Ever Evolving

In yesterday's post about US News and World Report's list of the top 26 American zoos, I mentioned that I'd been to 21 of those facilities at this point.  That's true, but in a sense it's also not.  Compared to many cultural attractions, zoos and aquariums are constantly changing and reinvented themselves.  Animals are born or die, are shipped in or shipped out.  Old exhibits are renovated, or pulled down, or sometimes just abandoned, and new ones take their place.  The progress varies across facilities - there are some places I've visited after a ten year gap and I can still find my way around the grounds without any hesitation, as if the place never changed.  There are other facilities that become almost unrecognizable.

Take Houston Zoo, for example.  I only visited once, back in 2008.  At the time, their African Forest complex was under construction.  Since then, they finished that project.  They've also finished Texas Wetlands, Pantanal, Galapagos, and an expansion of their elephant habitat.  Much of the zoo would be brand new from when I saw it 15 years ago.  This has all come at the expense of other exhibits, and various animals have been phased out to accommodate the changes.  It's for this reason I haven't written a review of Houston yet - my recollections of it would be way out of date.  

The reason for the changes in zoos is simple - unlike almost all other cultural attractions, their collections are based on living animals.  Historic sites don't change too much - graphics and interpretation may change, but Gettysburg will always be Gettysburg, Alcatraz will be Alcatraz.  Museums may have new exhibit galleries, especially rotating content, but plenty of the collection is permanent.  Artifacts and artwork and fossils don't die, and as long as you conserve them, they'll last a long time.  Aquariums do have living collections, but being essentially one building each, there's a lot less flexibility in changing exhibit spaces, though the occupants of those spaces can change.

Zoo changes are driven not just by the constantly fluid nature of the living collection, but by our constantly evolving standards of animal welfare.  A habitat that was considered state-of-the-art when I was a kid may be outdated and inadequate now.  The zoo might put a different species in that habitat, or tear it down and start again.  A zoo's main appeal to me might be a very rare animal that it has, but when that animal dies and that species is no longer present in collections, the appeal may change.  Conversely, some species which were very rare in zoos when I was a kid are now much more common (another way in which zoos differ from museums - there can only be one Mona Lisa, but two giant pandas can come together and produce a third giant panda, which is just as much of an "original" as either of the parents.

The constant change of zoos (and to a lesser extent aquariums) can be frustrating.  Sometimes I look back on the history of an institution and find myself sad on what I missed out on seeing.  Still, the constant changes (especially those driven by welfare) mean that there is always something new and exciting to see.  A zoo is seldom experience the same way twice.