Hard Times for Prague Zoo

Photo: Prague Zoo Archive

“Prague Zoo is going through a very harsh time,” the Národní listy wrote on October 2, 1938, just after the Munich Agreement in September 1938, upon which Czechoslovakia was compelled to cede large frontier territories to Germany. Columns of refugees were flowing inland from the borderlands, occupied by the Third Reich. “In the hard and stormy times of the last days only a few would remember the eight hundred innocent animals in the zoo. Food for these mostly exotic animals together with the salaries of the essential employees costs 3,000 CSK daily. It is a sorry sight at the deserted zoological garden, where the cute wards search in vain with questioning eyes for their sympathisers.”

Munich threw the zoo into a deep crisis, which it had been heading towards for a longer time. Prolonged financial problems and the death of the director Jiří Janda on August 25, 1938, contributed to the crisis.

“The daily income of Prague Zoo is now about 50 CSK,” Národní listy continued. “And all the animals want to eat as before. Due to minute, almost infinitesimal attendance the zoological garden finds itself with no resources and there is a risk of animals starving or facing the necessity to euthanise the animals.”

Prague Zoo was very close to its termination in these weeks. Its closure was averted only thanks to the efforts of the employees and the public. The acting director Dr Václav Jan Staněk made an emotional speech on radio and other media, including the above mentioned Národní listy, appealed for help for the zoological garden. They could write later: “That time, when the zoo was at its lowest ebb, our people came to its rescue. And mostly they were schools and the small fry in them, who saved the zoo. One crown after another was raised, and the result of the collection was a surprise even for optimists – 100,000 CSK.”

It goes without saying that I have seen a parallel to the situation of the zoo during the COVID pandemic. Back then the core of its employees tried hard to help their zoo, albeit in a very different way than in recent times. Several keepers, two of them having circus experience, together with the gardener Martinec, decided to organize an improvised “circus” performance. During it they collected voluntary contributions, and the profit was 700 CSK! Therefore, staging similar shows became the rule. First a tent was bought for them, later a wooden building was built.

“On Sunday afternoons a circus in a large tent near the entrance to the zoological garden is very popular with children,” Národní listy wrote later. “Several shows are staged during half a day for a cheap entrance fee and children are quite amused by it. The actors are the caretakers of the garden joined also by a ten-year-old son of one of them, a boy performing such acrobatics, that he could confidently perform in a large circus.”

It is obvious that the shows became very popular – and at the same time they provided the zoo with a certain income. The deepest crisis was step by step averted. And although the times have changed greatly, I am sure that our predecessors could serve as examples to us with their commitment and invincibility.