FWD: Adapt or Perish? Zoos Must Choose

[Guest guest]

Science, Volume 292, Number 5520, Issue of 18 May 2001, pp. 1304-1305.

 

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/292/5520/1304

 

NATURAL HISTORY:

Adapt or Perish? Zoos Must Choose

 

A review by Michael H. Robinson*

 

------

A Different Nature The Paradoxical World of Zoos and Their Uncertain

Future

David Hancocks

University of California Press, Berkeley, 2001. 302 pp. $35, 19.95. ISBN

0-520-21879-5.

 

------

 

The publisher's device of subtitling gives an immediate insight into the

content of A Different Nature. For many of us who have been profoundly

influenced by zoos, and a smaller number who have tried to influence their

development, the existence of zoos is paradoxical and their future is

indeed uncertain. Confronted by the environmental and biodiversity crises

that are upon us, the context in which nearly all present-day zoos were

founded and have evolved has ceased to exist.

David Hancocks, currently the director of Australia's Open Range Zoo at

Werribee, establishes this point of view in a preface that fizzes and

crackles with perception and provocation. This introduction demonstrates

why the book should interest scientists and not just zoo buffs and

cognoscenti. The author uses a lyrical personal account of his youthful

addiction to natural history and the subsequent origins of his interest in

zoos to examine the present status of these institutions. His architect's

eye, sharpened by biophilia, sees the good, the bad, and the downright

ugly. The simple conclusion: " we should not accept zoos as they currently

are. " Hancocks calls for a reinvention of the zoo. He sees it within the

spectrum of bioexhibit institutions--museums, parks, gardens and

aquariums--and argues that, of all these, zoos have the greatest capacity

to adapt, absorb new functions, and promote holism.

Advocates have long claimed that zoos promote recreation, education,

research, and conservation. (The U.S. National Zoo was established in 1889

for " the advancement of science and the instruction and recreation of the

people " ; only conservation was missing from that magniloquent

declaration.) In his pithy preface, Hancocks critically examines the

present state of each of these claimed functions. Although the remainder

of the book does not quite sustain this promising start, it comes closer

to excellence than anything I've read on the subject.

Hancocks follows the well-worn path of setting the present against the

past, but he does so with more wit, panache, and purpose than most of his

predecessors. He shows that human attitudes to the animate world, and

animals in particular, have passed through many stages, yet still remain

ambivalent for most people. Animal-rights philosophers have reached

similar conclusions. Attitudes of exploitation and dominance stretch from

Imperial Rome to Victorian England and into the present. Exhibition of

living animals in zoos and menageries followed the social and political

mores of their times, as did exhibitions of animals in natural history

museums and of nondominant humans in anthropological exhibits. Zoos

evolved from pure spectacle, to lip-service dedication to science, and

finally, in the best cases, to research and conservation. Their audiences

moved from the privileged to the democratic.

The author is particularly adept in dealing with architecture and design.

He traces the progression in style from penitentiary or public urinal, to

pseudo-historical, then to habitats with concealed containment, and

finally to " realism " and the immersion experience in which visitors are

surrounded by the exhibit. Variations on a theme have included taxonomic

" stamp-collections " of huge assemblies of related species, geographic

multi-species exhibits, and the creation of complex habitats using

Hollywood-like artifices. Hancocks meticulously and entertainingly

documents these changes. Largely missing from his analysis (and seldom

noted elsewhere) is the fact that when the efflorescence of zoos occurred

during the early and middle stages of the Industrial Revolution, human

welfare was abysmally low for large numbers of the poor underclasses.

Considerations of animal welfare, in practice, required affluence and the

repair of the human condition. This is still the case in the

less-developed world.

An important part of the recent evolution of zoos has been in the field of

animal husbandry, which affects and is affected by zoo design and

architecture. Veterinary science, nutrition studies, and ethology have all

contributed to better animal care. In the last fifty years, many zoos have

become increasingly aware of the need to enrich the environments of the

animals in their care. With pragmatic tinkering by dedicated staff, they

aimed to increase animal welfare and to enhance education and

entertainment by providing outlets for the natural behaviors of a wide

variety of animals. Fascinating creatures doing exciting things became the

stuff of slogans.

Hancocks discusses his favorite zoos: the good and beautiful. My list

would be almost the same, and I share his enthusiasm for the remarkable

Amsterdam Zoo, Artis, which combines so many elements of museology with a

broad spectrum of exhibits of living organisms (including a stellar

aquarium). Other examples are also described in depth and with

sensitivity.

Throughout his historical review and, in particular, his survey of

contemporary examples, Hancocks assesses the efficacy of zoos in achieving

their four putative roles. For recreation and entertainment, education,

and research, he concludes that all but the very best zoos fail to realize

their potential. His reasoning needs a full reading of the text to be

appreciated.

On zoos' role in conservation, Hancocks is particularly devastating. One

line captures his conclusions: " zoos can immediately stop degrading the

word 'conservation' by employing it so irresponsibly. " Although I have to

declare myself as possibly biased, I am totally in agreement. Coming from

a background in tropical research, I find that all the zoos I know are

inexcusably vertebratocentric. The teeming millions of invertebrates that

energize tropical forest ecosystems and coral reefs cannot be saved from

extinction by ex situ breeding programs in zoos. It is laudable that some

zoos have devoted considerable resources, and great skill and dedication,

to breeding a relative handful of usually charismatic species. But

Hancocks joins the many zoo biologists who argue and act for saving

habitats.

Although A Different Nature is worth reading for its discussion of

function alone, its core rests in projections for the uncertain future of

zoos. Here it is somewhat disappointing because it lacks an imaginative

summation of the once and future zoo. Scattered throughout the book are

insights into what might be, what could be, and what should be. For

instance, Hancocks provides a delightful section on an exhibit of otters

that shows how public perceptions of what animals perceive and need are

frequently erroneous. There is an urgent need for zoos to educate for

biological literacy and to combat nave anthropomorphisms about the

animal's world. The world of animals varies greatly from species to

species. Zoos, however, recreate habitats on a human scale and in our

range of color vision. They could instead give exciting impressions

through animal eyes, ears, or noses. Portable interactive video devices

(CD-ROM and beyond) could replace those awful audio wands and could

supplement zoo tours with instant information banks. The author notes that

the world of the small and very small impinges on all our lives, and

confrontation with living bacteria and viruses could also be made part of

the zoo experience. He highlights interactions between plants and animals

in a section on pollinators, and he repeatedly stresses the need for cross

references among bioexhibits institutions.

Hancocks ends A Different Nature with a beautiful philosophical epilogue,

but the book calls for something more: for his explicit vision of the

reinvented zoo (whatever it could be called) set forth in imaginative

detail. There the author's wisdom, life experience, and enthusiasm could

be brought together for the benefit of us all.

 

------

The author was formerly director of the National Zoological Park,

Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20008, USA.