Archaeologists begin moving graves to make way for new Birmingham Zoo exhibit
Archaeologists have begun exhuming human remains from an abandoned cemetery on the grounds of the Birmingham Zoo, now that the state has approved plans for relocating the graves.
Zoo officials got a permit from the Alabama Historical Commission to dig up and move to the graves to make way for a new exhibit.
“We will be building burial boxes for each remains and then they’ll be reinterred here on the zoo site,” said Chris Pfefferkorn, president and CEO of the Birmingham Zoo. “We will do a multi-denominational service because we don’t know the background of anybody we are finding. We don’t even know a name.”
Decades before the creation of the zoo and the nearby Birmingham Botanical Gardens, part of the property was known as the Red Mountain Cemetery and Southside Cemetery, an indigent burial ground for more than 4,700 people. Many of those interred at the cemetery between 1888 and about 1909 were among Birmingham’s poorest early residents, many of them buried in unmarked graves.
Read more: Who are the people buried on the grounds of the Birmingham Zoo?
About 12 to 15 graves are believed to rest within the footprint of the zoo expansion project.
Pfefferkorn said the zoo will erect a monument to memorialize the cemetery and create storyboards to tell the history of the area.
“We want to do the right thing by these folks and make sure they get the respect and dignity they deserve,” Pfefferkorn said.
The University of Alabama’s Office of Archaeological Research is conducting the excavation of the site in an off-limits fenced area with black shielding. The archaeologists use ground radar to identify burial sites.
Work to exhume and move human remains is underway at the Birmingham Zoo as officials prepare for a new exhibit.Bill Lang, Birmingham Zoo
“It’s a slow process, because once the person on the excavator is slowly pulling the soil back, when an archaeologist identifies a change in soil that could indicate a grave, then the digging is by hand,” Pfefferkorn said.
Read more: These Birmingham landmarks are built atop historical burial grounds
The excavation, which began last month, is expected to continue through February.
Then, the zoo will begin constructing the new exhibit, Cougar Crossing. It will be a 15,000 to 20,000 square feet area that includes a public viewing area and two outdoor habitats. The site will include Bob, the zoo’s current bobcat, in addition to a new cougar.
The new exhibit is expected to open next summer.