate there is saffel. I always thought an orangutan was the biggest one. No a gorilla will exceed them and stature and then wait. Well right in front of us I guess is an orangutan. That's a fine citizen here. That's Peter and little Tia. They were brought here as babies. I believe Tia weighed 12 pounds and Peter

was 14 I believe. Peter's the big one? Yes he's the one. He may notice that large sack under his chin that that's called a laryngeal sack. It isn't just fat but it's there for a purpose it's connected with the respiratory system. He looks like a powerful fellow. He is he's very powerful. We've come over down to the cages of the chimpanzees. We're standing out in front of two big black ones. Sally on the left and Mike on the right. These come from the equatorial forests along water courses in Africa and one of the keepers in there is going to see if he can't create a little bit of a racket so we can hear him. Come on Mike. Come on Mike.

I better tell him Mr. Bean a little bit about what was going on. There was a lot of racket up there and that a sand throne. Yeah well the chimpanzee was banging his foot and then his arm against the side of the cage and they could probably hear that. There he goes again. Then he'd throw sand out all over the crowd and that's what the screaming was all about. Well there isn't a jazz hot drummer in the United States whether even if he's below the Mason Dixie line that had beat out a rhythm like Mike can. Mike was really pounding away. Was they? Mike was mad and that's quite a lively bit of work for Mike since he's the oldest chimpanzee in captivity. Is that right? He's about 40 now that's equivalent to a man of at least 101 lot of life and old Mike. Sure is. Now where do we go? Do we go to the reptile? Let's look at this map. Have you seen the gorillas? Yes we talked about them just briefly. Well that's good. They'll be interesting to watch over the years. They came here as little babies. They're not even half grown now so come another time. Oh we sure will. What's next on the scales in a year or two five hundred five hundred

fifty pounds. Is that right? Well he's a handsome look an animal. It looks like somebody I know down at the office. You won't identify the party. No I'm not on the air. Where are we going next down at the reptile house? Yes we go to the reptile house straight away. Mr. Bean before we get to the reptile house we're not very far away from it and as we're walking along we're passing a scene here that I want to talk about briefly. There's a huge mound of rocks. It looks like a mountain really and the reason it looks like a mountain because high up on top of it are some mountain goats. Mountain goats Mr. Hill pardon those are sheep. Here I am making a mistake. Can't you call the goats in the sheep Mr. Hill? I can't I always thought that was a mountain goat. Well it looks kind of you recognize animals of both sexes there and you recognize that animals of both sexes and the out ads these barberry sheep carry horns in goats that is not so.

So this is a sheep or these are sheep both are horned in both sexes and it's two of all are sheep wild and domestic and all the goats wild in the fact bears. Did you build this mountain here? There were many to help it's well I didn't mean by yourself but I mean it's it's a real mountain. Yes it's there's a lot of artificial rock work in the zoo and Brookfield and it's all a hand shaped out of steel and metal lath and hand plastered and sculptured and tinted with fresco colors and this rock that rises in one place 42 feet where you see the sheep up there in the pinnacle is only about three quarters of an inch to an inch thick it rings like a bell when you strike it with a sledge. Is that right is that you do this to keep the animals in their natural habitat is that the reason? Yes it's a horizontal picture in a background a habitat. Well now there's something here I want to add of course and that's just below where the sheep are up high on the well we'll call it a mountain just below that or I'd say 25, 30 maybe 40 monkeys you can hear them yeah there's always a great turmoil those are guinea baboons the West African

species and the sheep are from North Africa and although they don't meet in Africa they meet the Brookfield and it's quite a congenial lot they're making a lot of noise this morning I shouldn't say there's 60 baboons on here it's it's a big colony there may have been some born overnight every baboon here except two have been born in Brookfield. Well why do you keep but they're good companions the baboons amuse the sheep and the sheep try to offer a favor to the baboons by giving them rides as people ride horseback. Speaking of that I can see up there on the top that there's a couple of those baboons riding one of the sheep. The sheep has much of a burden in that case often we see three and four baboons riding a sheep and all goes well the sheep is willing to give them the little fun but when they start pulling your sheep's hair there's no bucking bronco in any rodeo or cowboy that rides and I should say that's throwing off as quick as the baboons are. Well this is an extremely interesting location I'm glad we had a chance to stop by here

let's move on down now and finally get to the reptile house and as Mr. Bean says that's the one that everybody wants to see and that's the one that I've been waiting for too. As we said the reptile house is probably the most popular at the Brookfield Zoo and you can hear in the background the screams and yells of the children who have come in here and we've finally caught up with them and I think they probably came over here first and stayed here don't you Mr. Bean? Well I've been here for hours some of them I'm sure they just love this place it's presented in an excellent way it's signs are good its collection is good and it gives me occasion not only to introduce Robert Snedigar but to thank him for what he's done for the society with reptiles amphibians and invertebrate animals I think and of course at your tour with him here he'll tell you about the small things the invertebrate animals as well as the snakes. Well Mr. Snedigar I want to join with Mr.

Bean and congratulating you on the fine work that you've done here this is one of the most famous reptile houses in the world I know from having read about it and heard about it and why don't we just start first of all with the general description of the house now first of all how big is it well it's brought a hundred foot square we have this big cage in the center of eight compartments where we keep our big pythons and some of the other material and we have these wall cages for poisonous stuff mostly in the back we have small cages for some of the very colorful and interesting specimens that we have we have some interesting stuff down there right now let's let's talk over here about the the very first thing that we see and as I we as we walked into the reptile house just to the right of the entrance is what they call a spitting cobra she's very interesting because she has been in this house for 22 years she holds the record in captivity for her

species we have had here practically an old reptile's home for some years we have a number of records the official list for old snakes she of course is in this cage very secure and safe but it was interesting some years ago we had to take her out to paint the cage and it took her about six weeks to get straightened out again after she was put back on the cage she's happy in there she's happy in there it's her place belongs to her and she feels safe there that's one reason she's attained that great length of life in this house poisonous oh yes but of course they're not prone to bite her protective device is to spit the venom it's spray really there's a peculiar structure of the fang that enables the spray to be a venom be ejected out at a right angle these snakes seems to be able to recognize the white of an eye and aim for it because that is the

usual target and the place usually hit is that right and the venom is blinding temporarily and permanently unless proper measures are taken to treat the case what's this next one now that's just a small python rock python an African rock python I'd like to show these big gaboom vipers over here yes let's walk over here these are extremely poisonous as I understand are they not yes they're very poisonous and of course you see that big head note the two little horns on the end you'll see that the pattern of these snakes is a very good imitation of leaves and on the forest floor you would hardly spot one as a matter of fact Carl P. Smith down the Chicago Natural History Museum they had a mounted one some years ago and in the experiment he put this mount about six rate feet from a door in the preparation department people came in they spotted it and went out real

fast I bet they did he let sit there for a few days and then he put that same mounted snake in a pile of leaves just leaves from this area the same people in to the door walked right past that mounted snake in the pile of leaves never even know it was there it's a very protective shape of head you see as a leaf shape and of course there's sluggish very very rarely have they ever been known to bite where do they come from Africa the tropical forests of Africa but when they do bite it's all yes because the fangs on this these two here would be fully an inch long and capable of injecting a very strong dose of venom into the deeper parts of a leg for instance how long would it take for a man to die after being don't have enough data but not very long a couple of minutes oh it should be longer than that but it would work very very fast the

yes this Cape Cobra here has just shed she is relatively new in the collection and has been very jittery it's only within the last week we've been able to keep the cage uncovered so people could see her because she was striking at the glass putting and striking at the glass now people like to see a Cobra hooding but we don't because the Cobra that hoods all the time is a no good Cobra that means one is too excitable to adjust to captivity now these shedding people who visit the zoo want to see that oh they love to see it but we don't want to see it I don't know because it means an excited animal that is not going to last too long here's a couple of young boys standing around this Cobra cage that we were talking about what do you think of that Cobra I don't know what do you mean you don't know are you frightened no you're not scared no well what would you do if you saw that out in your front yard you get

out of the way what do you think of that snake kind of big for a Cobra why do you think a Cobra was small and the books they look smaller than that what do you think I think it's kind of big it'd be one two maybe it isn't a Cobra at all do you think I don't know I ain't even to get in there and find out you ain't going to get in there and find out well you can take the take the word of an expert that's a Cobra all right why don't we move down where's the next place you want to stop I think we ought to go down look at these alligators down past the cages of snakes there's a huge open pool of water and there is shrubbery and trees growing inside and down into there how many you must have 25 alligators in there are 63 is that right 63 that was the count at new years and we're going to keep it at about that they're all growing but we want to keep about that number because it's very impressive our visitors

like it we've had the comments here in this house one woman came to me very indignantly and she said over there we went to Florida to see that we didn't see it in Florida we'd come home we see it here and it is an excellent show that's right you can see alligators bigger better and handsomer if you can use that expression in the Brookfield zoo then you can in Florida and I can testify to that how do you come about all of these alligators 63 well they're all refugees really there are victims of that old devil it seemed like a good idea at the time somebody bought one and set it up to they come to Chicago in a shoe box then there's a family bathtub then either somebody gets bit or somebody has to take a bath so out to Brookfield we got them all everyone except one there was one steamboat bill he's lying right down there he's about 10

11 foot long yeah he came the park about 18 inches long and this is a very congenial happy group people complain that they don't do anything but I always say an alligator who has nothing to do has sense enough to do nothing how long does it take for a steamboat bill to grow to that side well alligators with us grow at the rate of about a foot a year we're about six foot long and then the growth tends to be sideways instead of lengthways you say like Bill see he's very broad in the beam what's the difference between an alligator and a crocodile well they're very closely related it's almost like asking what's the difference between a buffalo or water buffalo and a bison with the American crocodile and American alligator there are differences in the skull and some of the other bony structures do you have a crocodile here yes on the other side we have cropped then we have over here one of the most interesting of

crocodile relatives let's walk over and take a look at these Indian garials these are very interesting to us because of the first that we've had in the collection and very rare in anywhere in this country you know that long slims out that is a means of catching fish you see that doesn't offer a much opposition to the water they can streak through the water at a fairly fast rate and snag on to fish I think that's dangerous for a man no no they're very gentle and although they do grow to an enormous size the British Museum claims to have a skeleton of one which is 30 foot in length which is considerable crocodile well this is just a small one there oh these are babies but the dealer that we bought them from at we had bought them and had them in the park a couple of days he wrote to us somewhat apologetically and said that unfortunately they would eat nothing but live minnows well

we can't spend too much more time here but I would like to mention some more snakes where would you suggest we go well we've got anaconda here how about some American snakes rattlesnakes those are on the other side of the building we have plenty of those we have the prairie rattler the timber rattler we have the copper heads which is a relative of the rattlers a venomous snake incidentally we're feeding our copper heads right now on 17 year locus they love them I was going to ask something about that I'm going to wait till we get outside to talk about them because you can actually hear them out there yes what's this green animal here these are iguanas a big tropical lizard of the Americas they do fairly well with us we give them out light as you can see they've had their lunch already which is largely fruit salad with a little bit of chopped meat they're not very intelligent but we've raised some from babies within the last year some of those were over in this cage over here a year ago they were only about

four inches long now look at them well they grow them they do grow what's this little multicolored snake that's a real prize that is the biggest Texan coral snake I've ever seen the ordinarily they wouldn't be a big one would be two thirds of his size is a very fine handsome and of course dangerous specimen we've heard a lot about coral snakes I suppose from looking at movies yeah that's a beautiful thing a very very handsome and color of course in nature they're not too often seen they're behind old bark you know under leaves in vegetation and all that sort of thing what's your largest snake in the reptile house well we have a python up the front called bula she's around 22 feet and the smallest the smallest snake we have well it's hard to say we have some small things along here but most of our snakes will range

from at least 10 inches on up you have curious though you have in your pythons we have one python which is a full size which is less than only about two and a half foot long and then we have bula that is just 22 feet but they are very closely related I've always heard that there are some snakes that aren't poisonous but they'll strangle you to death some of the big ones well your big pythons things like that are what we call constrictors that is they kill their prey by a quick heavy pressure on lungs and heart and that very effectively and quickly kills the prey but it's more of a food getting device than a protective one that's also true of the venom the venom in the poisonous was not developed as a weapon it was developed as a food getting device it's only incidentally that is used as a defensive mechanism do you ever have to handle these snakes I imagine you do sometimes we do but only when it's necessary we

don't like to handle material here any more than we have to like down there we have these two little so -called two -headed boas now they're absolutely harmless never known to bite and in private collections they would be handled all the time we don't touch them unless it's absolutely necessary because these snakes don't like to be handled they resent it and it's bad for their sense of security and general welfare how they feel about being looked at all the time they don't seem to mind that too much after they get adjusted to having people pass the glass they come to accept the glass as a barrier that makes them secure the people are safe and so are they well I see that it's about time to move on here and I think we've just about covered the reptile house we want to thank you very very much for telling us about it yes sir thank you we're two next mr. Bean this house this reptile house is of everlasting interest the whole park here you mustn't just come one time you must come many times we're going over to the

invertebrate animal house now where we show the smallest animals in the world we we show some of the biggest here too but mr. Stettigar will tell you a word or two about the invertebrate animals which is which are also under his care we have come next door now and entered the special exhibits hall and just as we enter the door there's a diagram of the simplified tree of life suppose you explain that to us well this places in this diagram with a little mounted models the place of the animals without back bones the invertebrates and then the animals with backbone for sure animals with back bones includes the fish the amphibians the snakes turtles the birds and of course all of them monkeys all man all of the other animals but down below we have many forms of life they're microscopic they're in ponds and lakes streams but you have to have a

microscope to see them now in the back of the house for that purpose we have that screen back there behind that screen we have a micro projector and we can through means use of a microscope project on the screen the images of moving animals live that you cannot see with a naked eye you only see them as a cloudiness in the water well this is a very interesting thing because when people think in terms of going to the zoo they think only of seeing the reptiles the bears the birds and a few other things but here at Brookfield this is the first time that i think i've ever seen a a house where you have common ordinary everyday animals such as bees here's the big exhibit is a very very popular one yes let's walk over here and take a look at this the tree over there as that colony has been there for 10 years now and there's a column of honey and comb that is nine foot in diameter see the tree is completely hollow

and the comb is uh oh i judge about two and a half feet in diameter you have a window open over there surely they make their own living now that window was open summer and winter now the glass hive here with a magnifying glass is a seasonal thing we can't winter the bees in that because of weather conditions they get too cold but in the tree they can last for years why don't you tell us briefly what what else you're having this especially now as a special exhibit we had the international zoo directors union here last week most of them europeans so i knew that they would be interested in some of these small north american lizards that ordinarily don't find their way to europe so i got a bunch of those and on this west side of the house we have some very nice rare in collections north american lizards our european guests enjoyed them very much now i think mr bean that we've just about completed the first half hour of our program and we don't have any more time of course we

can't limit our visit to the zoo just to this portion that we've done so far so i would like to make a suggestion that we come back and spend another half hour with you at the Brookfield Zoo in a month we've been pleased you've been here today and it's good news to us we look forward to your coming and we do hope you will be in Brookfield again thank you very much months from today we will have another visit to the Brookfield Zoo this has been the first of two programs from the Brookfield Zoo the zoo will be revisited late in july listen next week for the story of the Chicago White Sox and Kamiski Park this is Hugh Hill speaking