I listened to a podcast the other day about the pros and
cons of zoos. As with just about
everything nowadays, it’s a controversial topic. Unfortunately, it’s hard to land in a place
of knowing exactly what you’re talking about when you’re basing your opinions
on feelings. I feel like that on just
about every controversial topic known to man. So, I'm not going to put up opinions.
Instead, I’m going to offer you some of my experiences with zoos, some pros and
cons, and talk about one success story that just warms my heart.
The last
time I visited a zoo was about two years ago.
I live ~ 3 miles from the Philadelphia Zoo. With its giant Zoo Balloon floating over the
river as a serious advertisement, I was drawn to go for the third time. The zoo had recently opened their new Big Cat
Falls exhibit (sponsored by some company – it changes and I’m not about to perpetuate the
advertisement here). Lions are my
absolute favorite so I was pretty
psyched.
This new enclosure is supposed to
mimic their natural habitat as best as possible. The male lion, Merlin, and his three female
companions, in addition to the jaguars, leopards, pumas and tigers, can frolic
among large rocks, waterfalls, and fallen trees. The lions are also miked in some way so that
we can hear them roar (or grumble, as the case may be). It was an impressive and overall happy
experience.
Following the lions, we saw the
lone polar bear. This is where my heart
broke. It was 90 degrees and hovering at
90% humidity. That bear looked sad,
confused, and mostly especially, hot. All
the animals, which came from everywhere on the globe, were subjected to the climes
of Philadelphia – meaning summer highs of 95 degrees F and winter lows of 20
degrees F. The polar bear had to deal
with the Philadelphia summer just as much as the African lions have to deal
with the winter cold. The zoo’s website
claims the big cats are fine with it, but they do heat some of the rocks so
they have a warm place to hang out during the cold days.
Are zoos bad for animals? In the case of elephants, zoos were
ultimately deemed to be bad. Elephants
are quite social and like to walk long distances each day. The small pens were not conducive to them and
a movement was started several years ago to close all elephant exhibits. I was able to see the Philadelphia elephants
before they were re-homed in 2007. Figure 41.1 is a picture of Petal, Callie (African elephants)
and Dulary (Asian
elephant) in their old pen.
Beautiful animals. They are now in
Tennessee and Baltimore and (according to reports) are happier. Elephants are hardly the only animals to
suffer in zoos, unfortunately. Some
develop weird, repetitive behavior that is only seen in captive animals. So far, only elephants have received the push
to be removed, however.
On the flip side, zoos do allow us
to see animals we may not have an opportunity to view otherwise. In this way, zoos offer an educational
experience. They also are highly
involved in conservation projects around the world and have played a key role
in re-introducting extinct species back in the wild. Case in point: Père David’s Deer.
Have you heard of these
animals? I had not until yesterday. You can see a picture of them in Figure 41.2.
Aren’t they amazing?
Elaphurus
davidianus (Père David’s Deer)
was originally found in East Asia, but was extinct in the wild before the close
of the 19th century.
Interestingly, from 1890 to 1900, the 11th Duke of Bedford collected the
remaining deer from Berlin, Paris, and Antwerp and created his own herd at
Woburn Abbey in England. By 1945, this
collection had grown from 18 deer to 250.
These deer were then transferred to
other reserves and zoos throughout the world with eventual reintroduction to
the wild. Beginning in 1985, three
separate herds of deer were introduced into China at Beijing Père
David’s Deer Park, Dafeng Père David’s Deer Nature Reserve, and
Shishou (Tianezhou) Père David’s Deer Nature Reserve. As of 2005, over 1500 deer are now living in
these parks and maintaining their own populations. Genetic diversity among the deer is still
low, but scientists are working to develop ways to increase it among the
current populations and any future reintroductions.
Accordingly to Soulé
et al and Frankham et al, thousands of terrestrial vertebrates may require
captive breeding programs with subsequent reintroduction in the next 200 years
to stave off extinction.
One of the issues I always consider
when looking at animals in zoos is whether they accurately represent the animal
in all ways. Sure, we can look at a
gorilla. We can appreciate its size and
its features, but does it actually act like a gorilla when in captivity? Are we really looking at a fully functional
gorilla or a nice replica of what the animal merely looks like? How much of their natural disposition is
removed and/or bred out by living in zoos?
Père David’s Deer were actually
studied to this effect. In a paper
published by Li et al in August 2011, the deer were subjected to various
pictures and sounds of common animals and natural predators. The scientists wanted to know if, after years
of captivity, the deer could still respond to their natural predators with fear
and caution.
Interestingly, they do. Tiger roars especially led to strong
reactions among the deer. The last
sentence of their abstract reads, “Our study implies that Père
David’s deer still retain the memories of the acoustic and visual cues of their
ancestral predators in spite of the long term isolation from their natural
habitat.” It seems that, at least for
these deer, captivity didn’t completely dampen their senses to predators.
This is an interesting function of
zoos that I hadn’t considered before. It
seems that with most controversial topics, we get a healthy serving of good and
bad points. Obviously, we are all left
to make our own opinions about zoos and I won’t offer my own (somewhat
misinformed and emotional) opinion to cloud this topic until I have time
to fully research it. I merely wanted to
convey the success story of Père David’s Deer.
Along the same lines, did you know
that we have seed banks? Started by the
botanist Nikolai Vavilov in Russia, seeds have been collected from all over the
Earth and stored with the idea to avoid extinction of plants. Such dedication the men had who looked over
the seed banks that one died instead of eating the edible seeds during a long
famine. Very interesting concept that
deserves some study!
REFERENCES
http://philadelphia.about.com/od/philadelphiazoo/a/zoo_elephants.htm
Zeng, Jiang and Li. “Genetic variability in relocated Père
David’s deer (Elaphurus davidianus) populations – Implications to
reintroduction program.” (2007) Conservation Genetics. 8 pgs 1051 – 1059.
Soule et al. “The millennium ark: How long a voyage, how
many staterooms, how many passengers?” (1986) Zoo Biol. 5, pgs 101 – 113
Frankham, R. “Stress and adaptation in conservation
genetics.” (2005) J. Evolution Biol. 18, pgs 750 – 755.
Li et al. “Do Pere David’s Deer Lose Memories of Their
Ancestral Predators?” PLoS One. (2011) 6(8) pgs 1 – 6.
I was thinking about this exact topic a few weeks ago. I love animals (especially zoo animals) but for some reason I don't like going to the zoo. I even have the San Diego zoo in my backyard. I think it's because I feel so sad for the animals. Same with Sea World. I love going to Sea World but I get so sad too.
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