Why is London Zoo closing?

To continue with the 60 year lease would make the zoo financially impossible to sustain, which would bring us to a crisis point and I strongly suggest we do not get to that point, Mr Blackman said. The institution is the world's oldest scientific zoo, having opened in 1828 as a research facility.



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L ondon Zoo's three elephants, involved in the recent crushing to death of a keeper, are leaving the capital, ending a 170-year presence at the Regent's Park site.

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A London Zoo spokesperson told the PA news agency there have been five incidents where animals, all birds, temporarily escaped from its grounds during the past four years.

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Schönbrunn Zoo (German: Tiergarten Schönbrunn; also simply called Vienna Zoo) is a 17-hectare (42-acre) zoo in the city of Vienna, Austria. Established in 1752, it is the world's oldest zoo still in operation.

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Chi Chi died in 1972 and the nation mourned her loss. She was eventually stuffed and placed in the Natural History Museum, where she is to this day.

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However, the UK's largest zoo by number of animals, and a contender for the biggest zoo in the world, is the 36-acre London Zoo. The world's oldest scientific zoo opened its doors to the public in 1847, and is reputed to have around 19,300 animals.

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Pipaluk left London Zoo in 1985 when the Mappin Terraces (which housed all the bears) were closed, and died at the age of 22 years in a Zoo in Poland.

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Pipaluk, a male polar bear, was born at London Zoo on the 1st December 1967. (The only polar bear cub previously reared successfully at the Zoo had been Brumas ? a female.) The name 'Pipaluk', the ending of which rhymes with book, was chosen from a list of Inuit names ? meaning 'the little one'.

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Oldest in the world. Founded in 1826 by the Zoological Society of London, the ZSL London Zoo was originally built to keep animals for scientific research. It was the creation of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles who is also famous for the founding of Singapore (and the famous Raffles Hotel).

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