This I muttered under my breath for the sixth or seventh time as I squinted through my camera. My companions were getting bored, wondering why I was insisting on spending so much time with a camera trained on what, to them, anyway, appeared to be nothing more interesting than a very malnourished impala. I had my reasons, which for some reason it didn't occur to me to explain. I'd been watching the gerenuk for a few minutes, and noticed that one of them seemed intrigued by some browse that was hung overhead, just too high for her to reach on all fours. She seemed to be giving in to temptation, and it seemed like it was just a matter of time until...
On cue, she stood up on her back legs, towering over the other members of her herd, her seemingly tiny head now a good seven feet off the ground. With one long, delicate forelimb, she hooked the browse down a bit, and then began to nibble at it. I was delighted.
As I finally consented to move on, I thought to myself, "I always wanted to see that."
Gerenuk diorama, American Museum of Natural History (Photo Credit: AMNH)
I'd seen gerenuk in zoos before - not too often, they aren't a very common species. I'd also spotted one in the wild once on a trip to Africa. But I'd never really felt that I'd seen one - actually seen one, anyway - until I saw it in its most characteristic, famous behavior, standing erect to feed. Well, I had seen it before, I guess - in natural history museum dioramas. Every display of gerenuk I'd seen in a museum had an animal in that remarkable pose. It's the one thing the species is best known for.
There are a number of similar behaviors or postures that I could think of that are very evocative of certain animals. A leopard lounging across a tree limb. A hippopotamus yawning. A gorilla beating its chest. A chameleon flicking its tongue, or a rattlesnake curled up, buzzing its tail. Perhaps the best known of all, a peacock splaying its train of beautiful tail feathers. If you'd never seen an Indian peafowl before, and then were one day shown a single female with its drab brown plumage, or a very young chick, perhaps, would you really feel like you'd actually seen one?
At one past zoo I worked at, we had a small pack of wolves. Whenever I heard one start to howl, I would (when safe to do so), drop everything and run over. I loved seeing a wolf standing on top of the mound in the center of their habitat, head thrown back, eyes closed, howling in response to territorial urging. Once, when I was working late for an event, I saw it, the silhouette framed against a (mostly) full moon. It was spine-tinglingly beautiful.
Some of these behaviors can be encouraged through enrichment and habitat design, as was the case with the gerenuk reaching for the hanging browse. In other cases, behaviors are sensitive to time and season; more than one visitor has expressed disappointment at seeing a bedraggled-looking peacock at the wrong time of year. Some are pure luck. And some... aren't ones which we should encourage. Some of the most impressive animal behaviors are defensive, and as cool as it can be to see the behavior, I wouldn't want to needlessly stress the animal for those reasons. A cobra reared up and hooded is a much more impressive snake than one at rest, but I'd rather see a cobra in a zoo that's at ease and relaxed than one which is constantly agitated.
Years ago, I was visiting Shedd Aquarium for the first time. There were a lot of beautiful exhibits, including several species which I had never seen before, such as green sawfish and Pacific white-sided dolphin. What I remember most about that visit, though, was a species which I'd seen several times before - an alligator snapping turtle. I'd never seen one display its famous fishing behavior, mouth open, tongue wriggling like a worm to attract fish within its waiting jaws. That might have been when I first began to appreciate the difference between looking at an animal at a zoo display, and really seeing it.
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