Seoul Grand Park

Seoul Zoological Garden or Seoul Grand Park Zoo or Seoul Zoo[4] (서울동물원; 서울動物園) is first zoo in the Korean[1] peninsula.

The Seoul Zoo has more than 3,000 animals from 330 species. The zoo is the 10th largest in the world and a recognized member of the Species360 (formerly International Species Information System or ISIS) and the World Zoo Organization.[5]

Shokei-en Park in the 1930s

The Seoul Zoo was created in November 1, 1909 by the Japanese, in the former royal palace of Changgyeonggung, which was under the changed name of Changgyeongwon (창경원; 昌慶苑) or Changgyeong Park, the "gung" standing for the Korean word 'palace', and the "won" standing for the Korean word 'park'.[1] The zoo opened in November 1909 with Siberian tigers, kangaroos, ostriches, camels, orangutans, and other animals.[6] The Japanese also built a botanical garden, and museum on the site.[7]

Towards the end of World War II the Japanese gave orders to kill the animals in the zoo, poisoning 150 animals.[8] Animals that survived this had to also survive the end of the war, when all the remaining zookeepers fled the zoo.[6]

After independence in 1945 and the turmoil and destruction of the 1950–53 Korean War, the zoo was restocked through donations of wealthy Koreans as well as gifts from foreign zoos.[9] The zoo was maintained by the South Korean government at Changgyeongwon until 1984 when it was relocated to its current site in Makgyedong, Gwacheon.[2]

On July 27, 1987, due to the heavy rain that occurred at the time, a landslide occurred around 5:00 am in the area of the Carnivore Enclosure section where 21 animals of 7 species were housed. This complete destruction, the tiger cage's isolation fence was destroyed in half, and two coyotes escaped, captured and reaccommodated. Assuming that the jaguars housed in the zoo died after being buried in the soil, the Seoul Zoo find the corpse, but it was not found. A 10-year-old female jaguar escaped. It was confirmed that she had run away, and the search started at 12:00 on the same day, and at around 18:30 on July 28, 37 hours after the incident occurred, at 245m above sea level in Mt. Cheonggyesan, it ended with being killed.[10][11]

On the morning of December 6, 2010, while the Seoul Zoo moved Kkoma (꼬마; lit. kid)[12] who is a male Malayan sun bear to the quarantine area and cleaned the release area, he opened the door with his front paws[13] and escaped to Mt. Cheonggyesan. Since the Malayan sun bear is small enough to be captured, the zoo was planned to capture Kkoma alive rather than kill.[14] The tracking continued for about 9 days, but it was difficult to directly capture Kkoma, and a trap operation was conducted to catch him by decoy rather than tracking to reduce the stress caused by excessive tracking. On December 13, 2010, Kkoma ate snacks, cup noodles, Yōkan, etc. and drank juices and a Makgeolli at the food stalls on the mountain.[15] Then, two days later, on December 15, the 9th day[16] of the escape, Kkoma was caught in the trap[17] that had been set up, after that, he was shot with a tranquilizer gun to calm down and move inside the trap, and returned safely to the zoo.[18]

On August 5, 2012, a male white rhinoceros, Kodol, escaped from the inner room and went into the zookeeper's kitchen and tool storage room, but was injured by bumping into the body in a small space. Water guns were fired to send them away, but Kodol died of heart attack.[19]

In Pacific Land Aquarium, Jungmun Tourist Complex, Seogwipo-si city, Jeju Special Self-Governing Province, Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins caught in fishing nets were originally supposed to be released, but they were illegally purchased from fishermen and mobilized for dolphin shows.[20] Meanwhile, Seoul Grand Park brought in illegally caught dolphins in 1999, 2002, and 2009 by purchasing or exchanging Geumdeung, Daepo, and Jedol (제돌) (or Jedoli (제돌이)), respectively. On March 2, 2013, after the illegal capture became known, environmental groups called for the dolphins to be released. On March 12, 2013, the city of Seoul decided to release Jedol, who was young and had just been bred, after hearing the opinions of experts. The decision to confiscate the dolphins was made through the criminal trial against Pacific Land Aquarium, and this judgment was upheld in the first and second trials and confirmed by the Supreme Court on March 28, 2013. On April 8, dolphins was confiscated. The confiscated dolphins were four: Chunsam, D-38, Taesan, and Boksun. On May 11, Jedol was moved to Jeju Island. Afterwards, they received wild adaptation training at the fish farm in Seongsan Port. On the afternoon of July 18, Jedol was released. Taesan and Boksun were moved to Jeju Island on May 14, 2015, and released into nature on July 6 of the same year.[21] Goodbye, Thank You for the Fish (잘있어, 생선은 고마웠어; Jarisseo, saengseoneun gomawosseo) which is a non-fiction about the process of releasing Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins including Jedol into the wild, was published on May 15, 2017.[22] In Extraordinary Attorney Woo, Jedol, Sampal, Chunsam, Boksun mentioned by Woo Young-woo who is a main protagonist obsessed with whales and dolphins.[23][24]

On November 24, 2013, an accident occurred in which a zookeeper was bitten and killed by Rostov which is a Siberian tiger.[25]

On August 19, 2018, at 9:40 am, a dismembered dead body which is murdered was found in a hiking trail[26] of the Mt. Cheonggyesan near the parking lot of the Seoul Grand Park.[27]

In the process of euthanizing all animals at the outdoor range due to bovine tuberculosis that occurred at the South American Pavilion from 2021 to 2022, this fact was covered up, saying that it would prevent excessive fear for a year.[28]

Seoul Land is an amusement park in the Seoul Grand park complex. It opened in 1987, just before the 1988 Summer Olympics. It has about 40 rides and has approximately 3-3.5 million visitors per year.

National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art is a museum in the Seoul Grand park complex. It was initially established in Gyeongbokgung on October 20, 1969, but was moved to Deoksugung in 1973. The Gwacheon venue opened in 1986.