To Post, or Not To Post?

It sometimes seems like it's a rare occasion when there isn't some sort of life-or-death drama going on behind the scenes at the zoo.  Maybe it's a neonatal animal struggling through the first few days of life, or having to be hand-reared.  Maybe it's an animal combatting a disease, or recovering from an injury.  Maybe it's the delicate introduction of potential breeding partners, with the potential for either the next generation of a species being born... or a violent, potentially fatal, interaction.

Even those members of the staff who aren't directly involved in the goings-on usually find out about it pretty soon, sometimes through an email in which the curator tries to see how many times she can fit the word CONFIDENTIAL in a single sentence.  It never takes too long for the news to percolate to the folks who handle our social media, at any rate, which leads to the inevitable question:  When can we post this?

Opinions vary from zoo to zoo, from those that would never share any negative information - nothing ever died, at one zoo I worked at, if you listed to our guest services folks - to those who like to put everything out in the open.  I generally favor things being out in the open, to the extent that it will not compromise animal welfare.  For example, if you have a beloved, popular animal that is battling illness, it can be distracting to have reporters constantly calling you up, people trying to interpose themselves (maybe even sneaking behind the scenes) to see what's up, stuff like that.

People are more inclined to support a zoo or aquarium if the trust it, and that means being confident that the people who work there are really doing their best to help the animals be as happy and healthy as possible.  If an animal is going to die, it may be for the best that the public understands the Herculean efforts that went into to saving it, rather than just being caught off-guard by the bad news when it breaks.    Let the public mourn with us when things go bad, and celebrate with us when they go well... and hold our breath with us at all the dicey moments in between.