Article ID: CBB184487796

The Airport and the Zoo: Behavioral Knowledge, Animal Transport, and the Technical Environments of Aviation, 1940s–1970s (2024)

unapi

This article focuses on the shared history of Frankfurt Zoological Garden and Airport, developing an infrastructural perspective on the rise of behavioral thinking in postwar environmental sciences. It shows that technical and logistical environments, such as seaports, airports, train stations, and highways, shaped the way environmental scientists and a broader public conceptualized animal behavior. Similar to ergonomics and human factor engineering in the 1950s and ’60s, human-made spaces and interiors became central reference points for developing and testing new ideas on the interaction between animals and “the environment.” Further, airports were sites of knowledge transfer between practitioners, including animal traders, care attendants, veterinarians, logistics experts, and scientists. The first part of the article draws on the works of biologist and Frankfurt’s Zoo director Bernhard Grzimek, who made excessive use of air cargo to ship wild animals to Frankfurt. The second part traces the emergence of new spaces for animals at Frankfurt Airport in the 1950s—such as the “animal room” in the cargo area. The third part of the article uncovers the hidden networks of animal traders and shipping companies that made Frankfurt Airport a major international hub in animal air cargo. Lastly, the article argues that hands-on experience of animal behavior, such as that conducted in airports like Frankfurt, is part of a broader pattern of environmental knowledge production in in the twentieth century—in close proximity to infrastructure projects.

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Associated with

Article Tahani Nadim; Mareike Vennen; Ina Heumann; Filippo Bertoni (2024) Logistical Natures: Trade, Traffics, and Transformations in Natural History Collecting. Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences (pp. 125-134). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB184487796/

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Authors & Contributors
Serrano, Elena
Bender, Daniel E.
Bolufer Peruga, Mónica
Bont, Raf de
Collyer, Fran
Davidson, Martha
Journals
Notes and Records: The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science
Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences
The Bridge: Journal of the National Academy of Engineering
Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology
Environmental History
Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Publishers
Brill
Christoph Links Verlag
Harvard University Press
University of Pittsburgh Press
Monash University Publishing
Concepts
Knowledge production (modes)
Knowledge circulation
Zoos
Animals
Scientific communities; interprofessional relations
Social networks
People
Lavoisier, Marie-Anne Paulze
Hediger, Heini
Tambroni, Clotilde
Betancourt, María de
Vigo, Joana de
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
18th century
21st century
Modern
20th century, late
Places
United States
Europe
Japan
Brazil
Great Britain
Berlin (Germany)
Institutions
Zoologischer Garten Berlin
Museum für Naturkunde (Berlin)
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