Harald M. "Harry" Schwammer , zoo zoologist in Austria Schwammer was born * ? . Dr. Harald Schwammer (often referred to as Harald M. Schwammer) is a prominent Austrian zoologist and long-time senior leader at the Vienna Zoo (Tiergarten Schönbrunn). He is internationally recognized as an expert in elephant management and husbandry He began his significant work at the Vienna Zoo in the early 1980s, Zoological Curator for Research, planning, and construction at the Vienna Zoo for several decades, eventually rising to become the Managing Director/Vice Director in 1993, a position he held for 27 years until his retirement in 2020. Schwammer played a key role in designing the zoo's modern Elephant Park, which opened in the 1990s and moved the animals from traditional tethering to a more natural "hands-on" and eventually "protected contact" system. In 1997, he founded the European Elephant Keeper and Manager Association (EEKMA) to standardize and improve care for captive elephants across Europe, and during following decade organized numerous workshops for European elephant keepers. Participants in the III'd Eastern European elephant workshop 2010 in Zoo Dvur Kralove, Czech Republic. Photo: Dan Koehl Harry Schwammer, elephant Tonga and world famous zoologist Iain Douglas-Hamilton, Vienna Zoo abt 2000. In 2000, Schwammer initiated that the first elephant calf in Europe became bred trough Artificial insemination. He has chaired the Global Species Management Plan (GSMP) for elephants and served as the Co-Chair for the European Endangered Species Programme (EEP) for African elephants. The blind elephant bull Raja in Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage in Sri Lanka, with zoologist Harald Schwammer and chief Mahout K. G. Sumanabanda.
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