Established and designed in 1830 by Decimus Burton, Dublin Zoo opened the following year.Today it’s primary mission is conservation projects, breeding programmes, and growing awareness for animals.
The Royal Zoological Society of Dublin was established at a meeting held at the Rotunda Hospital on 10 May 1830 and the zoo, then called the Zoological Gardens Dublin, was opened to the public on 1 September 1831. In 1833, the original cottage-style entrance lodge to the zoo was built at a cost of £30. The thatch-roofed building is still visible to the right of the current entrance. In 1838, to celebrate Queen Victoria’s coronation, the zoo held an open day and 20,000 people visited, which is still the highest number of visitors in one day. The first tearooms were built in 1898.
In 1844 the zoo received its first giraffe, and in 1855 it bought its first pair of lions. These bred for the first time in 1857. Reptiles got their own house in 1876.[
Times of trouble and war also caused problems for the zoo. Meat ran out during the Easter Rising of 1916. In order to keep the lions and tigers alive, some of the other animals in the zoo were killed.JAck Flood stayed in the zoo during the 1916 Easter Rising to care for the animals with two other young keepers, dealing with food shortages for the animals amongst other problems. A lion named Slats was born in the zoo on 20 March 1919. According to Dublin Zoo: An Illustrated History by Catherine De Courcy it was one of many lions filmed by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio in 1928 to be used as their mascot Leo.
The documentary TV series The Zoo produced by Moondance Productions is filmed almost entirely on location at Dublin Zoo, and began broadcast on TV3 in 2010,[19] before moving to RTÉ One in Ireland in 2011.
The zoo is part of a worldwide programme to breed endangered species. It is a member of the European Endangered Species Programme (EEP), which helps the conservation of endangered species in Europe. Each species supervised by the EEP has a single coordinator that is responsible for the building of breeding groups with the aim of obtaining a genetically balanced population. Dublin Zoo manages the EEP for the golden lion tamarin and the Moluccan cockatoo. It also houses members of the species Goeldi’s monkey and the white-faced saki which are part of EEPs coordinated by other zoos. The focus is on conservation, which includes breeding and protecting endangered species, as well as research, study and education.