As you may have read over the past couple weeks, we are pretty sure our Commissary building is haunted by the ghost of Hans Nagel, the Zoo’s first Director. He was a very colorful character that had an untimely demise right here on Zoo grounds in November 1941…and where all this happened was a little too close to our Commissary building for comfort.

The Commissary is where we prepare all the food for our animals, which has to be done very early in the morning so they can get fed – animal nutrition staff get there between 5 and 6 am.  They have told creepy ghost stories for years about what they’ve seen and heard, so some other Zoo staff decided to see for ourselves: we became amateur ghost hunters!

Several groups of ghost hunters, including staff from the Birds, Natural Encounters, Purchasing, and Interactive Marketing departments took shifts overnight to see if they would hear, see, or feel the presence of Hans. In addition to our eyes and ears, we collected audio recordings on a number of different nights. After listening to them, we heard some creepy things that weren’t audible during the night to our ears…have a listen to see if you hear them too!

Read more here about Hans Nagel and why he haunts the Zoo:

http://houstonzooblogs.org/zoo/2012/10/who-is-this-ghost/

http://houstonzooblogs.org/zoo/2012/10/a-ghost-of-a-chance-hunting-the-ghost-of-hans-nagel/

http://houstonzooblogs.org/zoo/2012/10/choosing-a-place-to-haunt/

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