Horse Power or Elephant Power?

One of my favourite ‘odd’ wartime animal photos shows an elephant called Dixie, led by a smart uniformed zookeeper, harrowing a field ready for planting at Whipsnade Zoo. This photograph was taken late 1939 or 1940.

Q. Why is this an ‘odd’ photograph?

A. Usually horses pulled ploughs before tractors were invented.

World War Zoo –Growing Food for Peopleand Animals in Wartime

4. ZOO STORIES

Whipsnade ploughed up many of its spare animalenclosures and fields to grow food crops. It became asort of wartime farm.

More to read and research about elephants

For some reason elephants feature in lots of fiction stories and films about elephants in wartime zoos. One elephant book set in war-time Europe is An Elephant in the Garden, by the famous children’s writer Michael Morpurgo. https://www.michaelmorpurgo.com/resources/

Find out about the lady who was the real ‘Elephant Angel’ of Belfast Zoo, who has had a book, film and opera (musical theatre play) written about her. http://www.belfastzoo.co.uk/about-us/zoo-history/elephant-angel.aspx

Shhh! Secret Zoo Pigeons at Paignton Zoo

Some special animals,known as carrier pigeons, flew secret messages back to Britain from crashed aircraft, from soldiers on battlefields or from spies and secret agents in enemy countries. Secret messages were carried hundreds of miles back to Britain, sometimes within a few hours, often arriving on the day they were written. Messages in tiny writing and secret maps were kept safe in a little waterproof capsule strapped to the pigeon’s leg.

Here is an example in our collection of an American PG-67 message capsule from WW2, made of early plastic.

Q. Why do you think plastic was used instead of the earlier metal message capsules? The owners or breeders of these pigeons were given special feed rations of corn to breed and feed these extraordinary pigeons. Some carrier pigeons were amongst the animals who won a medal for bravery in WW2 called the Dickin Medal.

History Detectives Extra: Can you find out more about the different types of animals who won the PDSA Dickin Medal? https://www.pdsa.org.uk/what-we-do/animal-awards-programme/pdsa-dickin-medal

Herbert Whitley (1886-1955), founder of Paignton Zoo

One of the people who bred these special secret pigeons was Herbert Whitley, the man who started Paignton Zoo in 1923. He bred and raced prize-winning homing pigeons before the war. During WW2, Herbert and his bird keepers kept these secret pigeons in a pigeon loft near his other animals at Paignton Zoo.

To train the birds, Herbert’s driver Charlie Wright used to drive the pigeon crates over to Brixham to go out on a fishing boat. They were taken further and further out to sea, so they had to fly further each time to find their way back to their home pigeon loft at Paignton Zoo.

Some of the special pigeon boxes used to transport them or drop them from airplanes on tiny parachutes into France may have been made by carpenters at Herbert’s Paignton Zoo.

We know from the lists in the 1950 book Pigeons in World War 2 by W.H. Osman that over a dozen of Herbert’s pigeons survived the journey to and from German run (‘occupied’) areas of wartime France, some travelling on two or three successful missions. The pigeons survived bad weather, storms at sea, attack by hawks and being shot at by German soldiers. Brave birds indeed! Older students (KS2) might want to watch YouTube video “War of the Birds” (45 minutes long, older audience) Note: this contains real natural history scenes of pigeons being caught by birds of prey.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZfjbfe5SXM

The cartoon film Valiant (2005) is based on these wartime pigeons.

Weird Food Foraging: Acorns for Camels?

Q. What is the strangest thing you’ve ever eaten?

Q. What is the oddest thing your pet has ever eaten? Zoo animals had no ration books. When WW2 beganJulian Huxley, who was running London Zoo, put out this broadcast appeal for acorns in Autumn 1939:

“Many children in the country have done their part to help feed the Zoo animals by collecting acorns. Acorns are an excellent feed for agoutis, squirrels, monkeys, deer, and even pheasants like them. Beech mast, so often left to waste on the ground in beechy counties like Bucks, also makes a fine food and it is surprising how helpful such emergency rations have proved.”

Quoted from The Zoos in War article by Margaret Shaw, Animal and Zoo magazine, November 1939.

The acorn appeal worked really well in autumn 1939. Julian Huxley reported the public response a month later in the News from the Zoos section of the December 1939 issue of Animal and Zoo magazine:

Acorns for the Camels – London Zoo, December 1939

“Acorns have been pouring into the London Zoo at a rate of a ton a week ever since a broadcast appeal was made for them. They arrive in sacks, parcels, shopping bags and even the canvas sacks used by banks to store coins. One of the overseers told me that most animals have the sense to know when they’ve had enough acorns. For, of course, acorns are only a supplementary diet, and these sent into the Zoo are being saved to offer the animals as a little luxury to supplement the rather restricted diet of wartime.”

“The elder of the two Bactrian camels, George, loved his treat of acorns and munches them up with great gusto. Not so Wally. Wally was born at Whipsnade and is quite a youngster compared to his companion. He simply refuses to look at them. In the Rodent House many of the burrowing animals are busy hiding them away in the straw. Everyone has enjoyed helping the Zoo by gathering these acorns...” (December 1939)

Before you ask, there is no need to start collectingacorns for your local zoo or any need to start eatingthem yourselves. We have many other sources of foodnow. Thanks!

Warning! You should avoid eating wild food such asmushrooms and berries unless you are an expert on foraging. Sources of WW2 information suitable for KS2 and KS3

IWM Imperial War Museum https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/what-you-need-to-know-about-rationing-in-the-second-world-war https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/growing-up-in-the-second-world-war

ZSL London Zoo Archive blog https://www.zsl.org/blogs/artefact-of-the-month/zsl-london-zoo-during-world-war-two

BBC History webpages https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/topics/rationing_in_ww2

https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/class-clips-video/history-ks2-rationing-in-the-uk/zbgby9q

BBC Wartime Farm clips (DVD of BBC series also available)https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01mmt8t

Books for KS2/KS3

There are lots of brilliant books for primary KS2 and KS3 including the Horrible Histories series by Scholastic – The Blitzed Brits and Woeful Second World War by Terry Deary

http://www.horrible-histories.co.uk/ https://shop.scholastic.co.uk/horrible-histories

For KS3 the Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness series has a usefulbook on WW2.

Newquay Zoo - World War Zoo Gardens wartime blog Over the last ten years since 2010 I have been sharing my research into how zoos, botanic gardens and many others coped with wartime life throughout WW1 and WW2 – suitable for adults and KS3/4:

https://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com