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In 1956, the Zoo hired a new veterinarian, Dr. Werner Heuschele, who would be instrumental in establishing innovative veterinary procedures and care methods as exotic veterinary medicine advanced in the 1950s and 1960s. One was participating in the testing and use of the first dart guns invented to deliver anesthetics from a distance. Dr. Heuschele would also become a familiar face who would return to the Zoological Society later to head up conservation research efforts. Here (in 1958), he reviews records with Mrs. Barbara
The new Bus Tour ticket office and canopied passenger loading queue opened on June 17, 1956. Ken Howard was the Bus Tour chief driver-guide.
Excitement ran high on January 8, 1956, when a truck arrived at the Zoo from the airport carrying some extraordinary new primates. Proboscis monkeys Cyrano and Roxanne, the first of their species in the Western Hemisphere, had just been flown in from Surabaya, Indonesia to make their new home at the San Diego Zoo. Little was known about this species native to Borneo, so mammal curator George Pournelle made special exhibit arrangements for these rare treasures, housing them in a temperature- and humidity-controlled room of the Reptile House, where the tropical atmosphere of their native habitat could be simulated. Not only was this primate pair a rare find for a U.S. zoo, it also turned out that they represented an international gesture of friendship and goodwill. George Pournelle had originally talked with an animal collector over a cup of coffee, who asked if San Diego was interested in animals from Indonesia. Not really thinking it would happen, George listed some, especially proboscis monkeys. A month later, he received a phone call from the American Embassy in Jakarta, inquiring about an exchange of animals from the Americas for the proboscis monkeys with the Surabaya Zoo. Almost not believing his luck, George made the arrangements to send a pair of spider monkeys, capuchin monkeys, raccoons, and sea lions to Surabaya. And in return, Cyrano and Roxanne came to San Diego. But there was even more to the story. It turned out that the representative of the American Embassy in Jakarta, Wade Brooks, worked on extensive negotiations on the San Diego Zoo's behalf, with the aid of the vice-consul in Surabaya. Wade Brooks even went so far as to build a cage in his own backyard, where the monkeys stayed on a stopover before being able to continue to the U.S. Astounded at the entire sequence of events, George wrote,
One of the Zoo's wishes came true when a male okapi arrived on November 27, 1956, a gift from the Belgian government. Georges Barthelemy, Belgian Consul at Los Angeles, came to San Diego to present the rare animal to the Zoo, and even San Diego Mayor Charles Dail came to Lindbergh Field to see the remarkable new resident.

1956

Growth 1947 - 1956
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