A Growing Collection | San Diego Zoo 100
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Having a pair of shoebills was a rare and wonderful thing in 1948. They made the cover of the April 1948 issue of ZOONOOZ, and editor Ken Stott, Jr. noted that the Zoo would never have been able to obtain them if it were not for the successful births of other rare animals that they were able to trade in exchange for them.
On August 8, 1948, the first northern fur seal pup in any zoo is born at the San Diego Zoo. In 1947, four northern fur seals had come to the Zoo from the Pribilof Islands, donated by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to form a breeding group for behavior and reproduction studies. The species was almost extinct at one point, then put under protection, and news of the seals at the San Diego Zoo made headlines.
After working as first an intern and then a bird keeper, K.C. Lint is hired as the Zoo's curator of birds in 1948, a position he would hold until his retirement in 1976. He started at the Zoo in 1936; he said that he wrote to Belle Benchley inquiring about a job, but it was during the Depression and no positions were available. But he showed up at her office because he wanted to work there so much, and she gave him a chance.
Two newcomers: As part of a shipment of extraordinary animals from Asia, the Zoo's first concave-casqued hornbills arrive, one seen here with newly hired bird keeper Ernie Waggoner—who would go on to become principal bird keeper and remain with the Zoo until his retirement in 1976.

1948

Growth 1947 - 1956
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