Joy Adamson of 'Born Free' film fame calls Adelaide Zoo the worst; showdown over zoo's bird trading in 1960s
Joy Adamson with lioness Elsa, subject of the book and film Born Free. Another high-profile visitor to Adelaide Zoo in 1962 was British broadcaster and naturalist David Attenborough, attending the Adelaide Festival.
David Attenborough image courtesy Film Australian Collection
Joy Adamson, whose love of lions inspired the book and film Born Free described Adelaide Zoo in 1963 as archaic with enclosures far too small: the worst she had seen. In the same year, a South Australian government inquiry exposed the need for the zoo to modernise.
The early 1960s also saw an end to the zoo’s dominant role in export trading of live native birds after the retirement of president Fred Basse who had dismissed zoo director William Gasking for refusing to take part in the trading.
In the mid-20th Century, Adelaide Zoo, with Sydney’s Taronga, was involved in the exporting 99% of Australia's exports of live native birds, mainly finches and parrots.
In 1962, new Adelaide Zoo director William Gasking was dismissed through the zoo Council president Fred Basse, because Gasking wouldn’t cooperate with the bird trade. When Basse, a successful bird breeder, retired from the zoo council, the trade in birds dropped by a 10th.
The 1963 government inquiry into the zoo highlighted the need to update of the zoo’s housing and to expand its research and education activities.
The Royal Zoological Society of South Australia turned to “making the Gardens attractive, renovating buildings, and generally giving the zoo a facelift”.
William Lancaster, appointed zoo director in 1964, took a very different way to his predecessors and brought the zoo out of the Edwardian age.
A consultant architect was employed to transform the zoo’s Victoriana appearance with some major projects. These included in 1965 a children’s zoo in the dilapidated south-west corner where visitors could mingle freely with familiar animals like sheep, goats, rabbits, donkeys and ponies, supervised by their female keeper.
An Australiana exhibit was added to a zoo that, until that time, had been more interested in exporting Australian fauna to zoos abroad than displaying them at home.
In 1972, an open-plan exhibit was planted with native vegetation and, two years later, was stocked with kangaroos, koalas, wallabies and other native species. The wombat exhibit had all the wire mesh removed to convert it to an open display
