A Spring Walk In The Zoo

I had a wonderful day a few weeks ago - I went for a visit to the zoo.  Ok, that sounds a little silly on the face of it.  I mean, I work at a zoo.  Since I graduated from college, the number of days that I have been at the zoo have greatly outnumbered the number of days that I haven't.  I've joked to friends that I think I spend more time there than some of the animals do.

It's also not unusual for me to go to other zoos and aquariums.  In pre-COVID times (which really does feel a lot longer ago than it was), I'd often go to a dozen or so facilities a year.  Sometimes it was for work, either for conferences or for animal transportation purposes.  Sometimes it was for pleasure, either part of another trip I'd be taking with someone, or a trip specifically made to see a zoo or aquarium that I wanted to go to.   In the case of the later, the trips were often focused around something special I really wanted to see - the whale sharks of Georgia Aquarium, the Sumatran rhino at Cincinnati - or to visit a colleague.  No pressure to do or see anything or anyone for the trip to be "a success."

Last month, though, I had the chance to go to a zoo that I had never been to before.  It was a small zoo.  I didn't know anyone who worked there - honestly, I'd barely heard of if before.  There were no strikingly unusual animals there - nothing I hadn't seen before at a half-dozen zoos, anyway.  But, I'd been unable to travel for so long.  I hadn't visited any zoos in 2020 for purely recreational purposes (and only one new zoo that entire year), so I was eager to go - and to go without any higher purpose in mind that just being there.

It was nice. 

I got there around opening time on a weekday, when it was quiet and mostly empty.  Slowly, relatively purposelessly, I just drifted through.  I stopped at each exhibit until I found the animal, and if that animal was up and about doing something, I stood and watched for as long as I wanted.  I read the signs and admired the artwork scattered around the grounds.  I noted the planted gardens, and stopped to sniff a flower or two.  When wild birds flitted by, I stopped to watch them as well.  When I left, a few hours later, I'd felt that I'd really seen and experienced the place.

Very often, when thinking about and talking about and writing about (and working in) zoos, I get wrapped up in heady topics, like conservation and animal welfare and social politics and all that... and all that is important.  When I walk around grounds, I fret, checking on the animals (do they seem happy?  Do they seem healthy?) and the guests (Are they behaving?  Are they enjoying themselves?  Are they being safe?).  Sometimes, though, it's nice just to have a little mindfulness - to actually see the zoo and the animals in it.

Thousands of years ago, before "zoos" were even a formalized concept, and before conservation and education became key concepts, our ancestors (well, the rich ones, anyway), built the first menageries because, deep down, they understood the simple truth that it is very pleasant to spend time in the company of animals.  It can be good to revisit that truth.