Hochadel approached the theme through three lenses. (1) Global zoo travellers—notably Gustave Loisel and Stanley S. Flower—created dense circuits of visits, exchanges, and reporting that made practical know-how portable across continents. Their missions, lists, and reports forged professional acquaintance and diffused “best practices” in animal keeping and design. (2) Global zoo media—from Der Zoologische Garten to the Revista del Jardín Zoológico de Buenos Aires—functioned as transnational channels for techniques and debates, while R. B. Sanyal’s Handbook became a widely read, practice-oriented compendium beyond Europe. (3) Global sites – the monkey house condensed these circulations into concrete problem-solving: around 1900, directors compared heating, ventilation, hygiene, and inside–outside cage systems, sometimes borrowing directly and sometimes criticizing local outcomes.

In conclusion, Hochadel highlighted a productive tension: the nineteenth-century zoo carried a clear imperial imprint and Western ideology, yet it also emerged as a global, hybrid institution shaped by multidirectional exchanges—including South–South links—and diverse “autochthonous” knowledges of animal care. This double perspective reframes the zoo within the nineteenth century’s “rise of global uniformities.” A lively discussion with the audience followed.

Oliver Hochadel is an environmental and science historian at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in Barcelona and is currently completing a book on "Animals on the Move: The Emergence of the Global Zoo around 1900".