World War Zoos: Humans and Other Animals in the Deadliest Conflict of the Modern Age
University of Chicago Press, 2025
Agent: Elise Capron
A new and heartbreaking history of World War II as told through the shocking experiences of zoos across the globe.
As Europe lurched into war in 1939, zookeepers started killing their animals. On September 1, as German forces invaded Poland, Warsaw began with its reptiles. Two days later, workers at the London Zoo launched a similar spree, dispatching six alligators, seven iguanas, sixteen southern anacondas, six Indian fruit bats, a fishing cat, a binturong, a Siberian tiger, five magpies, an Alexandrine parakeet, two bullfrogs, three lion cubs, a cheetah, four wolves, and a manatee over the next few months. Zoos worldwide did the same. The reasons were many, but the pattern was clear: The war that was about to kill so many people started by killing so many animals. Why? And how did zoos, nevertheless, not just survive the war but play a key role in how people did, too?
A harrowing yet surprisingly uplifting chronicle, Kinder’s World War Zoos traces how zoos survived the deadliest decades of global history, from the Great Depression, through the terrors of World War II, to the dawn of the Cold War. More than anything before or since, World War II represented an existential threat to the world’s zoological institutions. Some zoos were bombed; others bore the indignities of foreign occupation. Even zoos that were spared had to wrestle with questions rarely asked in public: What should they do when supplies ran low? Which animals should be killed to protect the lives of others? And how could zoos justify keeping dangerous animals that might escape and run wild during an aerial attack?
Zoos in wartime reveal the shared vulnerabilities of humans and animals during periods of social unrest and environmental peril. World War II–era zoos offered people ways to think about and grapple with imprisonment, powerlessness, and degradation. Viewed today, the story of zoos during World War II can be read as an allegory of twenty-first-century crises, as the effects of climate change threaten all life across the planet.
A one-of-a-kind history, World War Zoos is the story of how the world’s zoos survived the deadliest conflict of the twentieth century—and what was lost along the way.
Reviews:
"A book that combines academic rigor and genuine empathy to document extraordinary suffering—human and animal. The author rightly excoriates those who would abuse animals, but he also questions the wider relevance of zoos and the imposition of one animal’s right to keep another in a cage—during times of war or peace." —The Wall Street Journal
"Incisive in its argument, ambitious in its scope, and disturbingly page-turning, John Kinder's World War Zoos takes readers on a haunting, historical tour of zoological parks during one of the deadliest periods in human history. Whether you are interested in zoos, animal history, or World War II, this book is an absolute must-read, for scholars, students, and animal-lovers alike. World War Zoos will leave you with a raw perspective of war and an unforgettable account of twentieth-century zoo animals who were—and are—all-too-often taken for granted." —Daniel Vandersommers, author of Entangled Encounters at the National Zoo: Stories from the Animal Archive
“World War Zoos is a rich, comprehensive, and reflective history of zoos during World War II. Extensive research recovers detailed scenes that capture why zoos and animals evoke such strong emotional connections. Kinder’s story of the microcosmic world of zoos under fire reveals the harrowing and resonant dynamics of wartime and drives us to think more about the violence so easily done to conscious creatures.” —Aaron Hiltner, author of Taking Leave, Taking Liberties: American Troops on the World War II Home Front
"Those who are interested in the history of zoos and in man-animal relations can't ignore this informative and well-founded book. World War Zoos includes an extensive bibliography and various fine pictures and other illustrations to support the text." —Traces of War