Animals for entertainment
People
went to the zoo to be entertained, and to have fun. So,
often the animals were used to provide that fun. It
was very common in zoos, right up to your grandparent's
time, to have elephants giving children rides around the zoo
paths. Noone
really worried about whether this was good for the elephant
or not. It
was just part of the fun you expected to have when you took
children to the zoo. It
was particularly primates, such as chimps and orangutans,
who were used as entertainment. They
used to get taught how to do things like people, and
sometimes they were even dressed in clothing. The
chimp's tea party was part of Auckland zoo up to quite
modern times, and there are plenty of people still alive who
remember going to see that at the Auckland Zoo. In
the picture to the right, you can see some chimps sitting in
a pram, while in the background, are the kinds of cages they
spent the rest of their time in. Sometimes
they were even taught to smoke cigarettes.
