Learning from Animals

The TV Nature shows are great - all that hunting, all that mating -

... educating, fascinating.
Still the pictures can't compare, with the joy of being there.
So take me out the nearest zoo. There's nothing I would rather do
Than hear the local lions roar, or watch the seals perform for more.
I want to see what I can see, and I want the animals to look at me.

- Philip Machy

          Fairly recently, I saw an amazing exhibit of birds of paradise at the National Geographic Museum in Washington, DC.  It certainly pulled out all of the stops – it had video clips, colorful graphics, mounted specimens, and feathered headdresses from tribal New Guinea.  There were lots of interactive devices, from a dance-dance-revolution game that encouraged visitors to mimic the moves of courting males to a greater-than-life-sized robotic bird.  Cutesy cartoon segments with catchy lyrics (“Sexual selection is choosing a mate, to keep your offspring looking GREAT!”) played on loops.  It was a great educational opportunity, and I certainly learned a lot about birds of paradise.  The only thing it lacked, it seemed, was an actual, live bird of paradise.

I’ve occasionally heard the opinion expressed that technology will be the undoing of the zoo or aquarium as we know them.  One hundred years ago, visitors had to either read a book or go to the zoo to learn about lions… and both the books and zoos of the era left a lot to be desired as educational tools.  Today, there is the internet, where you can watch live wild lions on webcam.  There are nature documentaries, where every aspect of lion life – from the hunt and kill to the rearing of cubs – has been compiled by filmmakers.  Why come to the zoo to watch a lioness sleep on a rock shelf in its exhibit when you can watch one race across the Serengeti and tackle a zebra on a David Attenborough special? 

The answer, I suppose, is that no one would really care in the end.  Everything is digital and televised these days.  There is endless content online, some of it real, some of it fictional.  We become so overloaded with content that very little manages to actually reach us.  We may be amused, enchanted, or outraged, but only until something new comes and recaptures our attention.  What makes the plight of whooping cranes more real than the plight of Harry Potter?  What makes radiated tortoises more real than Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?  Zoos and aquariums give visitors the chance to actually meet animals, to make a connection with them that is not possible even in the wild.  When an otter dives into the water in front of you, splashing water onto the glass, or when a peacock fans out its tail, or when a lion simply decides to ignore you, that’s real.  That’s an actual animal in front of you, and that can’t be ignored.  That animal then has the potential to become a more powerful, potent ambassador than any web download could ever be.  I’ve seen many popular zoo animals in the wild – big cats, bears, rhinos, elephants - and found them all to be beautiful and majestic.  The zoo animals, however, the individuals that I have known and cared for, are the ones that have touched me the most, and inspired me to work for conservation.

There certainly is a role for increased use of different media in zoo education, and the Birds of Paradise exhibit at National Geographic showed me several examples.  Video clips and graphics can be used to illustrate behaviors that occur only rarely or seasonally and that visitors might otherwise not see, such as the courtship display of a male bird of paradise.  Touch screen graphics can display much more information than a simple sign, and allow visitors to choose what information they want to view, not simply what we think they should want.  Web cams of wild habitats can be great tools for helping to put zoo animals in the context of their environment; this can be especially helpful for zoos that sponsor or donate to specific habitat protection projects, as visitors can then actually see the world that their zoo is helping to protect.  While taxidermy mounts or models can never compete with real, live animals, they can be of great use in educating visitors about animals of which live specimens, for various reasons, are not possible or practical to display.  This is especially true for aquariums – very few aquariums can display a whale shark, and none display giant squids or coelacanths, as fascinating as these species may be.

Educational technologies versus live animals… it is a meaningless, false debate.  Technologies allow zoos and aquariums to better illustrate the beauty and complexity of animals in their world.  It is important to remember, though, that zoos and aquariums are first and foremost about animals.  It is the animals that visitors come for.  It is the animals that have the best chance to reaching them and making a difference in their lives.