Seoul Grand Park Zoo
Seoul Grand Park Zoo, Korea's first zoo, was created in 1909 by the Japanese occupying forces in the former royal palace of Changgyeongung, which was under the changed name of Changgyeongweon. The zoo opened on Nov. 1, 1909 with Siberian tigers, kangaroos, ostriches, camels, orangutans, and other animals.
Towards the end of World War II the Japanese needed both manpower and steel for weapons, and gave orders to kill the animals in the Korean zoo, poisoning 150 animals. Animals that survived this had to also survive the end of the war, when all the remaining zookeepers fled the zoo. After Korea's independence the zoo was maintained at Changgyeongweon until 1984 when it was relocated to its current site in Makgyedong, Gwacheon.
Read more about this topic: Seoul Grand Park
Famous quotes containing the words grand, park and/or zoo:
“It has been said that the immortality of the soul is a “grand peut-être”Mbut still it is a grand one. Everybody clings to it—the stupidest, and dullest, and wickedest of human bipeds is still persuaded that he is immortal.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“Therefore awake! make haste, I say,
And let us, without staying,
All in our gowns of green so gay
Into the Park a-maying!”
—Unknown. Sister, Awake! (L. 9–12)
“...there was the annual Fourth of July picketing at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. ...I thought it was ridiculous to have to go there in a skirt. But I did it anyway because it was something that might possibly have an effect. I remember walking around in my little white blouse and skirt and tourists standing there eating their ice cream cones and watching us like the zoo had opened.”
—Martha Shelley, U.S. author and social activist. As quoted in Making History, part 3, by Eric Marcus (1992)