Carl Hagenbeck biography
Carl Hagenbeck, (born June 10, 1844, Hamburg [Germany]—died April 14, 1913, Hamburg), internationally identified German animal vendor and coach who managed animals by befriending them, emphasizing for spectators their intelligence and tractability over their ferocity. He additionally created the prototype for open-air zoos.
Hagenbeck’s father was a fishmonger who had maintained a small animal menagerie, and the younger Hagenbeck started his profession as an animal vendor, hiring hunters and taking orders from zoos and circuses. He assumed possession of his father’s enterprise in 1866 and shortly was the main vendor in Europe. When the animal commerce declined within the 1870s, he started to supply and journey with “ethnographical shows,” spectacles that includes individuals and animals from distant areas. One tableau, for instance, included a Sami (Lapp) household with reindeer and sledge. In 1884 he toured with 67 Ceylonese, 25 elephants, and a herd of cattle.
In 1887 Hagenbeck took up the reason for humane remedy of animals with the intention of demonstrating that the beatings and sizzling irons then utilized in animal coaching have been each merciless and pointless. In 1889 he launched a lion act by which, as a finale, three lions pulled him across the cage in a chariot. After some years, the Hagenbeck system steadily changed harsher coaching strategies utilized in circuses and expositions in Europe and North America. During a visit to the United States in 1906, Hagenback offered his touring animal present to Benjamin Wallace, who renamed it the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus. The following 12 months, Hagenbeck opened a zoological backyard at Stellingen, close to Hamburg, the place he exhibited animals in uncovered, barless pits. He developed panoramas for such animals as polar bears and tigers that imitated their native habitats. In addition to serving as a prototype for future zoos, Hagenbeck’s zoological backyard was a supply of animals for zoos and circuses.