London Zoo

Jane Bristowe with London Zoo fundraiser, Kayleigh McDougallI am delighted to be able to donate my Penguin, Zebra and Sloth linocuts to London Zoo.

I’m photographed here in July 2019 presenting my linocuts to London Zoo fundraiser, Kayleigh McDougall, in the beautiful London Zoo Library.

Whilst we were at the library Emma Milnes, ZSL (Zoological Society of London) Librarian, kindly brought out a first edition of Charles Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of the Species’, published on 24 November 1859, to show us. She also showed us some original Edward Lear watercolours kept at the library.

I was thrilled to find out that ZSL Library holds three books by my late grandfather’s cousin, W.S. Bristowe, naturalist, President of the Ray Society (publishing academic works of interest to zoologists among others) and authority on spiders called ‘A Book of Spiders’, ‘The Comity of Spiders’ and ‘The World of Spiders’.

ZSL, incorporating London Zoo and Whipsnade Zoo, has evolved into a world-leading conservation centre with numerous outreach programmes. Amongst these programmes we learnt about outreach cheetah conservation work, satellite tracking projects and research and the monitoring of fresh water mussels which indicate the health of the environment.