"The personal attacks against me during the primary finally became so
heavy that the state Republican chairman, Gaylord Parkinson, postulated
what he called the Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not speak ill of any
fellow Republican. It's a rule I followed during that campaign and have
ever since."
- Ronald Reagan
"Getting real tired of your, s—t, Copenhagen…”
That was my first reaction to seeing the news about the
culling of four lions at the Copenhagen Zoo, fairly shortly after the infamous
giraffe-cull incident earlier this winter.
I get it – there’s a much different mentally about animal husbandry in
Scandanavia than there is the United States.
Still, it seems to me that zookeeping is as much an art as it is a
science… and the Danes seem to be so wrapped up in the hard science of it –
especially as it relates to population management – that they’re missing out on
the other aspects of the zoo.
The incident, of course, re-sent the spasms of controversy
that went through the zoo community following the giraffe. Among the various squabbles was a thread that
I’ve seen following many incidents. It’s
been there all along during the Blackfish
debacle. It was there when Ohio,
Maryland, and many other states debated legislation that clamped down on
private ownership of exotic animals and so-called “roadside zoos.” It is there whenever there a zoo or aquarium
is in the news for not-good reasons.
When – if ever – is it okay to criticize another zoo?
Zookeepers, as a rule, are a fairly unruly lot. They are young, they are idealistic, and they
are passionate, with the result that they tend to shoot from the hip. Many speak their minds freely and dispense
criticism readily, whether at their own zoo or at one they’d never heard of
before a continent away. They aren’t
simply negative Nancy’s or compulsive whiners, though – they genuinely feel
that they are exposing problems and shining lights on them, so that said
problems can be fixed and conditions improved for animals. Seems noble enough…
Then there is the other team. They are firm believers in the united
front. In their worldview, the animal
rights groups and their allies in politics and the media want nothing more than
to shut down all zoos, aquariums, circuses, and petting zoos, down to snatching
away that cute little painted turtle your elementary school teacher kept in her
classroom back when you were in third grade.
Any movement against any member of our community – even the nastiest,
most disgusting pit of a menagerie that makes no contribution to conservation
or education and has appalling animal welfare – is a move against all of
us. “They’ll start with the private owners,” they foresee, “than the non-accredited zoos, then the accredited
ones. First they’ll ban marine mammals,
then elephants, then great apes, then big cats and bears…” If you give a mouse (or a PETA member) a
cookie, and all that…
Considering that the animal rights groups have made moves
against the most respected, recognized zoos in the US, I can understand their
concern. This is especially true when it’s
voiced by the smaller, private zoos, who would be the first to go if this
scenario unfolds.
I’m inclined to take a more tactful version of the first
approach. I don’t like receiving criticism
too much myself, especially if it’s delivered in a confrontational tone by
someone who doesn’t really know what’s going on. That being said, it seems to me that policing
our own community is the best way to make sure that we’re all on the ethical
straight-and-narrow, continually improving ourselves so that outside forces don’t feel as inclined to step in.
We won’t always agree, and there are plenty of issues of
controversy (orcas, elephants, euthanasia, pinioning, etc) to keep us arguing
for a very long time. Every advancement
in our profession was considered controversial at one point or another; William T. Hornaday was one of the most progressive zoo professionals of his era, but
he balked at the idea of using moats to replace bars at the Bronx Zoo – he felt
that they kept animals too far away from people. Now they are commonly used (including at the
Bronx).
On some areas, we may never come to agreement. Keepers come from different backgrounds,
different cultures, and have different experiences. Someone who breeds endangered amphibians for
release into the wild is going to have a very different outlook than someone
who trains raptors for free-flight shows.
That’s okay. What is important is
that, while respecting one another and not questioning each other in terms of
commitment to the animals (unless it’s blatantly obvious that something is
horribly wrong), we continue to push, urge, and chide one another into doing
better for our animals.
That’s who we are all really there for, after all…
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