La Palmyre Zoo

La Palmyre Zoo (French: Zoo de La Palmyre, ) is a zoo in Les Mathes, Charente-Maritime, near Royan, in southwestern France. It was created in 1966 in the forest of la Coubre by Claude Caillé. Extending over , including 14 of landscape garden, it offers the visitor the opportunity of observing more than 1600 animals of all kinds, divided into 145 species, over a distance of more than .

History

La Palmyre Zoo officially opened its doors in 1966, but the project really began in a semi-official way in 1957, thanks to the efforts of its founder, Claude Caillé.

He was the son of a newspaperman, with whom he started working at the age of 14. In his twenties he met his future wife, Irene, whose brother had a small zoological gardens in Croustille, close to Limoges. It was through his frequent visits helping his brother-in-law that Claude Caillé discovered his passion for animals. Consequently, he became interested and went on to study zoology.

A traveling zoo

In 1957, accompanied by his wife and their two children, Patrick and Bruno, he began with a small travelling zoo which he exhibited in schools, traveling through France. In the 1960s he decided to leave for Africa to capture animals. After a stay among Pygmies, he brought gorillas and chimpanzees back from Cameroon.

He left then to Kenya where, helped by Kĩkũyũ, he captured zebras, antelopes and giraffes, but did not have sufficient money to pay the taxes and the transportation for the animals. He returned then to France, but returned three months later with the money necessary. However, the animals entrusted to his team had disappeared, killed meanwhile by Kĩkũyũ. Claude Caillé then took up the school road and rounds for three years.

Creation of the zoo of La Palmyre

On returning to Kenya, he joined Carr-Hartley who captured and provided animals to zoos around the whole world. This time the operation succeeded, and he returned then to France with a livestock of exotic animals, and settled in Palmyre in the heart of a forest of maritime pines and holm oaks, near the beaches of the Atlantic ocean.

In June 1966, the zoo opened its doors with 60 animals spread over 3 hectares. At the end of August, the park recorded 129,500 visitors. With growing success, the zoo grew and accommodated newcomers. At that time, the animals of the zoo were regarded as forming members of the family and, thus, babies which mothers abandoned were suckled with feeding-bottles.

Today however, in order to avoid denaturing them, the animals are not fed in the nursery but by their parents. It is done only in exceptional cases, such as - abandonment of babies, lack of milk or mother's instinct, or death of the mother.

Some outstanding facts

In 1976 many animals were evacuated because of a large fire which devastated the forest of Coubre and threatened the zoo, and which died out a few hundred meters from the zoo.

In 1996 the basin for the polar bears was created, with a capacity of of water. The visitors can observe the polar bears on the ground as well as under water thanks to thick glass at the sides of the basin.

In October 2000, a female cheetah born in 1992, exhibited salivary and locomotive disorders. Despite all care taken, the general state of the animal degraded, Doctor Thierry Petit was obliged to euthanize it in February 2001. The probe carried out by the French Agency of medical safety of food ( AFSSA) of Lyon highlighted the fact that the animal had bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), more commonly known by the name "mad cow disease". It was the first case of BSE in an animal born in France. The animal could have been contaminated by pieces of meat, soiled by remainders of nervous systems, given to cat-like animals in addition to their ration containing chicken. It was the only case that affected the zoo.

Recent news

600 birds in the zoo were vaccinated in 2014 against the new strain of the avian influenza that can be transmitted by migrating wild birds. After full containment in late 2014 and the partial containment with biosecurity measures at the beginning of 2015, it became difficult to keep the birds confined in buildings or pens, especially as the tourist season was beginning and therefore vaccination was carried out. The park has previously carried our vaccinations against avian influenza.

Certain rare species, like Bali starling, from which there remain only some pairs in the world, needed particular care from a possible epizootic of aviary influenza.

In October 2005, Claude Caillé officially took his retirement, and was succeeded by his son, Patrick Caillé.

A male 12 years old Amur tiger, left Palmyre Zoo in June 2006 to join Toundra, a female of the zoo of Amnéville.

The heat wave of the summer 2006 required setting up of special devices for certain animals, in particular for the African penguins, for which an atomiser was installed.

Conservation and international co-operation

Particularly sensitized with the conservation of threatened species, the zoo of Palmyre is member many recognized international associations, such as:
* the World Association of the zoos and aquariums (WAZA)
* the European Association of the zoos and aquariums (EAZA)
* the national Association of the zoological gardens (ANPZ)
* the Action for the safeguarding of the primates of West Africa (WAPCA)

It is also one of the founding members of the Conservation of the species and the animal populations (CEPA). This association created in 1997, concentrates its actions on the species seriously threatened and generally neglected like the leopard or the Tahiti monarch. A very detailed attention is given to the fauna of the Overseas departments and territories of France.

In 2002, the zoo of Palmyre joined the European Association for the study and the conservation of the lemurs (AEECL) which includes about fifteen zoos. The initiative of this action goes to the zoos of Mulhouse, Cologne and Saarbrücken and the University of Strasbourg. Association manages a programme of European breeding in controlled environment (zoological gardens) and collects funds which are used for creation of a zone protected in Madagascar for the blue-eyed black lemur.

Thanks to its remarkable birth rate, the zoo is able to adhere to many programmes of safeguard of species in the process of extinction. In 2006 for example, the zoo took part in 36 European breeding programs, thus, a quarter of the 130 species which it shelters is the subject of an international program of breeding. Among these list, one finds the gorilla of the plains, the orangutan of Borneo, the scimitar oryx, or the golden lion tamarin of South America.

Threatened species

Scimitar oryx

Hardly less than about thirty years it still occupied the whole of Sahara, the oryx is today at the edge of extinction, victim of hunting (for its horns) and of the human activities. The last representatives of the species, estimated at about thirty individuals, do not remain any more but in two isolated pockets, one in Chad and the other in Niger

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