150 years ago, in a train station restaurant in the village of Jeżyce near Poznań, a bunch of regulars thought of a highly unusual way to mark its owner's 50th birthday: they gave him "living gifts". These were mainly farm animals: a pig, a ram, a goat, a hen, a duck, a goose and a rabbit, and a few more exotic species such as a peacock, a trained bear and a monkey. They all ended up living in the restaurant's garden. Such were the origins of the Poznań Zoo.