To those who can remember the dirty and rather dismal looking approach to Belvedere, the improved and satisfactory condition of the neighbourhood, at present, must afford a very striking contrast.

A very large share of the credit for the establishment of this pleasant resort is due to Sir Richard Temple, who was Lieutenant Governor of Bengal from 1874 to 1877, but long before the scheme assumed any proper shape, Dr. Fayrer, C.S.I., in 1867 and again in 1873 Mr. L. Schwendler (known as the 'Father of the Zoo') had brought forward and strongly urged the necessity of a Zoological Garden…The visit to Calcutta of His Majesty King Edward the Seventh, then Prince of Wales, was seized upon as an auspicious occasion.

[7] The foundation of zoos in major cities around the world caused a growing thought among the British community in Kolkata that the menagerie should be upgraded to a formal zoological garden.

The zoo was formally opened in Alipore - a posh Kolkata suburb, and inaugurated on 1 January 1876 by Edward VII, then Prince of Wales.

[8] The initial stock consisted of the private menagerie of Carl Louis Schwendler (1838 – 1882), a German electrician who was posted in India for a feasibility study of electrically lighting Indian Railways stations.

Other contributors who donated part or all of their private menagerie to the Alipore Zoo included the Maharaja of Mysore Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV.

[9] The park was initially run by an honorary managing committee which included Schwendler and the famous botanist George King.

The zoo has also, in the past, attracted a lot of criticism for keeping single and unpaired specimens of rare species like the banteng, great Indian one-horned rhinoceros, crowned crane and the lion-tailed macaque.

[15] Lack of breeding and exchange programs has led to the elimination of individuals and populations of environmentally vulnerable species like the southern cassowary, wild yak, giant eland, slow loris and echidna.

A chimpanzee attacked and severely injured its keeper in Alipore Zoo, and numerous other incidents have been reported including the case of an elephant trampling its mahout to death in 1963 which was subsequently put down.

[22] In 2001, it was revealed that zoo staff drugged the great Indian one-horned rhinoceros into relieving itself more often than normal, which enabled them to collect the urine and sell it on the black market as an anti-impotence medicine.

[23] The zoo attracted flak from the scientific community in general, because of cross breeding experiments between lions and tigers to produce strains like tigons, and litigons (see Panthera hybrid).

[26] The zoo displays a large number of crowd-pulling megafauna, including the royal Bengal tiger, Asiatic lion, jaguar, hippopotamus, greater one-horned rhinoceros, giraffe,[27] zebra, and Indian elephant.

[28] The zoo has chosen to upgrade customary checking of large felines and exacting execution of security standards after a tiger tested positive for COVID-19 at a zoological garden in New York, an authority said on Monday.

Since mid-February a few prudent steps, for example, spraying of antiviral medication inside the enormous felines' fenced in area and in the nursery have been taken.

Laid out on 45 acres (18 ha) of land, the Calcutta zoo has been unable to expand or modify its layout for over 50 years, and thus has a rather backdated plan.

The most famous specimen in the zoo was probably the Aldabra giant tortoise "Adwaita", gift when it died in 2006 – a contender for the longest lived animal.

Sanjay Budhia, chairman of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) national committee on exports, adopted a one-horned rhino.

[38] A move to a suburban location was also contemplated, but was not undertaken based on the recommendations of the CZAI, which claimed the Alipore site was of historical significance.