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Re: zoo coments
On 3/5/02 9:05 PM, quoth the effervescent Xanthousnaiad at insightbb_com at
Xanthousnaiad at insightbb_com:
>i know this subject has been going for two days or so, but i thought i'd
>offer my thoughts anyway...
>
>i agree zoos are a great way for people to experience animals. and yes they
>are becoming better everyday. BUT, does it bother anyone else but me that
>the first priority of a zoo is the humans' needs and not that of the
>animals? i am all for education but when we educate ourselves about other
>living things we need to especially sensitive to their needs. especially
>those of great apes. but i will stop here because i could go on for hours
>about this topic.
>
>hope everyone's having a good evening.
>kelly
Sigh.
Okay. I wasn't going to get into this, but I sort of feel I have to.
Years ago, I used to work in the Philadelphia Zoo, which is our country's
oldest zoo. I spent my lunchtime hanging out by the lemurs. I made
Christmas wreaths with the tigers and lions pacing behind me. I knew the
place to go to scam the feathers the peacocks dropped. When a terrible
fire hit the World of Primates years ago and killed all the Western
Lowland gorillas, Bornean orang-utans, and chimps-- and my lemurs-- I
cried hysterically. So yeah, I know the Zoo.
And okay, I'll admit, zoos aren't perfect. We had a mountain lion, Alice,
who spent so many years in a small cage that it made her crazy, and even
after she was given a new, carefully redesigned, larger, more natural
enclosure, she spent all day every day pacing neurotically back and forth
to the point where she had to be taken off exhibit because her behaviour
disturbed the visitors. It bothered me a little that the black and white
Colobus monkeys didn't have a lot of natural light. The Arctic fox didn't
have a big area in which to run. The sea otters had a great habitat, but
I'm not sure how happy the penguins were.
The first reason zoos were established was as an exhibit. A place for
people to come see the bizarre freaks of nature they'd previously only
heard of in wild tales or seen in Beastiaries. Heads of State were given
elephants and other exotic creatures, which must have led pretty hellish
lives so far from their natural habitats. Well up into the twentieth
century, a zoo was a place for a human. For years, our zoo exhibited a
picture of the small, iron-barred, concrete-floored cell in which Massa,
the longest-lived gorilla in captivity, used to live. They used this to
contrast with the large, open-air moated yard which was built for the
primates years later, with trees and tall grass, and cargo nets, balls,
and other carefully-considered toys and activities to keep the animals
occupied and happy.
In the last few decades, though, the purpose and focus of zoos has
changed. It's had to. Up until the last, say, 150 years, if you really
wanted to go see a panda (and you were very rich), you could go to China.
An Indian elephant in the wild? Well, you know where to go. But that's
not the case any more. According to the World Wildlife Fund, there may be
fewer than 1,000 Pandas left in scattered reserves in China. And don't
get me started on how that country's traditional medicine is decimating
the Siberian tiger population. And the rhinos. And any other animal who
might have a useful body part. (I know I'm supposed to be respectful, but
I find it difficult. Sorry.) What all this means, though, is that a zoo
is, for most people, the only place we'll ever see such animals. It's the
only place you can learn about what it's really like in another country.
How mind-expanding is it to see a Snow Leopard when your wildest wildlife
at home is a pigeon?
And zoos know this. They know they're now as much in the conservation
business as the exhibition business. Probably even more so. Zoos know
that they're responsible for breeding animals and watching those
bloodlines carefully so as not to inbreed and weaken a species. And
what's just as important, they know they're the first line of defense
against human stupidity, apathy, and ignorance. It's very easy to look at
a picture of an oryx or a dik-dik and read that it's endangered and not
really be moved. It's much more difficult to look at one of these
creatures in the flesh and not be moved. Seeing a picture and then seeing
the living, breathing animal is an amazing experience. Maybe we're all
too old now to remember the first time we saw an elephant or a lion, but
our kids aren't. Their kids aren't.
Some of the most important programs our zoos run now are school outreach
programs, taking snakes and owls and reptiles to schools so kids can see
these animals, touch them, and understand their own world. Maybe they'll
grow up not really caring, but they'll remember. And maybe they'll grow
up affected by that simple program enough to do something about it, to
lobby for habitat defense or preservation.
Or maybe they'll grow up to work in a zoo.
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