Found this photo on a twitter account with the caption “First elephant in Kuwait for the zoo – Kuwait 1952”. I’m not sure which zoo though since the current one opened up in 1968, so could be some other zoo that was open back then (did Ahmadi have a zoo?) or maybe it was part of a traveling circus? Still cute though.
via Bader AlRoudan
Update: Supposedly there was a zoo called the Salwa Garden, and it was the first zoo in Kuwait and the GCC. Trying to get more info on this now.
Update2: Check out the snippet below
Not many visitors to the Zoo at Omariya know that Kuwait was the first country in the Gulf where a zoo was established، in 1955. And even less people will remember that it was Shaikh Jabir Al Abdullah Al Jabir Al Sabah who set up the region’s first zoo known as Salwa garden، after which the place Salwa was so named subsequently. He purchased animals، with his own money and eventually transferred his collection in 1965 to form the nucleus of Umariya Zoo.
The long and moving story has been told in the book titled “Salwa Garden: the first zoo in Kuwait and the Arabian Gulf” written and published by his daughter Shaikha Mona Jabir Al Abdullah Al Jabir Al Sabah، Assistant Undersecretary of Al Diwan Al Amiri and author of several research-oriented books on Kuwait and the Gulf. Source
Update3: How am I just finding out about this? The picture below is of the entrance to the zoo and you can see a couple of more photos here.
4 replies on “The First Elephant in Kuwait”
Ahmadi did have a zoo till very recently and it was housed in the garden next to the Sports center. Not sure about where this elephant was taken though.
You wrote zoon instead of zoo in your first update
ooops
So Salwa was named after a Zoo?