Life at the Zoo

by Phillip T. Robinson

  If one took Zoo Check’s principal criticisms and accommodated them point by point, zoos that did the following should be acceptable to the group, if we overlook the small detail that they don’t believe there should be any zoos at all:

  Conserve endangered species.

  Take part in coordinated breeding programs to preserve endangered species for eventual release into the wild.

  Fund conservation projects in the wild.

  Preserve a gene pool.

  Protect animals from danger.

  Educate the public.

  Take part in scientific research.

  Ensure that animal welfare is of the highest standard.

  Unfortunately, there are still many dismal zoos around the world that provide boundless cannon fodder for their complaints. For example, in 2003 a visitor to the Bucharest Zoo in Romania had the following to report: “I had to leave before going round all the exhibits due to my children (and myself) being upset by the sights we saw. . . . Bears in cages they could not stand up in—rocking to and fro! Idiots were feeding cans of beer to the primates. I tried to find staff to do something about it—but no one around!!! I wrote to the director of the zoo offering to assist with the zoo on a charitable basis—no reply at all.”

  Animal-rights advocates and their opponents reach the ultimate impasse when their arguments enter into the realm of religion. The Christian faiths generally teach that nonhuman creatures were placed on earth for the benefit of humankind, automatically giving people dominion over them. This fundamental position cuts short the possibilities that animals are likely to be accorded equality with humans any time in the near future. Nonetheless, the sentience arguments keep the debate very much alive and in the public forum, and seem quite effective in needling the conscience of society in general with respect to its obligations to animals.

  A May 2003 Gallup poll which measured public reaction to animal rights goals concluded that a majority (71 percent) of Americans believe that animals deserve protection from harm or exploitation. Surprisingly, 25 percent responding think that animals also deserve the same rights as people, although 48 percent of this group rejected bans on medical research on animals. Women were found to be more likely to support animal rights than men, although few differences were identified by age groups. One area that is clearly on the rise is an interest in improving conditions for agricultural animals. Efforts to ban hunting, however, have not met with the same support from the general public.

  Despite many zoo employees’ abhorrence of culling practices for the surplus animals born in zoos, there seems to be little outcry when petting zoo baby chicks or rodents are transferred to the reptile house as afternoon food for snakes and lizards. One popular exhibit in the San Diego Children’s Zoo was a giant loaf of bread displayed in a glass tank called the Mouse House. Once or twice a week a new loaf arrived and the keeper cut a few small doors and windows in the crust to allow easy entry to the resident mice. Adults and children alike delighted to see this busy house, teeming with rodents like a scene out of the movie Willard, in the process of being reduced to a heap of crumbs. The stabilizing factor in the Mouse House exhibit was the existence of hungry reptiles just around the corner. Snakes have to eat, too, and, as long as there is a logically connected purpose, the public seems content to accept the fate of the mice. In sharp contrast, a recent incident in eastern Michigan caused caustic public outrage toward a Detroit animal control facility when an animal caretaker was discovered feeding indigent puppies to an indigent python in their care.

  In examining my own behavior, I have to admit that my sensitivities also vary on a taxonomic basis. For example, I am able to place an earthworm on a hook without much soul-searching. I have also been able to catch fish and place them on a stringer or in a cooler (or the bottom of the boat) without contemplating how the fish might feel about it. But, frankly, such things have begun to trouble me a little as I grow older. I mostly catch and release fish nowadays, but some object even to that. I used to hunt deer and rabbits but now find it distasteful, although I am not quite ready to contemplate the ethics of duck hunting. When I see a moth struggling in vain against a lamp, though, I invariably liberate it outside into the night. Is it because I am growing soft and sentimental, or is mortality finally tickling my conscience and causing me to grow? We seem to pick and choose our prejudices and privileges when it comes to animals, but then we humans have always done this with members of our own species.

  From their inception, the perspective of modern zoos has been heavily weighted toward the preservation of species, rather than individual animals, though one should not underestimate the importance of individual animals in zoos, particularly the popular or endangered ones. I find the keeping of wild animals for zoological display and education to be acceptable and justifiable, although I have misgivings about the propriety of their close confinement purely for entertainment. I have come to accept and live with my ambivalence, however, and would much rather be conflicted on this whole subject than complacent, so as to be constantly reminded about the obligations that we place on ourselves when we place animals in captivity.

  A number of studies have been conducted on the motivation and behaviors of today’s zoo visitors. Two of the earlier public surveys were published in 1976 by Neil Cheek in Leisure and Recreation Places and by Stephen Kellert in the 1979 AAZPA Annual Meeting Proceedings. They concluded that zoo visitors, while not generally the most informed among so-called nonconsumptively oriented wildlife groups (for example, campers, hikers, ecotourists, and birdwatchers), are above average in education and income compared to non-zoogoers. (Though going to the zoo will not automatically raise your income, I fear.) Given the rising cost of visiting most tourist attractions, these statistics may partly reflect the financial barriers of admission prices.

  Some interesting conclusions have been drawn about the animal types to which zoogoers are attracted, which include, in particular, exotic and charismatic species such as gorillas, tigers, and pandas—especially the mammals, but also some of the predatory reptiles. Zoo visitor patterns are family-oriented in character, with emphasis upon a combination of three primary motivations—entertainment, education, and socialization. Unlike going to a movie, these visitors often share their experiences as family groups explore the zoo grounds together. Surveys have also demonstrated that, more than the average, zoogoers generally have strong affections for wildlife, as opposed to mere intellectual curiosity. In other words, there are huge opportunities to influence this audience in the realm of environmental conservation, if those opportunities are maximized. The effectiveness of graphics, signage, and other exhibit communication methodologies in educating the public are still not well enough understood and require ongoing study. There are parallel risks of alienating this public against the mission of zoos if animals are poorly displayed, explained, or cared for. Recent polls of visitors have shown that only 38 percent of them consider zoo and aquariums to be conservation-oriented institutions, as opposed to places for amusement. They need to be both to succeed.

  The keeping of animals in captivity is a tradition that derives from humankind’s innate curiosity and fascination with living things, and anthropocentric curiosity about how people and animals might share common attributes. Outside of books and before television, movies, circuses, and zoos were the usual extent of what average urban dwellers experienced with exotic wildlife. The public’s appetite for wildlife and wild places was well demonstrated in the 1920s and ’30s by the popularity of the motion picture documentaries produced by the celebrities Martin and Osa Johnson from their travels to Africa and the South Pacific. Most major, and even moderate-sized, cities built zoos as a form of both public entertainment and education. Just as a city of any status was expected to have a library, museum, and public transportation system of some merit, having a public zoo became the norm for any self-respecting metropolis. However, municipal zoos often became the stepchildren of city park departments and fell into a pecking order that frequ
ently favored the public golf links and other, more familiar, operations. The management of zoos has always been a thorn in the side of many municipal administrations. Zoo directors often were political appointees, not biologists or educators. Zoos also occasionally became dumping grounds for civil service employees who graduated from other city bureaucracies.

  The founders of the San Diego Zoo expressed this same concern about city-administrated zoos in the early 1920s. According to accounts in the San Diego Union-Tribune, the trustees believed that “the history of zoological gardens in the United States shows that municipal zoos have been failures, while those managed by zoological societies have been uniformly successful. San Diego Zoo supporters contend that where city officials or commissions have control, politics creep in, with an impairment of efficiency, while public-spirited citizens who devote much of their time and thought to the direction of the zoo through a society invariably attain the best results. Boston and Los Angeles are cited by society members here as examples of what happens to the zoos when politics are permitted to enter in the management.”

  Thus, like the New York Zoological Park, the San Diego Zoo’s resolve to be operated through a nonprofit zoological society was ingrained from its founding. In recent decades a number of municipal zoos (Birmingham, Bridgeport, Buffalo, Cleveland, Columbus, Fort Worth, Lowry Park, Seattle Woodland, and Toledo) have been converted to similar models of nonprofit society management, while others have hybridized their structures to have strong private zoological society involvement.

  Zoo administrators overall have been a heterogeneous brew as a profession, but have steadily improved in quality as trained personnel have assumed management roles in recent generations. That growth and maturation has come in no small part as a result of the leadership of many individuals within the American Zoo and Aquarium Association. With a membership now approaching 5,500, this organization seeks to coordinate cooperation among zoological gardens and aquariums and raise standards for animal care, improved management, and scientific progress in conservation biology. Some old-timers still feel that there is too little regard for the history of zoos and an understanding of how zoos reached where they are today. There are also some concerns among other zoo professionals (not so old) that many key administrative positions in zoos are being filled with non-animal people whose expertise is top-heavy in marketing and theme park management at the expense of biological acumen, forcing the animal experts into the back seat in influencing institutional priorities.

  Zoos have an early history of being net consumers of wildlife instead of being their conservators. Much of that has now changed. In earlier times this was well-illustrated by the first major attempts to import orangutans to zoos. According to the late Lee Crandall, a curator at the New York Zoological Park (Bronx Zoo) and author of Mammals in Captivity, orangutans first arrived in Europe in the year 1640 and in America in 1825. Additional accounts by Frederick Ulmer describe how a Dutchman brought 102 Sumatran orangutans to Europe in 1927–28, thirty-three ultimately destined for the United States. Nearly all of these animals soon died of various causes, even if they arrived alive at their destinations. It took time, and more orangutans, to succeed in providing the minimal conditions for the survival of this relatively hardy species in captivity.

  The historical mortality rates in acquiring animals for zoo exhibition were high, leading some early leaders in the zoo profession to doubt the prospects for keeping many species in captivity. For example, in 1915 the director of the Bronx Zoo, William Hornaday, stated: “There is not the slightest reason to hope than an adult gorilla, either male or female, ever will be seen living in a zoological park or garden.” It would be some time before gorillas became common in captivity—the first captive birth of a gorilla was at the Columbus Zoo in 1956. Gorillas now live and reproduce in scores of zoos around the world.

  In 1923, during its formative years, the San Diego Zoo hired Frank Buck, the colorful and controversial animal dealer, as its director. His time at the zoo was limited and he soon fell into disfavor with the zoo’s founder, Dr. Harry Wegeforth, over issues of managerial autonomy. The fact that Buck was hired in the first place was indicative of the high priority given to bringing affordable animals to San Diego to build an extensive animal collection. Seldom did zoos organize collecting expeditions of their own. Rather, they relied upon animal dealers, who offered animals for sale to the highest bidders. Wegeforth was put off by the outrageous prices demanded by animal dealers—enter Mr. Buck. But within a matter of months Buck was fired. In his unsuccessful breach of contract complaint in San Diego Court, Buck countercharged that Wegeforth had been responsible for the deaths of 150 snakes that had been force-fed with a sausage stuffer. The press photo of this stunt being applied to a large python made sensational publicity in the newspapers. Several thousand people turned out and paid a special admission to see the big snake being fed.

  Young gorilla captured in 1930 by Martin and Osa Johnson

  In 1930 Buck published a popular account about his animal collecting exploits entitled, Bring ’Em Back Alive, avoiding all references to his San Diego fiasco. Apparently, bringing them back alive was often the exception rather than the rule. Indeed, many animals and even whole shipments were lost from capture and transport before they ever reached the gates of a zoo, which Buck acknowledges in his book. One of San Diego’s early chimpanzees, named Dinah, arrived at the zoo as a crippled youngster and died prematurely at the age of eleven. Her postmortem examination revealed that she had been wounded in the head, probably at the time of her capture, and a hole larger than a quarter was discovered on the right lower side of her skull, the likely cause of the disability she exhibited in her left leg and foot.

  During the exploration of Africa by Westerners in the 1850s, American hunter-adventurer Paul B. DuChaillu provided the original insights into capturing gorillas. He was the first white person to see a gorilla in the wild and published the first authoritative artist sketches of this species. He killed a number of gorillas, which, in those days were vigorously sought after and purchased as specimens by major museums. DuChaillu was troubled but undeterred by his killing of this unique species, and he wrote in his 1861 book, Exploration and Adventures in Equatorial Africa, about the capture of a three-year old gorilla:

  I profess that I felt almost like a murderer when I saw the gorillas as they ran on their hind legs. They looked fearfully like hairy men, their heads down and their bodies inclined forward, their whole appearance like men running for their lives. Take with this their awful cry, which fierce and animal as it is, has yet something human in its discordance, and you will cease to wonder that the native’s have the wildest superstitions about these wild men of the woods. . . . Instantly they [the hunters] made ready to fire, and none too soon for the old female saw them as they raised their guns and they had only to pull triggers without delay. Happily they wounded her mortally. She fell. The young one, hearing the noise of the guns, ran to his mother and clung to her, hiding his face and embracing her body. The hunters immediately rushed toward the two, hallooing with joy as they ran on. But this roused the little one, who instantly let go his mother and ran to a small tree, which he climbed with great agility, where he sat and roared at them savagely. . . . One of the men received a severe bite on the hand, and another had a piece taken out of his leg. . . . He constantly rushed at them, so they were obliged to get a forked stick, in which his neck was inserted in such a way that he could not escape, and yet could be kept a safe distance. In this uncomfortable way he was brought to the village.

  Carl Akeley, the well-known naturalist/taxidermist with the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, gave a compelling account of his 1920s collecting activities in pursuit of gorilla specimens for a mounted display in their new Hall of African Mammals in his 1923 book In Brightest Africa. Since the capture of young apes for zoo exhibition involved the killing of the mothers and other family members, his experiences were probably typical of what took place in the for
est in the process of procuring animals. Akeley eventually became conflicted about the taking of mountain gorillas and feared for the future of these noble animals. He wrote: “The black fur ball that I fired at was the four-year old son of the female that we had shot previously. As he ran about one of the guides speared him. I came up before he was dead. There was a heartbreaking expression of piteous pleading on his face. He would have come to my arms for comfort.”

  Museum mounts of DuChaillu gorillas specimens in Melbourne, Australia

  Some zoos started out solely as extensions of the egos of individuals, more than for any public purpose. The best zoos make education a central priority, not only to justify their public status in their communities, but also for the greater social obligations concerning animals. They should also make significant efforts to bring environmental messages to the public about their responsibilities as stewards of wildlife and natural resources. Such concepts are sometimes a challenge to sell to some city hall administrators and boards of trustees, who still may think of the zoo as a civic diversion or whimsical retreat rather than a catalyst for nature conservation and social enrichment.

  World War II had practical implications for zoos, when hostilities disrupted the supply of animals and bombing devastated some of the best-known zoos in Europe. When I did research into the life of the Dutch naturalist, Johann Büttikofer, who conducted important wildlife field research in Liberia, the trail to his records ended in the bombed-out Rotterdam Zoo where he had been the zoo director. As a result of war disruptions, the animal collections of many zoos began to show the impact of inadequate, and often nonexistent, programs for reliably propagating their own animals. This shortage elevated the importance of developing breeding programs and alliances with other zoos, largely to assure a continued supply of animals for exhibition.