First Impressions

Reading about David Hancocks and the transformation of the Woodland Park Zoo, I was most fascinated by one story that he described.  When the gorillas were moved to their new, natural habitat for the first time, their behavior changed - more foraging, more social interactions, less stress behavior.  That was all expected and, indeed, the point of the move.  What may have been less expected was how the behavior of the visitors changed.  They spoke more quietly, didn't bang or make loud noises, and in general treated the animals with far greater respect.

I suppose it shouldn't have been a surprise - we're a visual species.  It makes sense that the setting in which we see an animal determines how we view it.

This isn't limited to wild animals in zoos, either - it also is accurate for the wild.  When I was in high school, a teacher took me and a handful of other students on a trip to Big Bend National Park, in west Texas.  We were hiking through down a trail in a valley, choked with heavy scrub on either side, when we head something moving through the brush.  For a few minutes we stood still and watched, occasionally seeing a patch of gray fur appear in a window of the bushes.  After a period of time, the animals - a small herd of pig-like collared peccaries, or javelinas - came fully into view.  They looked wild and powerful and a little intimidating.  

The next day, we were driving past a campground, and saw a few of them rooting around besides the trash cans, scavenging scraps.  They looked... a little less wild and powerful and intimidating.  

A zoo animal that is kept in a tile cage with a heavy barred front looks like an inmate in a prison cell.  And, just as if we were seeing a human prisoner, we might walk away feeling fear of the creature - obviously it must be dangerous, and perhaps vicious - if it has to be so securely confined - or pity - being innocent and wrongfully imprisoned is a common trope in our literature and movies.  In any case, the creature is also made to look powerless, which can inspire some of the crueler members of society (of which there are always many) to taunt it, knowing that it can't get them.  It's not an atmosphere that lends itself to admiration or appreciation.

Likewise, I feel that the old trend of exhibiting animals in massive animal buildings - especially those stylized as palaces or temples, like the Berlin Zoo's old elephant house - have a way of dwarfing the animal - it's hard to think of elephants as small, but Berlin's building managed to do it.  The animal is overpowered by the pomp and majesty of human construction, to the point where it seems like it's an interloper, rather than the intended occupant.  Strangely, the popular, perhaps cliched trend of exhibiting jaguars and tigers on temple ruins doesn't bother me as much.  Perhaps in those cases, since the human buildings are ruins, it could be seen as a sign of nature's perseverance over humanity's attempts to shape the environment?

Visitors, as many zoo educators know deep in their bones, are loathe to read signage, sometimes scanning just enough to pick up the name of the animal, sometimes not even that.  In many cases, the animal and exhibit have to speak for themselves to teach visitors about their wild counterparts.  If you put a single monkey in a cage, and that's all the information has to go on to learn about the animal, they'll know nothing about its natural life.  If you have a troop of monkeys in a forested habitat with lots of climbing opportunities, opportunities to forage for food, and chances to interact with each other, a visitor could potentially walk away from that exhibit with a better understanding of what the animal is and how it behaves and lives.