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Can’t I Just Enjoy the Zoo Anymore?
I traveled last week to Washington DC with my daughter and her three children. This trip had been in the works for several years. It was planned as the “Grandma Camp” for this summer. (Usually, the kids come to our house here in the desert for a week and we swim, do fun things, and stay up late watching movies.) However, I decided about four years ago that we’d go to the nation’s capital when they were old enough to understand and enjoy it. I saved up to pay for the trip; my daughter bought her own plane ticket. It was delightful…exhausting, but delightful.
One of our destinations was the National Zoo. It is a smaller zoo but had some fine exhibits, and we got to see a baby gorilla — so darling! But, I began to feel annoyed as I moved from section to section.
Every time I’d read the information about the animal displayed, it focused on how us horrible humans were endangering this beast. Every. Single. Animal. Seriously.
At first, I thought: Well, it’s possible that this Sumatran tiger could be endangered; after all, it kills and eats humans. I’d probably kill any of them that I saw if I lived near it. But, it was a theme in that zoo. Each and every exhibit featured how its natural environment was being altered by people, resulting in the endangerment of the animal on display. Okay, maybe the ants that the anteaters consumed weren’t affected.
I began to feel annoyed and pestered. It wasn’t just the National Zoo–it was the National Guilt Exhibit. The apparent goal was to make you feel so bad that you were a human, and lived on the earth screwing it up for the animals.
Now, my understanding of my place in the whole ecosystem is to “take care of this place.” And that the earth was created for us, the humans, to come and live. That was the whole point of the earth’s creation. The beasts, the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, every herb, and fruit, and plant was created for the humans to care for and use.
I learned this, of course, from reading the Bible, listening to my parents’ teachings, and in church. Our family depended on the earth to provide our sustenance; we were farmers. We bought very little food from the grocery store. Therefore, I knew all about caring for the earth, tending to the animals, using the resources wisely.
I also recognize that there have certainly been instances of dreadful misuse of the earth’s resources in some areas; and undoubtedly there are still some places that aren’t being cared for as we are instructed to in the scriptures.
But, I’m not sure when the purpose of a zoo became to guilt-trip all the people who come to visit. Have you experienced this ever? I took my children to the San Diego Zoo regularly when they were small and we lived there between 1974-1986. We’d buy a yearly membership (with grandma’s Christmas money) so that we could just pop in for a short visit when we were in that part of town. We’d go see just the snakes, or just the elephants, or just the monkeys. With a large group of small children, that was the best way to go. Plus, it was located very near to the Navy hospital where we were frequent flyers with the pediatric department. We loved it!
So, has the purpose of a zoo changed since I last frequented a zoo regularly? Are they now just another way to be flogged for being a human, and screwing up Mother Gaia by breathing the air, and daring to live in a house, and driving a car?
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I’ve always felt that a much more positive message rather than the doom and gloom and perpetual guilty refrain continually drummed into our heads that humans are bad and it’s all downhill from here for the earth and its inhabitants. Before environmentalism turned into a religion, people on both sides of the political spectrum could agree that we should not wantonly destroy the earth or its creatures. We’ve done so in the past-partly out of ignorance, and partly out of technological limitations. When I was a kid, they had to close the beaches on the Long Island Sound because they were so polluted. The shellfish were nearly gone and those that were there, you certainly wouldn’t want to eat. Both sides joined together to clean up the sound; the industries that used to pollute it were long gone. Now humans swim and shellfish thrive.
I like to go to the zoo, but I liked going to Yellowstone, Alaska and Africa where I could see these animals in the wild much better. They are magnificent, and the world would be a sorrier place if we had no truly wild animals at which to marvel. We are just starting to be able to probe the depths of their unique capabilities, including intelligent behavior and communication. There is no doubt many are being squeezed by human success. And some, like the rhino, are being hunted to extinction for really dubious reasons.
But I believe it is precisely this success that will lead to technological advances which in turn will lead to better ways for us to co-exist and even to reverse extinctions. I can envision a future where the human race colonizes the rest of the solar system and we turn the Earth into an ecological preserve for us to visit and enjoy.
So I don’t mind that zoos teach our children to respect and love these animals. But I also wish they would teach them to respect and love humans, for all that we’ve done and all that we can do.
Let’s hope Ms. L. finds the niece first…
Thank you good sir. Do you reckon that I am the only non-Yiddish person on Ricochet who doesn’t know the meaning of tchotchkes?
Yes, dahling. Just don’t ask me to spell it.
My sister and I spoke recently about her toddler’s complaint — like his cousin’s complaint at that age — about a bug being killed. It makes me wonder if to some degree the Great Chain of Being must be taught; that, in absence of visceral need (hunting for food), it is not completely instinctive.
My public school educators presented that concept like it is an antiquated idea of ignorant medieval peoples. That’s their judgment of common sense generally.
Even apart from Judeo-Christian theology, stewardship is a logical consequence of a human-centric perception of creation. Exploitation is common, but based more on selfish desire than logic.
Can you just pronounce it for me please?
Maybe…Chotch-keys…(to the ears and tongue of a PA-native gentile, anyway.) :-)
accent on the penultimate syllable?
I’ve heard both; I would say it’s on the *initial* syllable, but I’ll gladly defer to others.
First syllable. Now, you may well ask, rabbi, why should a Catholic boy know these things? And I would say unto you that in my business a lack of Yiddish schtick could make one a schlemiel, a schlub, or even a schmuck.
I think that you are right about this. There is no Garden of Eden where we survive on fruits and everyone gets along. I am alive because other things die and I eat them. When I realized that as a little girl, I was horrified as I love animals and didn’t want to hurt them. I was horrified too that my neighbor’s dog killed my kitten, that my loved ones died and that all things must die. Eventually, I came to grips with it: I accepted my place in the chain of being and that I have a right to be here by virtue of being born. I love animals and don’t believe in treating the cruelly or killing them indiscriminately. I believe someday we will no longer need to eat them – we’re already growing meat in the lab. But my cat will still hunt and animals will die cruelly whether we do or not. I’m convinced that the environmental movement, at least a segment of it, is rooted in hatred of humans and our capabilities. This theme was explored in the recent movie First Reformed. We should not be teaching that to our children.
I highly recommend the Orb Universalis videos made by the Austrian Broadcast Company. They’re on Amazon prime for free, and they’re wonderful. I’ve watched twenty or thirty of the things and heard the words “global warming” once.
You may be adept at saying/spelling those words, Gary, but you’ll *never* exemplify any of them; trust me on this one…
Sounds promising. Do you have a link? I tried searching for “Orb Universalis” on Amazon Prime and got zero hits.
It helps when I can remember the name … It’s ORF Universum.
Looks like they’ve put their stuff on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVGTgXC1P–xM480Z6DqyAg
Annoying with Amazon Prime, they don’t come up under their production company, but only their individual movie names. But if you start here and just stick with the videos that have the logo in the corner, you really can’t go wrong.
Exactly. That is what people used to do. They used to learn, and think, and understand, until they moved off dead center and “came to grips with” the sometimes less-than-pleasant realities of life. And as they did, they matured and grew up.
Now, the approved wisdom goes, all we have to do is put on our pink hats, have a tantrum, stomp our feet, emote and feel, and shelter in place until the world turns back on its axis, as it surely must, and “grips come to us.”
Although it’s somewhat rare, there have been attacks on humans at these “Swim With the Dolphins” facilities. People don’t understand that “Flipper” is a 300 lb wild animal that can swim up to 30 MPH.
Not to mention that the reason they’re so smart is that they’re the ocean equivalent of wolves.
If our government is going to protect certain species from extinction, there are two easy ways to do it:
Exactly. There have been a few deaths among trainers and handlers of killer whales too.
While our son was in college in far northern New York state, we stumbled onto a group that promoted the raising of “heirloom” animal breeds for food (I can’t find a link to the group now). The group acknowledged that although eating the animals offended their preferences, developing a market was the most likely way to preserve the breeds.
I understand that some areas of Africa have had success in limiting poaching of endangered species by granting to the local tribes a financial interest in organizing hunting safaris on tribal lands, so that the tribes have a reason to ensure that the “endangered” animals reproduce so that they have a continuing source of income. It also gives the tribe a reason to control poaching on their land. This should work better than a simple edict of “no hunting,” which doesn’t really give the tribe incentive to keep the “endangered” species going.
If you see a box marked “I agree to be a dolphin’s chum,” don’t check that one.
Excellent essay. I share your brain on this topic.
One reservation though:
Why did you have to mention those ants! Why?!?
Now there is sure to be a plaque stating that the ants are killed by the anteaters, and asking zoo visitors just how unfair is it that these wee humble creatures are done in on a daily basis by a much larger critter?
Perhaps it will happen soon “Today actor Billie Bob Jean Thoreau departed this world via suicide, and now if more of our viewers wouldn’t pause to take the time and do as he/she did, the world would be a better place.”
There was a recent “House Hunters” episode on the Home channel about a lady who might buy real estate in Florida but only if the house wasn’t too close to any ponds or waterways where the alligators lived. And it was treated by the program announcement as though her “peccadillo” was an odd one.
As though all the other Floridians were like “Yeah gators! I can always have another toddler, but as an environmentalist, I wouldn’t want to deprive them of what they need. Even when that need is our little Timmy.”
It is an odd one. If you don’t want to live near possibly alligator infested water, realistically the entire state of Florida has to be ruled out. I mean, unless you want to live in a walled compound. Gators can climb trees, for goodness sake.
It’s like moving to Michigan and trying to find a house that won’t get snow.