The Macaws on the Road to Damascus

I've been thinking a lot about animal welfare lately.  If you're interested in zoos, it's hard not to.  Along with conservation, welfare is the pillar of almost every conversation we have in the profession.  I'd always thought about it in largely abstract terms.  I clearly remember when it first began to cross my mind in a serious, more personal way.


Almost 10 years ago, I was wrapping up my last day of work at the shabby little private zoo where I had spent the last four years.  At the time, it was my longest gig as a zookeeper, and though I was excited to be moving on, part of me was definitely going to miss it.  As evening settled in and it got closer to clock-out time, I took one last stroll around the grounds.  It seemed like each animal I saw elicited some sort of memory in me.  There were the kangaroos that I had hand-reared, the alligators that I had fed for feeding demonstrations, and the owl that I had jessed and taken to schools for education talks.  I passed by the lemurs, and remembered the joy of finding a baby clinging to its mother's chest one morning, and the camels, and paused to remember fondly what giant assholes they were.


Then I got to our green-winged macaws.  And there I drew a blank.


Green-wings are big, showy birds, some of the largest and most beautiful of the macaws.  If a visitor had asked me, I could probably have spouted off a few facts about them.  No one ever had. In my entire four years, I don't think I had ever even said the words "green-winged macaws" aloud once.  I'd fed them.  I cleaned their enclosure.  I made sure their heat lamps were warm and toasty in the winter.  All of that was done almost mechanically, on autopilot.  I don't think I ever gave them a single conscious thought. 

At that moment, it was like I was seeing them for the first time.


That bothered me.  A lot.


Some jobs can be mechanized, perhaps done by automatons down the road.  Not zookeeping.  Caring for wild animals requires attention to detail, observation, flexibility, and improvisation - none of which I'd shown those macaws.  They were healthy as horses, thankfully (though I have known some pretty sickly horses in my years), and the bare maintenance of their care hadn't involved much thought or effort on my part - but they'd deserved it.  If I was barely doing more than making sure they were alive and vertical, how could I be sure that they were getting a good quality of life?  If I wasn't sparing them any real thought, how could I be sure that they were happy?  Answer: I couldn't.


That moment, in my last half hour on the job, made a major impression on me. I went on to my new job not triumphantly, but guiltily. I really felt like I'd owed more to those macaws.  As it happened, my new job also had a pair of green-wings.  I made a point of trying to learn that lesson, and made sure that they got better from me.