Why I Still Believe in the Zoo

Comments

• Janica wrote on March 05, 2008, 09:55PM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

  Thank you for sharing your thoughtful perspective on the complicated issue of why zoos matter. I spent my first year, as a zoo grounds keeper, trying to avoid seeing all the "shadows" around me and to focus, instead, on creating comfortable, interesting habitats and enrichment for our animals.

  I still wish that we could expand the confines of the zoo and encompass the neighboring golf courses and that, somehow, encroachment upon wild spaces could just stop. But as a zoo convert, when I question my convictions, I remember the young boy who hit me with a barrage of questions, one day, about my complicity and participation in the horrors of captivity. Suddenly, before I had to come up with an appropriate response, the boy stopped, mid-stream, and looking over my shoulder from the step where he stood, he said, "Wow! Look! Giraffes!" And, he was gone.

  Every day, I see kids excited about the giraffes, the caterpillars, and even the amazing plants that so many adults forget about. I sometimes feel like Bruce Dern in the old film, Silent Running, in his space ship protecting the last remnants of earth's forests and gardens, blasted into space.

  Until we create the perfect bio-sphere to send off into space, or somehow reverse the course and the impact of our own species, zoos do have a place and a purpose -- if for no other reason than to provide incentive to develop better solutions.

• Cruise wrote on April 04, 2008, 06:57AM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

  Honestly, in my opinon, the Zoo is the safest place for animals. Unlike in the wildlife where they are killed.

• MIMI wrote on May 01, 2008, 07:16PM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

  The zoo may be safe SOME OF THE TIME, but it doesn't mean they are happy. I know how you feel. And whenever I go to the zoo, I just think of where they might be if they were not at the zoo. This is a great story, and I sent it to a bunch of ny friends. One day, maybe they will be happy.

• earthling wrote on May 05, 2008, 06:23PM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

  it is sad

• Erika wrote on May 07, 2008, 03:44PM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

  Good article but I think it casts a not-so-hopeful situation. My 4yo daughter and I love our local zoo and visit frequently. She understands that the animals aren't "normally" in a zoo and that the animals are there to teach us about themselves and remind us that we have a responsibility. For her part, she picks up all the garbage we come across and disposes of it properly so that the "zookeepers can take care of the animals." If we all played such a role in everyday life, people wouldn't see zoos as such a forboding place.