The Stand In

Every year at its annual conference, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums honors the best new exhibits of the year that opened at its member institutions.  This year, a heavy favorite was Galapagos, the exhibit at the Houston Zoo that was themed around Ecuador's enchanted islands - with the notable handicap of having almost no native Galapagos species present.  Apart from the tortoises, the penguins, sea lions, and iguanas were all represented with stand-in species.

Not all species - not even most of them, really - are kept in zoos, and not many of the ones that aren't can be readily brought into zoos (nor should they necessarily be brought in).  Sometimes, the there is a cool theme idea for a zoo that relies on some animals, maybe a geographic theme, that aren't available.  To what extent is it ok to substitute an animal that you can get for one you can't?  Is it a reasonable accommodation, a reflection of reality?  Or is it "cheating," muddling an educational message?

One of the most common swaps seen in terms of animals can be seen with leopards.  Many US zoos have leopards in their African-themed areas, though in reality they are often of the Amur subspecies, found in northeastern Asia, rather than ones from Africa.  Amur leopards are much shaggier, with thicker coats to survive in cold climates.  Still, Amur leopards are much more endangered than African, and so that is the subspecies that zoos have chosen to focus on in North America.  No zookeeper I know actually is bothered by this, though some hardcore zoo fans and enthusiasts seem to consider it an outrage; the book America's Top 100 Zoos & Aquariums mentions it repeatedly as a criticism of several zoos.  Similarly, I would consider it appropriate if a zoo in, say, the northern US decided to use endangered Mexican gray wolves as a stand-in for their native subspecies for an exhibit.

Of course, that's just substituting one subspecies for another.  When does it become a stretch too far?  It would seem ridiculous to put tigers in an African area as a "close enough" substitute for lions... but tigers and lions are more closely related to each other than the iguanas of the Galapagos are to those of the Caribbean, which Houston used as a substitute (though the appearance might seem similar to the lay person).  It would seem likewise weird to treat African and Asian elephants as interchangeable, though many visitors wouldn't notice the difference.  What if a Florida zoo wanted to do an exhibit of native wildlife, but felt that instead of the super-common American alligator, it would be better to devote that exhibit space to endangered Chinese alligators.  That would just feel weird to me, even though I'd respect the desire to support a conservation breeding program for a species that needs help over an extremely common species that doesn't need zoo-based conservation.

So I'm not sure what the answer is for how much of a switch up is too much or not.  On one hand, it's a realistic reflection of that fact that not every animal is - or should be - available for exhibition.  On the other, I feel like it flies in the face of the belief that each species is unique and irreplaceable.  I guess the question is, does it distract from the message that the exhibit is trying to convey? In Houston's case, the overwhelmingly-positive feedback from the public seems to suggest, "no," it doesn't.