Thoughts About Pāora

The first inkling I'd had about the controversy surrounding Pāora, the kiwi at Zoo Miami, was a post on a zookeeper facebook group.  The story was just starting to bubble up on social media, and it was being shared in the vein of "Hey, if you guys didn't know that this was heading your way, it is, so be prepared."

Response from the collective keeper community was, as it is in most things, divided.  There were a few people who were defensive of the practice.  A few who were indignant and outraged (especially the New Zealanders).  And the majority, who were somewhere along the lines of, "Maybe not what I would have done, or considered best practice.  But let's talk this over."  Not being super familiar with kiwi husbandry, I was more of the middle path myself.

It helped to take that stance because I've seen a lot of people, especially outside the animal care community, take shocked, appalled stances on things that are... fine.  "Heavens to Betsy, this polar bear is being kept in a zoo where it temperatures can get hot, I've never seen such cruelty" (*swoons*).  Yeah, the bear is fine, it has cooled dens, a chilled pool, air conditioning, and it *lacks* the blubber that keeps wild polar bears warm.  "They're separating a mother and baby?  That's unspeakably evil!" - except the separation in many cases is caused by the mother actively driving off her essentially-adult offspring, as happens in the wild.  "This animal is alone and must be so sad!"  Want to see a whole new level of stress and misery?  Force inherently solitary animals into close quarters, just so they can have "friends."

I once had a visitor who was spitting mad that our alligators weren't more active and insisted that they were drugged.  Because our *alligators* - a species evolutionarily-inclined to sit still for days at a time without moving - weren't more active.  I almost cracked my skull face-palming myself.

So no, the news that a kiwi was exposed to light did not cause any particular moral outrage on my part.  Some of the New Zealand folks told the group that the handling they saw was not the safest or most appropriate way to handle kiwis, and I see no reason to question their expertise on that front, having none myself on that subject.  It does seem like a lot of the objections had to do more with the feelings of people in New Zealand than they really did the health, safety, or welfare of the individual bird.  Which is not to say that those feelings aren't important - but let's not conflate the two.  As I mentioned last post, I've participated in a meet-a-kiwi program before, and the bird showed zero signs of stress or agitation, accompanied by the keeper who raised him.

This reminds me of the overblown outrage over the Memphis Zoo pandas - though perhaps more organic and less bot-driven.  Sometimes, I think people just want to be outraged over something on the internet so that they can feel like they're doing something or making a difference.  And when that happens, it quickly gets boiled down to a good-vs-evil, right-vs-wrong narrative, where the other side is doubtlessly up to something sinister.  What gets lost in any conversation is any shade of nuance, any gray.

I think Miami made the right decision in ending the program, even though I don't think the kiwi was in any way being harmed by it.  Sometimes, it's important enough to make sure that no one even believes harm is taking place.   Still, it would be nice for people to engage in discussion sometimes, before immediately going for the old torch and pitchfork.